Chapter 65
She suddenly remembered Jasper was still there, and a flicker of panic slid through her chest.
Almost without thinking, she reached out and caught the hem of James's tailored suit jacket.
The tiny gesture of dependence was so subtle it was almost nothing, but James felt it. The body that had been coiled tight like a war machine suddenly loosened, as if someone had quietly pulled the plug on his rage.
The corners of his mouth even lifted, curve sharp with a dark, unhidden satisfaction.
"What the hell are you laughing at?" Lucas was completely enraged by James's blatant contempt. "You really think The Sinclair Group pulling their investment can scare me? Let me spell it out for you. I'm not only confiscating every asset you own in Amber District today, but I'm also making sure you don't walk out of this office alive."
"Is that so?" James finally took his hand away from Isabella's ears. He turned the old-fashioned, pure black ceramic ring on his left index finger, the movement lazy, almost bored.
"Since you're feeling so confident, Mr. Wilson, why don't you take a call before you decide anything?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the private phone in Lucas's pocket started shrieking like an alarm, the harsh ringtone tearing through the air.
The sound made Lucas's eyelids twitch twice, sharp and involuntary.
That phone only had one kind of caller: the core elders of the Black Gold Consortium, the legendary council in Amber District that supposedly held the world's economic lifeline in their fists.
They were the Wilson Family's real backing. The only gods Novaria actually bowed to.
Lucas shot James a vicious glare. "You just wait."
He turned away with forced respect, cupping the phone in both hands as he hit accept. The vicious sneer on his face flipped in an instant into a greasy, sycophantic smile. Even his voice went thin and careful. "Hello? Sir, my honored Deacon, you were looking for me…"
"Lucas, if you've got a death wish, go find a quiet place and slit your own damn throat. Don't you dare drag the entire Amber District Chamber of Commerce down with you!"
On the other end, the Chief Deacon of the Black Gold Consortium—who was usually so untouchable that even the President had to tread lightly around him—was roaring like a madman, his voice edged with raw, unmistakable fear.
He was shouting so loudly that every word echoed through the suddenly silent office.
Lucas froze. The fat on his cheeks trembled violently. "D-Deacon, what are you talking about? What did I do? What mistake did I make?"
"You idiot! You really don't know who you pissed off? Headquarters just issued a Supreme Extermination Order. Every asset under your name is flagged for international felonies. The feds are already on their way to arrest you! Your wife picked a fight with someone you cannot afford to touch! You don't even recognize the ring on his hand. You deserve to be chopped to pieces and thrown to the dogs!"
Supreme Extermination Order?
Lucas turned around stiffly, his neck creaking as if it had rusted, and locked onto James.
James's face was half buried in shadow and light, but on his left index finger, the pure black ceramic ring he toyed with so casually caught the light and threw it back in a cold, bone-deep gleam.
On the surface was a single flower, carved with unnerving detail—a full, vivid spider lily, every petal alive with menace.
That was… that was…
"You… you're…"
"My last name is Sinclair." James didn't even bother to lift his lids. His voice came out slow and lazy, yet cruel, an effortless chill of someone looking down at insects. "But on Wall Street, they prefer to call me Celestial Veil."
Isabella's eyes widened.
She stared at the man beside her, a man who felt both familiar and suddenly, completely unknown.
She had thought she knew him. Six years together, six years of shared days and nights. Yet only now did she realize that everything she'd seen was just the exposed tip of an iceberg whose true depth she'd never even imagined.
The billionaire magnate persona—this whole empire worth hundreds of billions—was only a mask. A cover.
A muted thud cracked through the room.
The arrogant, untouchable Lucas crumpled to his knees as if his spine had been yanked out. He hit the plush wool carpet so hard that he left a deep dent in it.
Cold sweat drenched his suit in seconds. His whole body shook like he was standing naked in a blizzard. He didn't dare raise his head. He just slammed his forehead into the hardwood floor again and again in James's direction, each impact sounding brutal and hollow.
"Mr. Sinclair! Please, I'm begging you, spare me!" His voice broke on the words. "I was blind, I was an idiot, I didn't know who you were. I'm on my knees here. Please take back the order. Please, give us one more chance!"
Hestia and the chubby boy, Jack, stared at the scene, stupefied.
"Honey? Are you crazy?" Hestia screeched as she lunged to grab her husband's arm. "Why the hell are you kneeling to him? Tell security to shoot him! Have them shoot him now!"
What she got in response was a vicious backhand brought down with all of Lucas's weight behind it.
The slap cracked through the room. Hestia screamed as the blow sent her flying. She crashed into the coffee table, wood splintering, then spat out a mouthful of blood laced with shattered teeth.
"You stupid, troublemaking bitch! You've ruined the whole damn family!" Lucas's eyes were bloodshot. He looked deranged as he lunged again, fisting a hand in Hestia's hair and grinding her face into the floor. Then he turned and yanked Jack, who had literally pissed himself, in front of him.
"Kneel! Get on your knees and apologize to Mrs. Sinclair and Mr. Jasper Sinclair! Now! Don't stop until they forgive you, or I swear to God I'll kill you both myself!"
The once untouchable society queen, who had always carried herself like royalty, now looked like a stray dog run over and left on the side of the road. She and her spoiled, vicious son knelt at Isabella's feet, bodies shaking, their foreheads slamming into the floor as they sobbed and begged.
"Mrs. Sinclair, we're sorry! Mr. Jasper Sinclair, we're so sorry! It was our fault, all our fault. We'll never dare do it again!"
The whole scene was absurd to the point of surreal. And yet for Isabella, it was also brutally, quietly satisfying.
She looked at the three of them sprawled on the floor, wailing and pounding their heads against the carpet, then at the principal slumped nearby, face pale as chalk, long since passed out cold from sheer terror.
She felt nothing. No pity at all.
Because if James were just an ordinary man, if he had been the harmless, mild husband everyone assumed he was, then the ones on their knees here today—the ones begging for mercy—would have been her and Jasper.
Mercy for people like this was nothing but cruelty toward herself.
"They apologized." Isabella turned her head slightly, her voice cool and clear, like glass striking stone. "And then what?"
James held her gaze, and the look in his dark eyes—those eyes that usually gave nothing away—was suddenly naked. Unrestrained.
There was insanity there, a wild indulgence, and beneath it a depth of feeling so heavy it almost hurt to look at.
"Then," he said softly, "if that's what you want, before the sun comes up tomorrow, the name Wilson will be erased from this planet."
He said it casually, as if he were offering to cancel a meeting or sign off on a routine contract. But the words fell like a verdict, the death sentence of a century-old dynasty.
Lucas let out a strangled scream, eyes rolling back, and dropped sideways to the floor in a dead faint.
"Clean this up," James said, flicking a cold glance at Aubrey. "Don't let Mrs. Sinclair's eyes be sullied."
"Yes, Mr. Sinclair." Aubrey immediately signaled the security team, who moved in and dragged the entire group out like they were hauling away trash.
Silence settled over the office at last.
James lowered his gaze, his arms tightening for a moment around the boy in his embrace, as if anchoring himself. Then he turned fully, his eyes locking on Isabella's face, delicate and flawless and impossible to read.
He had just laid his biggest card on the table in front of her, tearing away the last of his camouflage.
He waited.
Would she be afraid now? Horrified? Would she recoil? Or, just maybe, would she finally look at him a little differently?
Instead, Isabella just gave him a brief, cool once-over, the way someone might look at a magician after he'd pulled yet another improbable trick from his sleeve.
"Show's over?" She asked, smoothing down the hem of her trench coat. "Now that we've paid them back, Aubrey, could you take Jasper back to the hospital first?"