The rain hammered against the windowpane, a furious, relentless rhythm that matched the storm inside Scarlett. She sat on the edge of her thin mattress in the small, attic-like room designated for the billionaire’s unwanted wife. Her hand, red and blistered from the scalding soup, throbbed with a dull pain. But it was nothing compared to the agony in her chest.
She stared at the angry burn. It was a physical mark of her humiliation. A reminder of Chloe’s cruel laughter and Christian’s icy indifference. The man she had been married to for a year, the alpha she had once foolishly hoped might see her, had watched her kneel like a dog and turned away. That single act of betrayal had severed the last, fragile thread of hope.
Her submissive gaze, usually fixed on the floor, lifted. It drifted to her reflection in the dark, rain-streaked glass. The pitiful, meek girl staring back at her was a stranger. A mask. And tonight, the mask was cracking.
A piercing shriek echoed up from the grand foyer below, sharp enough to cut through the thunder. “My necklace! It’s gone!”
It was Chloe’s voice, laced with manufactured hysteria.
“My Star of Seraphina! It’s gone! Christian, it’s gone!”
Scarlett stood slowly, her movements deliberate. Every ounce of pain, every tear she’d ever shed in this house, was crystallizing into something hard and cold inside her. She walked to the door, her bare feet silent on the cold floorboards.
Downstairs, the scene was pure theater. Chloe was collapsed in Christian’s arms, sobbing dramatically. Her perfectly styled hair was artfully disheveled, her face a mask of tragic beauty. The staff stood by, heads bowed, trembling.
Christian, stone-faced in his wheelchair, held her. His jaw was a hard line of granite. “We’ll find it, Chloe. Tell me what happened.”
“I-I took it off for a moment in the powder room,” she wailed, her voice catching. “And then… then she walked by. That woman!”
Chloe’s finger, tipped with a blood-red nail, shot out and pointed directly at Scarlett, who stood silently at the top of the stairs.
Every head turned. Every eye fixed on her.
“I saw her lurking!” Chloe accused, her voice rising. “She looked at me with such jealousy! She must have slipped in after I left and taken it! That necklace is worth five million dollars! For a destitute orphan like her, it’s a fortune!”
Seduction and betrayal. It was Chloe’s favorite game. The accusation hung in the air, thick and poisonous. Christian’s gaze lifted, locking onto Scarlett’s. His eyes were not questioning. They were judging. They were condemning.
“Scarlett,” he said, his voice a low growl that promised retribution. “Come here.”
She descended the stairs, one step at a time. She didn't rush, nor did she hesitate. The servants shrank away from her as if she were contagious. When she reached the bottom, she stood before him, her posture straight, her chin level. The meek girl was gone.
“Where is it?” Christian demanded. It wasn’t a question. It was a command for a confession.
“I didn’t take it,” Scarlett said. Her voice was quiet, but steady. Devoid of the fear he was used to hearing.
Chloe scoffed from the safety of his arms. “Liar! You’ve always hated me! You’ve always wanted what’s mine! Christian, she’s a common thief!”
Christian ignored Chloe. His focus was entirely on Scarlett, a predator studying its prey. He seemed to notice the change in her. The absence of a flinch. The directness of her gaze. It only hardened his expression.
“My patience is thin,” he warned. “This is your only chance to come clean.”
“I have nothing to come clean about,” Scarlett replied, her eyes as cold as the rain outside. She watched the flicker of annoyance in his eyes, the tightening of his hand on the armrest of his chair. This billionaire, this so-called alpha, was so easily manipulated. It was pathetic.
His patience snapped. “Fine.” He turned to two hulking bodyguards standing by the door. “Search her room. Turn it upside down. Find it.”
“Yes, Mr. Ethan.”
The men stormed past her, their heavy boots thudding up the stairs. Scarlett didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. She just held Christian’s gaze, a silent war being waged between them.
Chloe’s fake sobs subsided into a smug, satisfied smirk that she hid against Christian’s shoulder.
Then, the sounds of destruction began. A crash. The splintering of wood. Scarlett knew exactly what it was. A small, cheap wooden frame. Inside it was the only photograph she had of her parents, a faded image from a life before she became an orphan, before she was sold to the Ethans as a good-luck charm.
A moment later, the first item was hurled from her window. A thin, worn blanket. It fluttered in the wind before landing in a muddy puddle in the garden below. Then came her books, pages flapping wildly in the storm. Then her clothes, two simple dresses, immediately soaked and stained with dirt.
Finally, with a grunt of effort, the men shoved her mattress out the window. It landed with a heavy, wet squelch in the mud.
Everything she owned in the world, now just trash in the rain.
The staff gasped. Chloe’s smile widened. Christian’s face remained a cold, unreadable mask.
But Scarlett didn’t cry. She didn’t beg. The last remnants of the timid girl had just been thrown out that window. In her place stood an empress carved from ice. Her spine was steel. Her gaze was a weapon.
The bodyguards returned, their faces grim. “Sir,” one of them reported, “we found nothing. The room is empty.”
Chloe’s face fell in theatrical disappointment. “Oh, she must have hidden it somewhere else! The clever little snake!”
Christian’s eyes narrowed on Scarlett, a storm of frustration brewing within him. This was not the outcome he expected. He had expected tears, a confession, a pathetic breakdown. Not this… composure. This unnerving stillness.
He was about to issue another order, another threat, when Scarlett spoke. Her voice cut through the room, clear and sharp and dripping with an authority that made everyone, including Christian, freeze.
“You are looking for a five-million-dollar necklace, Mr. Ethan?”
She took a step closer, her eyes glittering with something that looked terrifyingly like amusement. A small, chilling smile played on her lips.
Christian thought she was a nobody. He didn’t know he was staring into the eyes of Rosewood.
“That’s pocket change,” she said, her voice dropping to a confidential whisper that was more menacing than any shout. “Why would I steal pocket change, when tomorrow, I could buy your entire world?”