Chapter 249: ~ 249
Chapter 249
~Bella~
I smoothed the heavy, glittering fabric of the crimson gown down over my hips, staring at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror.
The dress was an absolute masterpiece, dripping in thousands of tiny, light-catching crystals that flashed aggressively every time I turned around under the lighting of the house.
It had cost more than what most ordinary people made in a year, completely funded by the fresh, hefty wire transfer I had aggressively squeezed out of William just yesterday morning.
He had whined about the audit, but a few tears and a seductive look and a mind blowing sex had cleared his bank account in seconds.
Lying on the vanity right next to my fake designer clutch was the ultimate prize: the heavy, gold-embossed official VIP invitation to the Flemington Winter Gala.
I picked it up, a triumphal smirk stretching across my lips as my thumb rubbed against the raised, elegant lettering. In less than forty-eight hours, I would walk into that grand ballroom and parade my pregnancy right in front of Octavia’s face under the blinding flash of a hundred paparazzi cameras.
Let her wear her elegant dress and hide behind her family’s centuries-old legacy; she was looking at the woman who was about to take her crown and dismantle her entire world. The media was already hungry for a scandal, and I was about to feed them a feast.
The heavy, metallic click of the penthouse front door cut through my daydream.
Miranda stepped into the apartment, her sharp stiletto heels snapping like gunfire against the dark hardwood floor. She looked immaculate, as always, draped in a tailored beige trench coat that screamed luxury, her expression an icy, unreadable mask of high-society perfection. She didn’t look like someone who had crawled up from the gutter; she looked like someone who owned the building.
"Miranda! Perfect timing," I said, turning around quickly and holding out the sides of my gown to showcase the sparkling fabric, letting the crystals catch the light. "Look what arrived hand-delivered from the Flemington Group. Octavia actually cracked under the pressure and let me in. The ice queen is panicking. We’ve won before the fight has even started."
Miranda didn’t look at the dress. She didn’t look at my smile. She walked straight past me, tossing her leather gloves onto the kitchen island with a cold, dismissive contempt that instantly set my nerves on edge.
"Take that ridiculous, loud rag off, Bella," Miranda said, her voice dropping into a sharp, venomous hiss that echoed in the quiet penthouse. "You look like a cheap cabaret dancer trying to play dress-up. We have a strict PR script to follow for the gala, and that dress screams desperate, low-class opportunist."
My smirk instantly vanished, replaced by a hot, dangerous surge of pure adrenaline. The insult stung, burning through my chest. I threw the gold-embossed invitation onto the vanity and marched right up to her, matching her rigid, icy stance foot for foot, refusing to let her look down on me for another second.
"Excuse me?" I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound that rattled around the expensive kitchen. "You don’t dictate what I wear, Miranda. This dress cost fifty thousand dollars, and it’s exactly what I need to make an explosive statement on the red carpet. Don’t act like you’re my boss or my keeper. We’re supposed to be partners in this."
Miranda spun around, her eyes flashing with a cold, aristocratic rage that could have frozen water as she stepped directly into my personal space, trying to use her height to intimidate me. "Partners? Let’s get one thing entirely straight, you pathetic little idiot. I am done following your reckless, emotional whims and helping you clean up your messy, unrefined mistakes. You are a placeholder weapon I am utilizing to bleed Franklin’s stock. If you fuck up even a single detail at the gala, if you throw one of your hysterical tantrums or go off-script with the journalists, or get caught by Franklin and Octavia I am completely leaving you. I will reveal everything you have done."
I didn’t back down. In fact, I leaned closer, a cruel, mocking laugh escaping my lips as I deliberately tapped my fingers against my stomach, using the one weapon she could never possess.
"You think you can threaten me?" I hissed, my voice dripping with pure, unadulterated malice. "Let’s look at reality, big sister. You need me just as much as I need your money. Without this belly, and without my face on the camera making Franklin look like a monster, your precious little corporate revenge plot is completely dead in the water. You think I don’t know the truth? You’re secretly bleeding money, Miranda. Your luxury wellness empire is on the verge of a massive collapse, and you desperately need Franklin’s shares to save your failing company from bankruptcy. So don’t you dare stand there and tell me you’re leaving me to the wolves. If I go down, I am dragging you, your luxury clinics, and your spotless high-society reputation straight into the dirt with me."
Miranda’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle violently jumped in her cheek. For a second, she looked like she wanted to strike me across the face, her hands balling into tight, white-knuckled fists at her sides. The pristine, elegant facade she wore to her board meetings was completely gone, replaced by a raw, naked hatred that mirrored my own.
"You think you’re clever, Bella," Miranda whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying, suppressed fury that was louder than any shout. "But a rabid dog is only useful to its master until it tries to bite its owner. Play your part on that ballroom floor exactly how my media team dictated, or I will personally show you how fast and how easily I can erase your entire existence from this city."
"Try it," I snapped back, crossing my arms over my chest and stepping even closer until our clothes were almost touching. "And see who gets destroyed first. You don’t own me, Miranda. You never will."
Miranda grabbed her leather gloves off the counter with a violent, jerky motion and stormed out of the penthouse, the heavy wood door slamming shut behind her with a deafening bang that vibrated through the floorboards.
I stood completely alone in the center of the empty, expensive room, my chest heaving up and down as the adrenaline slowly cooled into a calculating, bitter resentment.
I walked back over to the mirror, looking at my reflection with a dangerous, hardened stare. The crystal dress was still flashing, but my mind was operating on a completely different frequency now. The sisterly alliance was dead. It was a race to see who would betray who first.
"Hmm..." I whispered to the empty room, a dark, defensive thought taking firm root in my mind. "If she thinks she can just discard me and ride off with the Flemington fortune when this is over, she has another thing coming. It seems like I’m going to have to set a trap for Miranda, too. I need dirt on her, something to keep her leash tight."
I picked the golden invitation back up from the vanity, clutching it tight against my chest like a shield, entirely consumed by my own desperate counter-plot to blackmail my own stepsister.
I was so busy orchestrating a war against Miranda, so utterly blinded by my own greed and paranoia, that I had absolutely no idea something infinitely bigger, more lethal, and completely unstoppable was already waiting for me the exact second I stepped foot onto that ballroom floor.
Franklin and Octavia were already closing the steel cage around us in the dark, and when the trap snapped shut, there would be nowhere left to run.
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