Elara's POV
The video goes viral in twenty minutes.
I watch it happen in real time from the back of Damien's car. My phone explodes with notifications. Twitter. Instagram. TikTok. Every news site in America.
"BILLIONAIRE'S REVENGE MARRIAGE EXPOSED"
"Pregnant Heiress Used as Pawn in Corporate War"
"Did Damien Cross Marry for Love or Leverage?"
Someone made a compilation video of Damien's leaked emails next to footage from our press conference. It shows him typing "leverage romantic relationships" while the video of us holding hands plays. The comments are brutal.
She's so stupid. Obviously he was using her.
That poor baby. Born into a revenge scheme.
This is what happens when you marry a stranger.
I turn off my phone, but I can still feel it buzzing in my hand like a bomb counting down.
"Elara." Damien's voice is quiet. Careful. "Please talk to me."
I stare out the window at the blurry New York streets. "What do you want me to say?"
"Anything. Yell at me. Cry. Tell me you hate me. Just don't shut me out."
"I don't hate you." My voice sounds dead even to my own ears. "I hate that you were right. Trevor is destroying us. And I can't tell anymore what's real and what's strategy."
"This is real." He reaches for my hand. I don't pull away this time, but I don't squeeze back either. "What I feel for you is real."
"But the emails, Damien. 'Leverage romantic relationships.' That's not out of context. That's a plan."
"A plan I wrote six months ago, before I ever met you!" His voice cracks with desperation. "Yes, I was going to use any connection I could find to destroy the Ashfords. That's what revenge does—it makes you willing to hurt innocent people. But then I actually met you, and everything changed. You weren't a strategy anymore. You were—" He stops, swallows hard. "You were the first thing I wanted more than revenge."
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly.
But everyone I've ever trusted has betrayed me. Trevor. Celeste. My father. Why should Damien be different?
The car pulls up to his building. Reporters are already camped outside, cameras ready. I can see them through the tinted windows—vultures waiting for the next piece of our destroyed lives.
"We can't go in there," I say.
"Back entrance," Marcus calls from the front seat. "Already cleared it with security."
We slip through an underground garage and take a private elevator straight to Damien's penthouse. The second the doors close, my knees give out.
Damien catches me before I hit the floor. "I've got you. I've got you."
"I can't do this," I whisper against his chest. "I can't be strong anymore. I'm tired, Damien. I'm so tired."
"Then let me be strong for you." He lifts me easily—like I weigh nothing—and carries me to the couch. He sits down with me in his lap, holding me while I fall apart.
I cry for everything. For my ruined engagement. For my father's betrayal. For this baby growing inside me who's already at the center of a war. For this marriage that might be the biggest mistake of my life.
Damien doesn't tell me to stop. Doesn't try to fix it. He just holds me and lets me break.
When I finally run out of tears, he kisses my forehead gently. "Better?"
"Not even a little bit." But I feel lighter somehow. Like crying released some of the pressure.
"Fair enough." He shifts so I can see his face. "I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you last night."
My stomach drops. "What now?"
"After you fell asleep, Trevor called me again. He said—" Damien's jaw tightens. "He said he knows about the baby. That he's been watching you. And that he won't just destroy us—he'll destroy our child too."
Ice floods my veins. "He threatened our baby?"
"Yes."
"That psychopath threatened my baby?" Fury burns through the fear. Hot and sharp and clarifying. "No. Absolutely not. Nobody threatens my child."
Damien's eyes flash with something fierce and proud. "There she is. There's my wife."
"I'm serious, Damien. I will burn Trevor Ashford to the ground before I let him hurt this baby."
"Then let's burn him together." He cups my face in his hands. "No more secrets. No more lies. From this moment on, we're a team. You and me against everyone who wants to destroy us. Deal?"
I search his eyes for any hint of deception. Any sign that this is just another move in his revenge game.
All I see is raw, desperate honesty.
"Deal," I whisper.
He kisses me—soft and fierce and full of promise. I kiss him back, pouring all my fear and anger and hope into it.
When we break apart, Marcus clears his throat awkwardly from across the room. "Uh, guys? We have a bigger problem."
"Bigger than our marriage being exposed as fake?" I ask.
"Way bigger." He turns his laptop around. "Someone just filed a police report claiming you physically assaulted Celeste three days ago. There's video evidence."
My blood runs cold. "What? I never touched her!"
