Chapter 396

[ 973 words ]

Delia’s POV

The ground tilted under my feet.

For one full second my mind refused the image. My sister. The same sister whose child Julian had claimed. The same sister I had spent months dismissing as a temporary distraction. She was the woman he planned to announce. She was the reason he had looked at me in the courtyard like I was already dead. The fucking reason Julian had never fucked me.

A sound left my throat that did not feel like my own voice.

“You,” I whispered. Then louder, raw and cracking, “You have to be joking p>

Julian’s hand left Aiden’s shoulder. He walked around the table, past the frozen guests, and stopped beside Katia. He did not take her hand. He simply stood next to her, close enough that the message was unmistakable.

“This is my wife,” he said. His voice carried to every corner of the room without effort. “Katia Windsor. The mother of my son. The only woman who has ever held that title for seven years now p>

Silence crushed the air out of the space. Seven years, which means Julian is the man Katia slept with in Vegas!

I stared at them. At the way Aiden had already slid out of his chair and moved to Katia’s other side. At the way Julian’s body angled slightly toward her, protective even in stillness. At the bruises on my own face, which suddenly felt like a costume that no longer fit.

The media storm I had built, the interviews, the tears, the carefully displayed handprints… all of it turned to ash in my mouth.

“You absolute bastard,” I said, and this time the words were meant for both of them. “You’re announcing my sister? You’re standing there calling her your wife while I still have your marks on my face p>

Julian’s gaze was arctic.

“You put those marks in motion the moment you laid a hand on our son,” he replied. “Everything that followed is a consequence you chose p>

Katia finally spoke, her voice quiet but steady.

“Delia. Stop p>

The sound of my name in her mouth snapped something clean through me. I laughed, high and unstable.

“Don’t you dare say my name. Don’t you dare stand there in my place and tell me to stop. You took everything. The house. The child. And now you take the name too p>

Julian’s expression did not change.

“Security will escort you out,” he said. “You are not welcome in this house. You are not welcome near my wife or my son. And if you ever put your hands on either of them again, the next headlines will be about the charges I file against you p>

Two large men in black suits were already moving toward me. The guests remained frozen, a sea of wide eyes and half-raised phones. Outside, the media vans were still waiting, hungry for whatever came through the doors next.

I looked at Katia one last time. At the sister who had somehow become the center of the life I thought was mine. Then I looked at Julian, at the man who had chosen her so completely that he was willing to burn every bridge and every headline to keep her.

“This isn’t over,” I said, voice shaking with everything I still refused to name. “You can announce her. You can put a ring on her. You can call that boy your son. But I will not disappear quietly p>

Julian’s answer was soft and final.

“You already have p>

The security men reached me. One of them touched my elbow. I jerked away, turned, and walked toward the doors myself before they could drag me. My heels sounded too loud on the marble. Behind me, the room remained silent until the doors closed.

Outside, the night air hit my burning face. Flashbulbs exploded all over again. Voices shouted questions I no longer had answers for. I kept walking down the steps, past the cameras, past the microphones, toward the car that still waited at the bottom.

The media storm I had created was still raging. It just no longer belonged to me.

Katia’s POV

The office was quiet for the first time all morning.

I sat behind my desk with a fresh cup of ginger tea cooling beside a stack of unsigned contracts, the city glittering beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass. The announcement dinner had ended only hours ago, yet the fallout was already spreading like smoke. My phone had been vibrating nonstop since midnight—messages from Sam, from Julian, from numbers I didn’t recognize. I had silenced everything except the direct line to the house. Aiden was safe. That was the only thing that mattered right now.

I had just turned back to the first page of a contract summary that I was busy reviewing when the door to my office exploded open.

Delia stormed in like a hurricane in designer heels, three journalists and two cameramen trailing behind her as if she had personally invited the entire press corps to my private floor. Her face still carried the dark shadows of Julian’s handprints, carefully left uncovered so every lens could feast on them. She looked wrecked and radiant at the same time, the perfect wounded-wife performance she had been selling since yesterday.

Sam appeared in the doorway behind the chaos, eyes wide with apology. I lifted one hand. Leave it.

Delia stopped in the center of the rug, spun toward the cameras, and flung an arm in my direction.

“Everyone, this is my sister Katia,” she announced, her voice already trembling on cue. “She stole my husband. And she claims that Julian is the father of her bastard p>

The word “bastard” landed like a slap of its own. One of the cameramen actually stepped back. I set my pen down slowly, pushed the chair back, and stood.

The room waited.

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