Chapter 11 up
“Call him. Now.”
Selina’s voice cut sharply through the silence of the luxury apartment, its lights still blazing even though the clock had long passed midnight. She stood before the floor-to-ceiling glass window, her back rigid, her phone raised tightly in her hand. Outside, the city shimmered—countless lights glittering like stars fallen to earth—but not a single one was capable of cooling the fire burning in her chest.
Axel looked up from the sofa. His suit jacket lay discarded carelessly on the floor, his tie loosened and forgotten. “It’s late,” he said, his tone weary.
“I don’t care,” Selina snapped without turning around. “People like him don’t sleep. They wait for opportunities.”
The call connected.
A thin smile curved Selina’s lips—cold, calculated, dangerous.
“Mr. Rendra,” she said sweetly the moment the line was answered. “This is Selina. We met at the ministry gala last month. Yes… of course you remember.”
Axel watched her closely. Selina’s eyes gleamed, not with joy, but with wounded ambition. Her fingers clenched the phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
“I need a small favor,” Selina continued smoothly. “Regarding a few fast-rising companies. There are… connections to an old family investment. Yes, that family.”
She let out a soft laugh. “I only want to know where the cracks are.”
Axel stood up abruptly. “Selina, stop this.”
She covered the phone’s microphone with her palm and shot him a sharp glare. “Stay out of my business.”
“You’re playing with fire,” Axel said quietly.
“No,” Selina whispered as she stepped closer, her voice low and intense. “I’m collecting what I’m owed.”
She returned to the call. “We’ll talk tomorrow morning. I’ll send the details.”
The call ended.
Selina exhaled slowly, as if she had just completed the first move in a long, calculated war.
“You’re insane,” Axel muttered.
Selina let out a short laugh. “No. I’m hurt.”
She turned, her gaze sweeping over Axel from head to toe. “Do you know what’s most infuriating about Vanesa?” she asked softly, her voice deceptively gentle. “She stood there tonight… doing absolutely nothing. And yet the world bowed to her.”
Axel said nothing.
“Money doesn’t make someone worthy of love,” Selina continued. “Powerful father, endless wealth—so what? Axel, she’s still the woman you left behind.”
Those words should have soothed him. They should have reassured him.
Instead, his chest tightened.
“I will destroy everything connected to her name,” Selina went on coldly. “If she thinks she can step on me and walk away untouched—she’s gravely mistaken.”
Axel didn’t respond. He picked up his own phone and moved away to the corner of the room. His fingers worked quickly, opening search engines, business reports, old archives he had never bothered to read before.
WIBISANA GROUP.
The name appeared again and again.
Subsidiaries. Silent acquisitions. Massive projects reshaping the nation’s economic landscape.
Axel frowned, opening Adrian Wibisana’s profile—going far deeper than the headlines.
Net worth. Political influence. International networks.
Then one small line made his breath catch.
Sole heir: not publicly disclosed.
Axel swallowed hard.
He opened another article. An old interview. A black-and-white photograph of a little girl standing in the distance beside Adrian Wibisana, her face deliberately blurred.
The date was twenty-five years ago.
No name mentioned.
Axel closed his eyes.
Memories flooded in—Vanesa, who rarely spoke of her family. Vanesa, who never asked for anything. Vanesa, who always said, I don’t need anything from you.
“Did you find something?” Selina’s voice broke through his thoughts.
Axel didn’t answer. He scrolled faster.
Legal documents. Trust funds. Ownership structures.
And there it was.
A name, neatly embedded among formal lines of legal text.
Vanesa Wibisana.
The world seemed to stop.
“Axel?” Selina stepped closer. “What is that?”
Axel slowly lifted his face. “She… she’s the sole heir.”
Selina laughed. “Of course she’s rich. That’s obvious.”
“That’s not it,” Axel said hoarsely. “Selina, she’s not just someone with money. That entire empire—everything—will be hers.”
Selina’s laughter died instantly.
“What?” she whispered.
Axel began pacing. “I divorced a woman who will one day control the economic backbone of this country.”
Selina lifted her chin defiantly. “And that makes you regret it?”
Axel stopped.
Vanesa’s image surfaced again—not the Vanesa who cried, but the Vanesa who stood calmly in the ballroom, accepting the world’s gaze without fear.
“She never needed me,” he said quietly. “Not once.”
Selina smirked. “Exactly. She never loved you. And money won’t change that.”
Axel looked straight at her. “You’re wrong.”
He shook his head, his voice trembling. “She loved me. Once.”
Selina fell silent, her expression hardening.
“I see it now,” Axel continued. “The way she looked at me—there was nothing there. No anger. No hatred. I… don’t matter anymore.”
Selina grabbed his arm tightly. “Listen to me. You’re a CEO. You have your own power.”
Axel gently pulled away. “It’s not enough.”
He turned back to his phone, reading line after line as each fact struck him like a blow.
Vanesa—the woman he underestimated.
Vanesa—the woman he left to cry alone.
Vanesa—the woman he assumed would always wait.
“She’s not someone I can chase anymore,” he murmured.
Selina’s eyes burned. “Then I’ll make sure she falls.”
Axel lifted his head sharply. “Don’t.”
“Are you afraid?” Selina sneered.
“I’m aware,” Axel replied.
He walked back to the window, staring at the same city that now felt foreign. Those lights were no longer his. The world he once ruled was quietly slipping away.
Selina stood behind him, her face hardened like steel. “I won’t lose,” she said coldly. “Not to a woman like her.”
Axel closed his eyes.
In his mind, Vanesa’s voice echoed—calm, weary, yet unbreakable.
“I failed to protect something that was never truly mine.”
Pain tightened in his chest.
“What have I done…” he whispered, barely audible.