THE RECKONING ~RICHARD'S POV~ The whiskey burned, but not enough to dull what I was feeling. I sat in my home office at 2 AM, surrounded by financial reports that painted the same harsh picture no matter how many times I reviewed them. Blackwood Industries...my father's legacy, my life's work...was bleeding money faster than I could stop it. But it wasn't the company's impending collapse keeping me awake. It was the magazine lying open on my desk, its glossy pages catching the lamplight. Claire's face stared back at me from the cover, radiant in a way I had never seen during our marriage. Her smile was convinced, victorious. The sapphire engagement ring on her finger caught the camera flash like a weapon. "FROM ASHES TO EMPIRE: Claire Winfred's Billion-Dollar Love Story" Hayes Corporation. Alexander fucking Hayes. The same company I had been asking for partnership deals for over a year. The same Alexander Hayes who had ignored every proposal, every meeting request, every olive branch I had extended. And now he was engaged to my ex-wife. The coincidence felt like a slap across the face. Or maybe it wasn't a coincidence at all. I grabbed my phone and speed-dialed Collins, my head of acquisitions. "Sir?" His voice was groggy. "It's past two in the morning..." "Hayes Corporation," I interrupted. "Every dealings we've had with them in the past eighteen months. I want a full report on my desk by eight AM." "Sir, is this about the engagement announcement? Because I should mention...." "What about the engagement announcement?" Collins cleared his throat nervously. "Alexander Hayes is... well, sir, he's Thomas Blackwood's illegitimate son. Your half-brother." The phone slipped from my hand, clattering onto the desk. 'Half-brother.' Images flashed through my mind....my father's late nights, his "business trips" to Geneva, his secretive phone calls. The payments I had found in his old files after he died, tagged only with initials: E.H. Elena Hayes. Alexander's mother. "Sir? Are you still there?" I picked up the phone with trembling fingers. "Send me everything you have on Alexander Hayes. Financial records, business dealings, personal history. Everything." "Sir, some of that information might be difficult to obtain..." "I don't care what it costs. I don't care what laws you have to bend. Get me everything." After hanging up, I stared at Claire's photo again. Her change was staggering....gone was the soft, putting up wife I had known. This woman looked like she could conquer worlds. And apparently, she had. Three successful businesses, bestselling book, magazine covers, charity galas. She had built an empire while i had been watching mine crumble. 'How dare she.' The thought came unasked, foolish fury burning through my chest. How dare she show up in my life now, when everything was falling apart? How dare she look so brilliant while my world was collapsing? How dare she move on so completely when I was still... Still what? Still thinking about the way she used to kiss my neck after I came home from work? Still remembering how she would light up when I walked into a room? Still craving the way she would whispered my name like a prayer? "You're pathetic," I muttered to myself, downing the rest of my whiskey. But I couldn't stop staring at her photo. At the way Alexander's hands rested possessively on her waist. At the love shining in her eyes-love that had never been quite that bright when she looked at me. The sound of the front door slamming shut echoed through the house. Monica was finally home. I glanced at the clock: . Where the hell had she been? I found her in the kitchen, rifling through the refrigerator in her designer dress, her makeup smudged and her hair disheveled. She looked like she had been at a club. Again. "Long day at the office?" I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Monica jumped, slamming the refrigerator door. "Jesus, Richard. You scared me." "I asked you a question." She sighed, that familiar look of irritation crossing her face. "I had drinks with clients after work. Then I had to stop by the hospital to check on my mother." Lies. I could see them in the way she wouldn't meet my eyes, in the defensive set of her shoulders. "Which clients?" "Does it matter?" She pushed past me toward the stairs. "I'm exhausted. We'll talk tomorrow." I grabbed her arm, stopping her. "We'll talk now." "Let go of me." Her voice was ice-cold. "You've been coming home late every night this week. You disappear on weekends. You barely speak to me unless we're at some business function putting on a show for investors." My grip tightened. "What the fuck is going on, Monica?" She jerked her arm free, rubbing the spot where my fingers had been. "What's going on is that I married a man who's watching his empire crumble and taking it out on his wife." "My empire is crumbling because someone is sabotaging my deals. Someone who knows exactly which investors to target, which partnerships to undermine." I stepped closer, studying her face. "Someone with inside information." Monica's laugh was bitter. "You think I'm sabotaging you? Richard, I don't know the first thing about your business. You never tell me anything." "I never told Claire anything either, but she never needed to go to clubs until 2 AM to cope." The words hung in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled. Monica's face went white, then red. "Don't you dare compare me to that pathetic little mouse. Claire was weak. She