The air in the master suite was still heavy with the scent of last night's bourbon and the unspoken violence of Dermin's proximity when the heavy double doors swept open.
Hannah, sitting by the window in a simple gray sweater that felt like a second skin, didn't even have time to stand before Eleanor Doren marched in. The older woman was a vision of lethal elegance—ivory silk, pearls that looked like frozen tears, and an expression that could have withered a stone. She didn't wait for an invitation. She signaled the maid to leave and closed the door with a click that sounded like a gavel hitting a sounding board.
For a long minute, Eleanor simply stared. She looked at Hannah's pale face, the dark circles under her eyes, and the white bandage peeking out from her sleeve. Her lip curled in a localized tremor of disgust.
"Ten years," Eleanor began, her voice a low, cultured rasp. "Ten years I spent trying to scrub the memory of you out of this family's history. I changed our phone numbers. I moved our offices. I even burned the photos Dermin kept under his pillow. And yet, here you are. Like a weed that refuses to die."
Hannah stood up, her legs feeling like water, but her spine held straight by a decade of prison-hardened pride. "I didn't ask to be here, Eleanor. I didn't crawl to your son's feet. He dragged me here."
"Don't you dare use that tone with me," Eleanor snapped, stepping into the center of the rug. "I remember the girl you were. I remember the sweet, wide-eyed Hannah who used to help me carry groceries when Dermin was too busy at the docks. I thought you were a saint. I thought you were the one who would save my son from the darkness of the streets we grew up on. I loved you like my own blood."
Eleanor's eyes suddenly shimmered with a fleeting, ancient pain. "I had visions of you in a white dress. I thought, 'Mary's daughter is the only one who truly knows him.' And then... that night. My heart didn't just break, Hannah. It turned to ash. You disappointed me more than anyone in this world ever has."
"I didn't do it!" Hannah's voice cracked, the scream she'd been holding for ten years finally tearing through her throat. "I have told the police, the judge, the guards, and now I am telling you—I was innocent! I didn't go to that hotel alone. I went there with Dermin! He was the one who insisted we go. He told me it was just a meeting, just a quick stop. I fell asleep... and when I woke up, the room was cold. The man was dead on the floor. And Dermin? Your precious son had vanished into the night! He left me there to take the fall for whatever mess he had stepped into!"
Eleanor's face went rigid. "Lies. Filthy, desperate lies. Dermin was home that night. He was distraught. He told me you had gotten involved with the wrong people and he couldn't stop you."
"He lied to you!" Hannah laughed, a jagged, hollow sound. "He lied to protect the empire he was building. And now that I'm back, I realize something I was too blind to see ten years ago. He didn't just abandon me—he intended for me to be caught. He needed a scapegoat, and who better than the girl who loved him too much to ask questions? He used me, Eleanor. He threw me to the wolves so he could become the titan he is today."
Hannah stepped closer, her eyes blazing with a stare that made even Eleanor flinch. "You don't want me near your son? Good! Because I am not interested in a coward who hides behind lawyers and silk ties. I hate him to the very marrow of my bones. If there is a way you can make him leave me alone, do it! I don't care! Just get me out of this house!"
Eleanor's eyes narrowed, her mind working with the clinical speed of a shark. "Then why stay? Why sign those papers? Why play this pathetic game of 'husband and wife'?"
"Because he trapped me!" Hannah shoved her hair back from her face, her breathing ragged. "The marriage contract has a penalty. A hundred million dollars. He knows I don't have a cent. He knows I can't even get a job at a grocery store with my record. He's using my debt to keep me in this cage."
The room went silent. Eleanor looked at the girl—the daughter of her dead friend—and for the time be6, she didn't see a criminal. She saw a problem that could be solved with a checkbook.
"A hundred million," Eleanor repeated, her voice turning cold and businesslike. "That is the price of your disappearance?"
"It's the price of the contract," Hannah whispered. "If I had it, I would throw it in his face and run until my legs gave out."
Eleanor straightened her pearls, a slow, predatory calm settling over her features. "Then consider it done. I will look for the money. I will gather every cent, every bond, every piece of jewelry if I have to. I will give you the hundred million dollars. But on one condition."
She stepped forward until she was inches from Hannah's face. "The moment that money hits your hands, you sign the annulment and you vanish. You leave this city. You never speak to my son again. You become a ghost. Do we have a deal?"
Hannah looked into the eyes of the woman who had once been her second mother, feeling the weight of the betrayal on both sides. "I've been a ghost for ten years, Eleanor. I'm quite good at it. Give me the money, and you'll never see me again."
Eleanor nodded once, a sharp, final gesture. "I will be in touch. Do not tell him of this. If he finds out, he will stop us both."
She turned and swept out of the room, her silk skirts hissing against the floor like a snake in the grass. Hannah collapsed onto the sofa, her heart pounding.