Chapter 85 86
The Anderson empire collapsed faster than anyone could have predicted.
One week, Raven Anderson was pacing in smoke-filled rooms, plotting Darren Johnson’s ruin, rallying the remnants of his father’s contacts in Italy, and whispering with mercenaries about how many bullets it would take to end a man’s career.
The next, his empire was on fire.
It started with whispers: odd phone calls, quiet visits by men in dark suits who didn’t belong to his world of fast cars and penthouse girls. Then came the warrants. Tomas had pulled every lever Krystal instructed, feeding the authorities documents, account ledgers, and bloodstained trails of money that tied the Anderson family not only to illegal offshore accounts, but also to trafficking, weapons, and assassins for hire.
The timing was perfect — and merciless.
Police raided the Anderson offices. Politicians, who had once smiled at their cocktail parties, cut ties overnight. Reporters swarmed like vultures. And when investigators stormed the mansion, Raven’s father — a man too proud to face disgrace — put a pistol to his temple in his study, leaving a crimson stain across the velvet wallpaper.
By sundown, Raven Anderson was no longer feared. He was shackled, dragged through the flashing lights of cameras, his face plastered across headlines with words like criminal syndicate and collapse of a dynasty.
From her penthouse window, Krystal Hunter watched the news flicker across the screen with a serene smile. Darren was sitting beside her on the sofa, wide-eyed, lips parted in awe.
“It’s over,” he whispered, almost to himself. “The Andersons… they’re finished.”
Krystal didn’t answer immediately. She tilted her head, sipping wine, letting silence make her seem contemplative rather than calculating. Inside, she laughed. Raven’s empire falling was no accident of fate. It was her orchestration, every domino lined and pushed by her hand.
But Darren Johnson, in all his desperation and bruised pride, saw only her kindness.
“You saved me,” he said suddenly, turning to her with a raw sincerity that would have melted another woman’s heart. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be buried with him. Krystal… I don’t even know how to thank you.”
He looked at her as if she were salvation itself, and it almost amused her how deeply he believed it.
So she leaned closer, touched his hand, and whispered, “Then don’t thank me yet. Just promise me you won’t waste this chance.”
Over the days that followed, Darren courted her in the way men without steady ground often did: with promises. Long talks over candlelit dinners, vows that once everything was stable he would build something greater, safer, just for the two of them.
Krystal smiled, indulged him, even let him hold her hand in public. He thought he was winning her. He thought their connection was real. And every time he whispered about the future, she gave him just enough softness to keep him tangled in the illusion.
But beneath the surface, cracks were forming.
The mayor’s office was calling again. They wanted answers about missing money, offshore accounts that Darren had siphoned without permission. The very debts he had tried to hide were now bubbling to the surface, and the pressure was mounting.
Darren grew anxious. His swagger was cracking, his tone sharper, his hands restless whenever the phone rang. In his mind, Krystal was his only lifeline.
And so, one evening, when the walls felt as though they were closing in, he confessed it all. “They want it back, Krystal. The money. The mayor’s people—if I don’t give it back, I’m done. I’ll be finished before I even get a chance to breathe.”
His voice cracked with desperation, the great Darren Johnson reduced to a man begging for a solution.
Krystal folded her arms, her expression thoughtful, almost pitying. Then, with a softness that disguised the venom beneath, she leaned forward.
“I can help you,” she said. “I’ll give you the money to make this go away. But…” she let the word hang, like silk wrapping around his throat, “…you’ll have to do something for me.”
He swallowed hard. “Anything.”
Her lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile. “McLaren. They’ve been in my way too long. If you want my money, Darren, you’ll ruin them for me. Piece by piece.”
He froze, the weight of her words pressing down on him.
But what choice did he have? The mayor wanted blood. His family had been threatened. The Andersons were gone, Raven was rotting in a cell, and his only sanctuary was this woman who smelled like jasmine and steel.
Finally, Darren nodded. “…Alright. I’ll do it.”
And Krystal smiled, slow and knowing, because the noose was tightening exactly as she intended.
Darren Johnson had never felt so cornered in his life.
The Andersons were gone—obliterated overnight like a dynasty swallowed by the ocean. Raven was rotting in prison, his father’s death a headline the city still whispered about. Darren should have felt victorious. He should have been raising a glass and bragging in smoke-filled lounges about how he survived when giants fell.
Instead, he was suffocating.
The mayor’s office was still on him like wolves. Offshore accounts, missing money, whispers of betrayal—every shadow in Manhattan seemed to carry his name on its lips. He was running out of allies. Running out of excuses.
The only lifeline left was Krystal.
She had offered him money—no, salvation. But her terms were clear. Ruthless. Beautiful, even in their cruelty.
“McLaren,” she had said, with that silky calm of hers. “You’ll ruin them for me. If you want my help, you’ll make sure they bleed.”
Darren had smiled at her then, forced confidence painted over his desperation. “Consider it done.”
But when he walked out of her penthouse that night, he felt like a man carrying chains.
The McLarens were not an easy family to touch. They had been sitting on Manhattan’s elite throne for decades, their name whispered with both reverence and fear. Still, Darren knew how to play dirty. He called in old favors, reached out to men who owed him debts, and dangled promises of cash in front of desperate hands.
The first strike was small: leaked documents about questionable dealings with city permits. Enough to stir whispers in the media, but not enough to draw the mayor’s full wrath.
Next, Darren pulled strings in the stock market. He leaned on brokers, spread rumors, and within days McLaren stocks dipped just enough to get noticed.
He reported back to Krystal like a loyal soldier returning to his queen.
And she played her part perfectly.
She listened with wide eyes, feigning surprise at his cunning. She laughed at his jokes, teased him about finally learning to think bigger, and poured his whiskey herself like a devoted partner.
“You amaze me, Darren,” she said one evening, her voice dripping with admiration. “I never thought you’d be this bold. The McLarens won’t even see you coming.”
He leaned back on her couch, pride swelling in his chest, and for a fleeting moment, he believed it. He believed her.
She had a way of disarming him, of making him feel like he was more than just a desperate man clawing at survival. Around Krystal, he was powerful. Around Krystal, he was wanted.
But he didn’t see the smirk she hid when he turned away.