Marcus hits play. The video shows me on a street corner—the day I confronted Celeste after the job interview. But someone edited it. It looks like I shoved her. Like I threatened her. Her face is bruised in the video, makeup smeared, crying.
It's completely fake. But it looks real.
"They're trying to get you arrested," Damien says, his voice deadly calm. "If you're in jail, you can't fight the corporate espionage charges. You can't testify on my behalf. And they can claim you're an unfit mother."
"They want to take my baby." The words come out strangled. "They want to put me in prison and take my baby."
"Over my dead body," Damien says. "Marcus, call our lawyers. All of them. I want this video analyzed frame by frame. I want proof it's fake."
"Already on it. But Damien? The arrest warrant was issued ten minutes ago. Police could be here any second."
As if summoned by his words, the doorbell rings. Then someone pounds on the door.
"NYPD! Open up!"
I grab Damien's hand, terror flooding through me. "What do I do?"
"You cooperate. You stay calm. You don't say anything without a lawyer present." He pulls me to my feet. "And you remember that I will move heaven and earth to get you out."
"Mr. Cross! We have a warrant for Elara Cross's arrest!"
Damien cups my face, his eyes burning into mine. "Do you trust me?"
It's the same question he asked when he proposed marriage. The same leap of faith.
"Yes," I say. And this time, I mean it completely.
He kisses me once more—hard and desperate. "I love you, Elara Cross. Remember that. No matter what happens next, I love you."
"I love you too," I whisper. The words feel both terrifying and right.
The door crashes open. Four police officers flood in, hands on their weapons.
"Elara Cross, you're under arrest for assault and battery. You have the right to remain silent—"
"She's pregnant," Damien interrupts, stepping in front of me. "She needs to see a doctor before—"
"Step aside, Mr. Cross, or we'll arrest you for obstruction."
One officer pulls out handcuffs. Moves toward me. Damien doesn't step aside.
"Damien, it's okay," I say quietly. "Let them."
He looks at me like his heart is breaking. But he moves.
The officer cuffs my hands behind my back. The metal bites into my wrists. I've never felt so helpless in my life.
As they lead me toward the door, I look back at Damien. He's standing frozen, fists clenched, looking like he wants to fight all four officers at once.
"Get me out," I mouth.
"I will," he promises.
They take me out through the lobby. The reporters are there—they were tipped off, obviously—and cameras flash in my face as they walk me toward the police car.
"Mrs. Cross! Did you assault your stepsister?"
"Is the baby really Damien Cross's?"
"Do you regret marrying him?"
I keep my head high. Don't answer. Don't cry. Don't let them see me break.
But inside, I'm screaming.
In the police car, I close my eyes and try to breathe. Try not to panic about the baby. About prison. About everything falling apart.
My phone—which they haven't taken yet—buzzes in my pocket. I can't reach it with my hands cuffed, but I feel it vibrate three times. Three messages.
When we get to the police station, they finally uncuff me to process me. The officer hands me my phone to make a call.
I have three texts from an unknown number:
You should have stayed down, Elara. Now you'll lose everything. - Trevor
PS: That video was just the beginning. Wait until you see what I have planned next.
PPS: Tell your husband his parents' death wasn't an accident. It was murder. And I can prove my father ordered it.
The phone slips from my shaking hands.
Trevor didn't just threaten us. He has proof that the Ashfords murdered Damien's parents.
Which means Trevor has been sitting on evidence of his own father's crimes for seventeen years.
And he's willing to use it—not to seek justice, but to destroy us completely.
"Ma'am?" the officer asks. "Did you want to make a call?"
I pick up the phone with trembling hands. But I don't call Damien's lawyers like I'm supposed to.
I call the one person who can help me now. The one person who knows all the family secrets.
My grandmother answers on the first ring. "Elara? What's wrong?"
"Grandma," I whisper, tears streaming down my face. "I need you to tell me the truth. About Dad. About the Ashfords. About what really happened seventeen years ago when the Cross family lost their hotel."
Silence. Then: "Oh, my darling girl. I was hoping you'd never have to know."
"Know what?"
"That your father was there. The night Damien Cross's father died. Richard was the lawyer who filed the fake documents. The Ashfords paid him half a million dollars to destroy that family. And when Mr. Cross had his heart attack in the courtroom, your father just... watched him die."
The room spins. My father isn't just connected to the Ashfords' crimes.
He committed them.
My father murdered Damien's parents.
And I just married their son.