Chapter 7 - The Billionaire's VengeanceThe air in my office instantly turned to ice. My hands trembled so violently the cardstock slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the hardwood floor.
Marcus.
Two and a half years ago, Marcus was my fiancé. We were at our extravagant rehearsal dinner when I walked into the hotel's private study to find him tangled in the arms of my maid of honor. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I simply walked over to the AV control panel, switched the microphone on his lapel—the one he was supposed to use for his upcoming toast—to the live ballroom speakers, and calmly asked him how long he had been sleeping with my best friend. Three hundred guests heard his pathetic, groveling confession in crystal-clear high definition.
He was publicly destroyed, fired from his firm, and excommunicated from our social circles. I assumed he had slinked away into permanent obscurity.
I was wrong.
"Sandra, what's wrong? You're completely pale," Julian asked, walking into the office with two cups of coffee. His eyes fell on the black box, and then on the note on the floor. He set the coffee down, his jaw instantly clenching as he read the threat.
"He's back," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. "Julian, how did he even get this box in here?"
"He didn't," Julian said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. He walked over to the window, pulling the blinds back. "Look."
I walked to the window and gasped. The massive, two-hundred-acre plot of undeveloped land directly adjacent to Julian’s vineyards had been sold a month ago to an anonymous corporate buyer. Now, dozens of heavy construction vehicles and massive drilling rigs were tearing up the earth just beyond the property line.
"I pulled the public records on the holding company that bought the land this morning," Julian said, his eyes dark with fury. "The company is a subsidiary of Kensington Industries. Marcus didn't just disappear, Sandra. A year ago, he married Victoria Kensington. Her father is an East Coast billionaire with a reputation for being absolutely ruthless."
"He married a billionaire's daughter?" I asked, feeling sick to my stomach. "And they bought the land next to yours?"
"It’s not just land," Julian explained, pointing to the massive rigs. "They are drilling deep-water commercial wells right on the property line. They are tapping directly into the underground aquifer that feeds my vineyards. If they pull enough water, my vines will dry up and die right before the autumn harvest. He isn't just coming for you, Sandra. He knows you love this winery. He's trying to choke my legacy to death to break your heart."
A cold, primal panic gripped my chest. Marcus had the backing of infinite, dark money. He was going to use his new father-in-law's billions to orchestrate a slow, agonizing destruction of everything Julian and I had built.
"We can file an injunction," I said desperately, grabbing my phone. "We can stop the drilling!"
"Kensington's lawyers will tie us up in environmental court for a decade," Julian sighed, rubbing his temples. "By the time a judge rules, the harvest will be dead, and the winery will be bankrupt."
Before I could process the magnitude of the threat, my phone rang. It was Richard, the executive from Vanguard.
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"Sandra," Richard’s voice was completely devoid of the warmth from yesterday. "We have a catastrophic problem. Our accounting department just flagged a massive irregularity in the Lumina escrow accounts. Someone just wired two million dollars from our corporate accounts into an offshore shell company registered in your name. The board is freezing your contract, your base salary, and your revenue percentages immediately pending a federal fraud investigation."
I dropped the phone. The black roses weren't just a threat. They were a declaration of war. Marcus had launched a synchronized, lethal strike on both of our empires, and we were already bleeding out.
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