IRIS' POV
"We arrested actors?" I stared at the fake Miranda on the floor. "What do you mean actors?"
The woman laughed. "Honey, I'm a theater major. Got paid five thousand dollars to pretend to be Adrian's dead mother's twin. Easy money."
My head was spinning. The concussion from earlier wasn't helping.
"So the real Miranda is still out there," Adrian said slowly. His face had gone pale. "And she has all my files. Everything I've collected on Marcus, on my father's death, on—"
He stopped. His eyes went wide with horror.
"What?" I grabbed his arm. "Adrian, what is it?"
"The witness. The cleaning lady who saw Marcus push my mother down the stairs twenty years ago." He was already pulling out his phone. "If Miranda has my files, she knows where the witness is hiding. She knows—"
His phone rang before he could finish. Unknown number.
He answered on speaker. "What do you want?"
A woman's voice came through. Older. Cold. Exactly like the fake Miranda's voice but somehow more real.
"Hello, nephew. I hope you enjoyed my little performance. My actress friend did wonderfully, don't you think?"
"Where's the witness?" Adrian demanded. "If you hurt her—"
"Too late. She's already gone. Disappeared an hour ago. Along with all the evidence she was going to give you." Miranda laughed. "Twenty years of work, Adrian. Twenty years of hunting for proof. And I destroyed it all in one night."
My hands clenched into fists. "What do you want from us?"
"Ah, the brave little wife. How sweet." Miranda's voice turned sharp. "I want Adrian to suffer the way my sister suffered. I want him to lose everything—his money, his company, his reputation. And then I want him to lose you."
"You can't—"
"Can't I? Let me tell you what's going to happen. Tomorrow morning, every news outlet in Manhattan will receive a file. It contains proof that Adrian's father didn't abandon his mother. It shows that she blackmailed him. Threatened to destroy his marriage if he didn't pay her."
"That's a lie," Adrian said. His voice was shaking with rage.
"Is it? I have letters in your mother's handwriting. Bank records showing payments. Witness statements." Miranda paused. "Of course, they're all fake. But by the time anyone proves that, your reputation will be destroyed. No one will trust you. Your business partners will leave. Your board will vote you out. Everything you built will crumble."
I looked at Adrian. His face was white, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
"Unless?" he asked quietly.
"Unless you give me what I want. Transfer fifty million dollars to my account by noon tomorrow. And give me controlling interest in Thorne Enterprises."
"That's insane. The board would never approve—"
"Then I guess your empire burns." Miranda's voice was cheerful now. "You have twelve hours to decide. Tick tock, Adrian."
She hung up.
The room was silent except for Adrian's harsh breathing.
"She's bluffing," I said. "She has to be. No one would believe—"
"They'll believe it." Adrian sat down hard on the couch. "My mother did ask my father for money. She did write him letters. It would be easy to twist that into blackmail. Easy to make her look like the villain and him look like the victim."
"But your father abandoned you. He—"
"I know what he did. But the world doesn't care about truth. They care about the story." He looked at me, and I'd never seen him look so defeated. "I'm going to lose everything, Iris. Everything I built to prove I was worth something. That I wasn't just the bastard son nobody wanted."
My heart broke for him.
But my brain was working. Thinking. Planning.
"What if we beat her to it?" I asked.
Adrian blinked. "What?"
"What if we release our own story first? Before she can spread her lies." I pulled out my phone. "I still have access to my blog. It has millions of readers. What if I tell them the truth about your mother? About Marcus? About everything?"
"They won't believe you without proof. And the proof just disappeared."
"Then we find new proof." I was pacing now, ideas forming. "Your mother had a twin sister, right? That means there are birth records. Adoption papers. Something that proves Miranda exists and that she's been hiding for twenty years. That's suspicious. We can use that."
Adrian was staring at me like I'd grown a second head.
"You want to investigate my dead mother's secret twin sister. In twelve hours."
"Eleven hours now." I checked the time. "And yes. Because Adrian, if we give Miranda what she wants, she'll just come back for more. People like her always do. We have to fight back."
"You sound like you've done this before."
"I've taken down corrupt CEOs, remember? This is just another powerful person trying to destroy someone good." I knelt in front of him. "Trust me. Please. Let me help you."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"Okay. But we need to move fast." He stood up, pulling me with him. "James! Get me everything you can find on Miranda Thorne. Birth records, school records, anything. I want her entire life history in the next two hours."
James nodded and ran out.
Adrian turned to me. "What do you need?"
"Access to your files. Everything you have on your mother, your father, Marcus—all of it."
"It's in my office. Come on."
We spent the next three hours going through documents. Reading letters. Looking at photos. Searching for anything that could prove Adrian's story was true and Miranda's was fake.
My eyes were burning. My head hurt from the concussion. But I kept working.
Because somewhere in these papers was the truth. I could feel it.
"Iris." Adrian's voice was strange. "Look at this."
He handed me a photo. It showed two young women, identical twins, standing in front of a hospital. The back had a date—thirty-six years ago.
"Your mother and Miranda," I said.
"Look closer. At what's in the background."
