Chapter 21 21
ELIAS MCLAREN – POV
It had been months since I killed her.
Krystal McLaren. My niece. The forgotten child of the McLaren family—too soft, too strange, too dreamy for her own good. I had snuffed her out like a candle, convinced the world would forget her like the smudge she was. She was stupid not to give me that one thousand dollar winning ticket.
But something was wrong.
There was no news. No headlines. No headlines screaming “Heiress Found Dead” or even the subtle whispers of a “Missing Woman.” My daughters didn’t mention her once. My wife, Norma, only tightened her pearls whenever the subject veered too close. Her absence was… too quiet.
That silence—it suffocated me.
It haunted me.
Did no one find her body?
Did someone… help her?
The weight of paranoia was a noose around my throat. I’d begun drinking earlier and earlier each day, desperate to drown the itch in my spine that whispered she might still be out there. Watching. Waiting.
And it didn’t help that my company—McLaren International Holdings—and even my cigar business was crumbling beneath me like sandcastles under a tide. Loan after loan, debt collectors knocking at the gates. My office, once pristine and bustling with staff, now echoed like a tomb. The investors were pulling out like rats on a sinking ship, and the whispers in the Manhattan elite boardrooms weren’t about the McLarens anymore.
They were about her.
Lady K.
Or Miss Hunter, depending on which Wall Street wolves you asked.
No one knew her true face.
No one had a photo.
But the name made even the greediest hedge fund managers hesitate. It was passed between lips like a warning in a dark alley.
“She bought the Central Tower overnight.”
“Snatched 20% of Grayson’s Media Shares without blinking.”
“Has people in pharmaceuticals, AI, real estate, renewable energy… everything.”
“Controls 30% of the Fortune 100 silently.”
And then there was the fear.
I saw it at the last summit. When Lionel Bates, who once called me brother, choked on his words at the mention of Lady K’s interest in solar tech. She hadn’t even met them. Just… bought the board out from under him. He lost control of his own company in 48 hours.
And all we had was a name.
She was an echo. A shadow behind tinted windows and veils of NDAs. Her people didn’t talk. Her files were locked under encryption so tight, even my best private investigators failed.
I offered a 10 dollars to dig up anything about her. They came back with nothing but a shrugged apology and trembling hands. One investigator whispered, “I think she’s government-protected… or a ghost.”
But I needed to know.
Because somehow… somehow, this woman was connected to the fall of everything I built.
McLaren Aviation—gone.
McLaren Spirits—under federal investigation for forged importation licenses.
Norma’s beloved fake luxury line?—raided and exposed for selling counterfeit bags to influencers and socialites.
Even the yacht fund was frozen.
Frozen.
I screamed at my secretary just last week. Threw the phone across the office and shattered the glass table. But the money didn’t return. And the whispers grew louder.
And I knew.
Deep in my marrow, I knew it.
That night, I sat alone in my penthouse office—half the lights were cut to save on power bills. I stared at the skyline of Manhattan, where the Central Tower loomed like a titan in the dark, glowing with wealth and authority.
Lady K’s tower.
She lived up there, they said. Somewhere at the top.
Alone.
Feared.
Worshipped.
I clenched my fists until my nails dug crescent moons into my palms.
No one ignored Elias McLaren. No one replaced me in the financial headlines. And no niece of mine—dead or alive—would dethrone me.
“I need to meet her,” I muttered. “I’ll charm her. Maybe I can make a deal… work something out. I’m still the McLaren. Still the name that matters in this city.”
But even as I said the words, a cold dread gnawed at me.
What if she wasn’t interested in deals?
What if she wasn’t here to negotiate?
What if she had waited in silence, wearing a new name and a billion-dollar war chest…
Just to burn me alive?
And what if I already smelled like smoke?
Few hours later.
The wind outside howled like a damned soul, cold cutting straight through the seams of my cashmere coat as I staggered out of my black Range Rover. The tires crunched the thin layer of fresh snow like brittle bones. I slammed the door shut, half-drunk and half-frozen. My breath fogged the air, and my fingers were numb, but that wasn’t what made me stop.
The house was dark.
Pitch black.
No porch light. No warm chandelier glow from the windows. Not even the damn fairy lights Venice insisted on wrapping around the stair railing like it was still Christmas.
The neighbors’ houses—blazing.
Ours?
A goddamn haunted house.
“What the hell?” I muttered, fumbling with my keys before shoving the front door open with my shoulder. It creaked like a horror movie.
And then—hell broke loose.
“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN, ELIAS?!” Norma’s voice exploded from the gloom like a banshee. I couldn’t see her, but I felt her rage from the foot of the stairs.
“Where have I been?” I snapped, already fumbling for the light switch. Nothing. Just a click. No power. “Why the HELL is it dark?! Where’s the electricity?!”
“You tell me!” she screamed back. “You gave me the household budget for the month, I paid the bills, and apparently, the bank BOUNCED IT.”
“Bullshit!” I marched into the living room, tripping over some fur throw. “I gave you 15 dollars, Norma!”
“Yeah? And that barely covered the interest of your gambling loans and your stupid investment in Moroccan goatskin handbags!”
I flinched. “Don’t bring up the goats again—”
“Too late!” Venice stormed in from the hallway, the glow of her phone the only light in the house. “You promised me new Airwrap attachments for Christmas and instead I get a haunted mansion with no heater? It’s freezing, Dad! This is child neglect!”
“YOU’RE TWENTY-TWO!” I barked, but she was already scrolling Instagram again like I was invisible.
Ivy and MJ burst out of the hallway next, both half-dressed in designer loungewear, hair wrapped in silk scarves, makeup smudged.
“MJ STOLE MY DIOR BELT!” Ivy screeched.
“I didn’t steal it, you left it in the kitchen, you pig!” MJ threw a tube of lipstick at her, and it hit the wall with a loud clack!
“IT COST TWO DIMES—”
“AND YOU DON’T EVEN FIT IT ANYMORE!”
Screams. Screeching. Curse words in three languages. Scratches. A vase broke.
Then came the sobbing.
“Daddy…” Era’s small voice cut through the chaos. She was curled up on the leather couch in a giant coat, hugging a hot water bottle that was, frankly, cold.
“I’m so cold… I can’t sleep…” She was crying. Her teeth chattered. “It’s too dark…”
My heart cracked—but only a little. I was too drunk to even feel it properly.
I spun around, the only source of any semblance of order—the butler—stood silently at the far end of the room, wrapped in his coat.
“Where are the maids?” I barked.
“Resigned,” he said simply. “No pay for two months, sir. Maria and Lina left yesterday. Joan took the twins’ uniforms. Anna took the last bags of flour. I believe Bea sold the espresso machine.”
I blinked. “They sold my espresso—?”
“Because we have no food!” Norma screamed again, flying back into view like a tornado in velvet slippers. “You said we were doing fine! I found out the IRS has flagged us for three investigations—we have NO savings, no staff, no heat, and now, no fcking POWER!”
The pipes hissed. The walls creaked. Someone’s phone died, plunging us into full darkness.
I stood in the middle of my once-mighty home, shivering from both cold and rage. My daughters hated me. My wife screamed like a demon. My empire crumbled under debt and denial.
And through it all, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Lady K.
The whispers in boardrooms. The name that made men twice my power go pale.