Chapter 317
“Boss. The chatter from the Middle East — it’s escalating. They’ve moved assets closer. They’re no longer just watching.”
Dallas gripped the steering wheel.
“Prepare Plan B,” he said.
Plan B: Push Eliza away. Make her leave before the bullets started flying.
The conference room at Koch Manor was cold.
Ferd threw a DNA test onto the table. “She is my daughter. She deserves to be in the trust.”
“No,” Augustina said.
“I agree,” Dallas said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Put her on the list,” Dallas said. “As a monetary beneficiary.”
“Thank you, son,” Ferd said, visibly surprised.
“But,” Dallas continued, “in exchange, you transfer your 5% voting shares to me.”
Ferd froze. “You want my vote?”
“You want to be a father?” Dallas asked. “Pay the price.”
Ferd looked at the DNA test. He looked at the door where Cathey was waiting.
“Fine,” Ferd said.
He signed the papers. Dallas signed. It was done. Dallas now controlled the majority vote of S&D. He was the Emperor.
Cathey ran in and threw her arms around Ferd. “I’m rich!”
Dallas stood up. He felt nothing.
He walked out to the car. Eliza was waiting.
“Did you win?” she asked.
“I won,” Dallas said.
He looked at her. She was beautiful. She was loyal. And he had just read Weston’s report on his phone — a confirmed threat, active and imminent, tied to his past in the desert. She was standing next to a time bomb.
“Eliza,” Dallas said. “We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“About us,” Dallas said. His voice was ice. He looked at her — at the woman he lived for — and knew that to save her, he had to destroy this. He had to become the villain she could walk away from. “I’ve made a decision.”
Eliza waited, her heart beginning to beat a little faster at the chilling finality in his tone.
“I’m not asking this time, Eliza. This is over. We’re finalizing the divorce.”
The silence inside the Bentley was heavier than the armored doors sealing them in. It wasn’t a peaceful silence. It was the kind that pressed against the eardrums, thick with unsaid words and the static of a frequency that had just been cut.
Eliza sat on the edge of the leather seat, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white. She stared at Dallas. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring out the tinted window at the blurring city lights of New York, his jaw set in a line of granite.
“Over?” Eliza’s voice was a fracture in the quiet. “You mean a divorce?”
Dallas didn’t blink. He didn’t turn. His hand, resting on his thigh, twitched once. That was the only sign he had heard her.
“We aren’t a match, Eliza,” he said. His voice was devoid of the warmth that had been there just hours ago — the voice of the CEO, the man who cut losses. “I’m tired. This — us. It’s exhausting.”