I squinted. Behind the twins, barely visible, was a man in a doctor's coat. He was watching them with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Who is that?" I asked.
Adrian's hands were shaking. "That's my father. Twenty years before he supposedly met my mother."
My mouth fell open. "But that means—"
"He knew about Miranda. He knew my mother had a twin sister." Adrian's voice was hard. "And he never told me. Why would he hide that?"
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
Unknown number again.
I answered. "Hello?"
Heavy breathing. Then a man's voice, weak and scared.
"Iris Chen? This is Judge Morrison. The one who married you and Adrian this morning."
"Judge Morrison? Are you okay? You sound—"
"Listen to me very carefully. Someone broke into my house an hour ago. They took my wife. They said if I don't do exactly what they say, they'll kill her."
My blood turned to ice. "What do they want?"
"They want me to annul your marriage. To say it was invalid, that Adrian forced you, that it never legally happened." He was crying now. "I'm so sorry. I have to do it. I can't let them hurt her. The hearing is scheduled for eight AM tomorrow. You'll both receive notice in an hour."
"Judge Morrison, wait—"
But he'd already hung up.
I looked at Adrian. "They're going to annul our marriage."
"What?"
"Tomorrow morning. Judge Morrison's wife was kidnapped. They're forcing him to dissolve our marriage." My mind was racing. "If we're not married, the contract is void. I lose my legal protection. You lose your inheritance claim. Everything falls apart."
Adrian's face went hard. "Then we stop them."
"How? We can't find the judge's wife in—" I checked the time. "—ten hours."
"No. But we can find who took her." He pulled out his phone. "And I think I know exactly who's behind this."
"Miranda?"
"No. Someone who's been working with her all along. Someone who had access to my security codes, my private elevator, my files." His eyes were blazing with fury. "Someone I trusted."
"Who?"
Adrian pulled up a video on his phone. Security footage from tonight. It showed James—his head of security—opening the elevator for Marcus and the fake Miranda.
"James betrayed you," I whispered.
"James has been betraying me for months. Maybe years." Adrian's jaw clenched. "And tomorrow morning, we're going to make him regret it."
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
I opened it and felt my heart stop.
It was a photo of Damien and Vivienne. Together. Smiling.
But Vivienne wasn't in a wheelchair.
She was standing. Healthy. Laughing.
Below the image: *Surprised? I was never sick. Damien knows the truth now—that I faked cancer to steal your inheritance. And guess what? He doesn't care. He loves me anyway. We're leaving the country tomorrow with your trust fund money. Enjoy your fake marriage while it lasts. —V*
I showed Adrian the photo.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he smiled. It was sharp and dangerous and absolutely terrifying.
"Perfect," he said.
"Perfect? Adrian, they're stealing my money and running away—"
"No. They think they are. But what they don't know is that I froze that trust fund three days ago. Transferred it to a protected account in your name." His smile widened. "They're going to show up at the airport tomorrow with nothing. And when they do, the police will be waiting."
"You froze my trust fund? When?"
"The day before we got married. I told you—I protect what's mine." He pulled me close. "And Iris? You're mine now. Contract or no contract. Marriage or no marriage. I'm not letting anyone hurt you again."
His words should scare me.
Instead, they made me feel safe for the first time in days.
"So what do we do now?" I asked.
"Now?" Adrian checked his watch. "Now we have nine hours to find a kidnapped woman, expose a traitor, stop an annulment, and destroy everyone who's trying to take us down."
"That's impossible."
"Probably." He kissed my forehead. "But we're going to do it anyway."
My phone rang again.
This time it was Sophia.
"Iris! Thank God you answered. I've been trying to reach you for hours." She sounded terrified. "There's something you need to know. About Adrian. About his father. About everything."
"Sophia, slow down—"
"His father didn't die five years ago. He's alive. I just saw him. At a restaurant downtown." She was talking fast, breathless. "And Iris? He was with Miranda. They were planning something together. Something about tomorrow morning. Something about making sure you and Adrian both lose everything."
The room tilted sideways.
Adrian's father was alive.
Working with Miranda.
Planning to destroy us.
"Where are you right now?" I asked Sophia.
"I'm following them. They just got into a car heading toward—oh no. Oh God, Iris, they saw me. They're—"
The line went dead.
I tried calling back. No answer.
"They took Sophia," I whispered. "Adrian, they took my best friend."
Adrian's expression turned to stone.
"Then we end this. Tonight. No more waiting. No more playing defense." He pulled out his phone and made a call. "Get everyone. Every security team member who's loyal. Every contact who owes me a favor. We're going to war."
He hung up and looked at me.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"For what?"
"To burn it all down and start over."
I thought about Damien and Vivienne. About my father who chose his stepdaughter over me. About everyone who'd ever made me feel small and worthless.
"Yes," I said. "I'm ready."
Adrian smiled.
And somewhere in the city, a clock struck midnight.
We had eight hours left.
Eight hours to save Sophia.
Eight hours to stop the annulment.
Eight hours to expose every lie and destroy every enemy.
Or lose everything forever.