Chapter 251

[ 1,312 words ]

Delia’s POV

I had to bribe the receptionist at the Sterling Motorsports executive suite three thousand dollars just to get past the elevator bay.

My hands were shaking as I gripped the strap of my Chanel bag. I was a Kensington, but right now, I felt like a beggar. I was practically a ghost in Julian’s mansion, locked in my own wing while my husband lived his life as if I didn’t exist. Julian wouldn’t look at me, let alone speak to me, Marcus Chen had blocked my legal access to our joint accounts, and my mother was too busy nursing her own social ruin to help me. I had nothing left except my rage, and the only person in this city who hated Katia as much as I did was currently sitting behind the double oak doors at the end of the hall.

Tessa Sterling was sitting at a glass desk, looking over telemetry charts. She didn’t look up when I pushed the doors open. She didn’t have her racing gear on today. She wore a tailored white suit that made her dark hair look even sharper, her lean, athletic posture radiating the kind of effortless dominance that I had spent my entire life trying to fake.

“I don’t remember scheduling a consultation with an ignored wife,” Tessa said.

Her voice was quiet, level, and completely devoid of warmth. She didn’t even lift her eyes from her tablet.

I swallowed the lump of humiliation in my throat and stepped into the room, closing the heavy doors behind me. “You lost the race. You got humiliated by a street racer on wet concrete. And you lost the WEG sponsorship. We have a common enemy, Tessa p>

Tessa slowly set her tablet down on the glass. She leaned back in her leather chair, her dark eyes locking onto me with the cold, assessing look of a predator deciding if a carcass was worth the effort of eating.

“A common enemy?” Tessa tilted her head. “Katia Kensington is a tech executive who got lucky on a board vote. I don’t have ’enemies’ like that, Delia. I have minor inconveniences p>

“She’s not a minor inconvenience!” I snapped, my voice rising, my control slipping. “She’s a parasite. She’s been sleeping with my husband. She’s the reason Julian treats me like a stranger in my own home. She’s the reason you got publicly embarrassed at the board meeting. And I have the information you need to completely destroy her p>

Tessa didn’t move. But I saw the slight shift in her attention. The mention of Julian and Katia sleeping together made her pupils dilate.

“Go on,” Tessa said quietly.

“She’s a criminal,” I said, leaning over her desk, my fingers pressing against the cold glass. “You think she’s some pristine, brilliant CEO? She’s currently facing active homicide charges. She pushed Victor Hale off the roof of her own building in Brooklyn. The police have the footage. She’s a murderer, Tessa. The only reason she’s not in an orange jumpsuit right now is because Julian used his personal connection and his lawyers to bail her out p>

Tessa’s lips touched a slow, highly amused smile. “A homicide charge. That is… dramatic. But Julian’s legal team can bury a homicide charge if the evidence is weak p>

“The evidence isn’t weak, but she’s hiding behind a massive lie,” I pushed, my venom pouring out now, hot and fast. “Katia claims she’s married. She’s been claiming it for seven years. She tells everyone she has a husband somewhere, but nobody has ever seen his face. Not once. She doesn’t have a husband. It’s a pathetic, desperate lie she made up so society and our mother wouldn’t judge her for being an unmarried mother with Aiden. She got pregnant in Las Vegas like a cheap whore, came back with a ring she probably bought herself, and fabricated a husband to protect her pristine corporate reputation. She’s a liar, a fraud, and a murderer p>

I paused, breathing hard, waiting for Tessa to smile, waiting for her to grab my hand and tell me we were going to use this to destroy Katia together.

Tessa stared at me for three long, silent seconds.

Then, she let out a short, quiet laugh. It wasn’t a friendly laugh. It was the dry, mocking sound of someone who had just watched a dog try to perform a human trick and fail.

“Is that it?” Tessa asked.

I blinked, my chest tightening. “What do you mean, ’is that it’? It’s enough to destroy her! If the press gets hold of the fact that she’s facing murder charges and lying about her marriage p>

“You really are a stupid, worthless little girl, aren’t you?” Tessa said.

The words were spoken so calmly, so casually, that it took my brain a second to register the impact. I stepped back, my face turning a violent, hot red. “What did you say to me p>

Tessa stood up. She was taller than me, her athletic frame towering over me as she stepped out from behind her desk. She didn’t look angry; she looked completely disgusted.

“You came into my office,” Tessa said, walking toward me, her heels clicking slowly against the concrete floor, “expecting me to make an alliance with a woman who couldn’t even keep her husband’s interest for a single year. You are a ghost in your own home, Delia. You stood in that foyer and watched your husband bring your sister home in handcuffs and grey sweats, and you did nothing but throw a temper tantrum like a toddler p>

“I am his wife!” I screamed, my voice cracking.

“You are a placeholder,” Tessa corrected, her voice dropping to a whisper of pure, razor-sharp cruelty. “A sexless, desperate placeholder. Julian never even touched you, did he? A year in that house, and you are window shopping a man you have never once seen naked. And now you come to me, whining about your sister’s ’desperate lies’ because she’s actually smart enough to get him into her bed p>

“She’s a murderer!” I sobbed, tears of pure humiliation finally spilling over my eyelashes. “She killed Victor p>

“I don’t care about Victor Hale,” Tessa said, stopping inches from me. She reached out, her fingers grabbing the lapel of my designer jacket and twisting it, pulling me closer until I could smell her expensive, cold perfume. “And I don’t care about Katia’s fake husband. But I am going to keep the information you just gave me. Because unlike you, I actually know how to use a weapon p>

She released my jacket with a dismissive shove that had me stumbling back a step.

“You are useless, Delia,” Tessa said, turning her back to me and walking back to her desk. “Julian is right to treat you like a ghost. You have no dignity. Do not ever walk into my office again p>

“Tessa, please—” I choked out, my hands shaking as I reached toward her.

“Get out,” Tessa barked, her voice suddenly losing its calm, turning into a cold, military command that made the security guard outside the double doors immediately push them open. “Before I have my security throw you into the street in front of the paparazzi downstairs p>

The guard grabbed my arm. He didn’t do it gently.

I was dragged out of the office, my heels scraping against the floor, my face burning with the most absolute, devastating humiliation of my life. I had gone to her to find an ally. I had handed her the secrets of my sister’s ruin, expecting to be her partner.

But as the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind me, isolating me in the quiet, sterile corridor, the realization hit me like a physical blow.

I had just handed a monster the match to burn my sister to the ground, and she had used it to make me feel completely nonexistent first.

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