was boring. She would have dragged you down if you'd stayed with her." "Claire never made me question whether my wife was fucking around behind my back." The slap came so fast I barely saw it coming. Monica's palm cracked across my cheek, the sound echoing through the kitchen. "How dare you," she hissed. "How dare you accuse me of cheating when you're the one who's been obsessing over your ex-wife for the past two years." I grabbed her wrist, pinning her against the kitchen island. "What did you say?" "You heard me." Her eyes blazed with fury and something else-triumph? "You think I don't see the way you stare at old photos of her? You think I don't know you keep that wedding album hidden in your office? You think I don't hear you say her name when you're drunk?" My blood went cold. "You're lying." "Am I? Tell me, Richard-when was the last time you looked at me the way you looked at her? When was the last time you touched me like you actually wanted me and not like you were pretending I was someone else?" The truth in her words cut deeper than any knife. Because she was right. I had been pretending. For months, maybe years. Every time I kissed Monica, every time we made love, there was always a ghost in the room with us. Claire's ghost. "I gave up everything for you," Monica continued, her voice breaking. "My friendship with Claire, my reputation, my self-respect. I destroyed my relationship with the only real friend I ever had. And for what? To be married to a man who wishes I was someone else every single day?" I released her wrist, stepping back. The pain in her voice was real, raw. But so was my rage. "You didn't give up anything," I said quietly. "You took what you wanted. You manipulated, you schemed, you played the victim until I felt sorry enough for you to leave my wife." Monica's face crumpled. "That's not... I loved you. I still love you." "No, you don't." The words came out colder than I had planned. "You loved the idea of winning. You loved taking something that belonged to Claire. But you never loved me." "And you never loved me either," she whispered. "Did you?" The question sat between us like a loaded gun. I could lie, try to save what was left of our marriage. But what was the point? We were both drowning in the wreckage of what we had built on someone else's foundation. "No," I said finally. "I don't think I ever did." Monica nodded, tears streaming down her face. "I heard about Claire's engagement today." My jaw clenched. "And?" "Alexander Hayes is quite the catch. Billionaire, handsome, powerful." She wiped her eyes, leaving streaks of mascara on her cheeks. "She looks happy. Really happy." 'Happy.' The word felt like acid in my throat. "She deserves happiness," I said, though the words tasted like lies. "Does she?" Monica's voice turned sharp again. "Or do you wish it was you making her happy?" I didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Because the truth was too ugly to say out loud. Monica studied my face for a long moment, then laughed-a broken, hollow sound. "You want to know the real tragedy, Richard? Claire never would have left you. No matter how badly you treated her, no matter how much you neglected her, she would have stayed. She loved you that much." "Stop." "She would have forgiven you for everything. The affairs, the lies, the way you made her feel like she was never enough. She would have taken you back in a heartbeat, even after everything I did to destroy your marriage." "I said stop." My hands were shaking. "But you threw her away. You chose me instead. And now she's with a man who actually deserves her, while you're stuck with the woman who helped you destroy the best thing you ever had." Monica headed for the stairs, then paused. "You know what the saddest part is? I used to think I won. I thought I'd taken everything from Claire and gotten my happy ending. But looking at that engagement photo today..." She shook her head. "Claire won. She always won. Because she got to be free of you, and I got to be trapped with the man who will never love me the way he loved her." Her footsteps echoed up the stairs, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the taste of whiskey and regret. I walked back to my office and stared at Claire's photo again. She was smiling at Alexander Hayes with a joy I'd never put on her face. Her eyes sparkled with love and life and possibility-everything I had slowly killed during our marriage. My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: "Enjoying the headlines? - A.H." Alexander Hayes. My half-brother. The man who now owned everything I had thrown away. I typed back: "We need to talk." The response came immediately: "I don't think we do. But Claire might be interested to know her ex-husband has been asking questions. Sweet dreams, brother." I stared at the phone until the screen went dark, then hurled it against the wall. It shattered, pieces of glass and plastic scattering across the floor like the leftover of everything i had destroyed. Claire was coming back to New York. She was coming back as Alexander Hayes's fiancée, armed with success and confidence and the backing of one of the most powerful men in the world. She was coming back to destroy me. And God help me, part of me couldn't wait to see her try. Because maybe, finally, I would get to see the fire in her eyes that should have been there all along. The fire I had spent years extinguishing. The fire that might have saved us both.