Chapter 130 The Reckoning
Victoria： POV
The cab dropped me off in front of my building just as the sun was beginning to set. The afternoon had bled into early evening—how long had I been in that alley? Five minutes? Ten? Time had fractured again.
Roberto, the doorman, took one look at me and his face went pale.
"Ms. Astor, are you—should I call an ambulance?"
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "I'm fine. Just... fell. Clumsy."
He didn't believe me. I could see it in his eyes. But he nodded anyway and held the elevator door open while I limped inside, cradling my broken hand against my chest.
Forty-seven floors. I counted every single one again, watching my reflection in the mirrored walls. A broken woman. Literally and figuratively.
My apartment felt like a mausoleum when I finally made it inside. Silent. Empty. The curtains still drawn from this morning, casting everything in perpetual twilight.
I went straight to the bathroom and tried to run cold water over my injured hand. The moment the water touched my skin, pain so intense it made me see stars shot through my arm. I gasped, yanking my hand back, and nearly vomited.
Can't. Can't even clean it.
I wrapped my hand carefully in a clean towel—every movement agony—and sank onto the bathroom floor, my back against the tub. The cold porcelain pressed through my torn dress, but I couldn't bring myself to move.
How did it come to this?
Three months ago, I'd been on top of the world. Julian was mine—or would be, once Elena was out of the picture. My business was thriving. The Vanderbilts were finished, and Catherine was taking the fall for everything.
Perfect. Clean. Under control.
Now?
Julian hated me. My business was hemorrhaging investors. Catherine was alive and systematically destroying what was left of my life. And I was sitting on a bathroom floor with a broken hand, too terrified to leave my own apartment.
This is what you deserve, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. This is karma.
"No." I said it out loud, to the empty room. "No, I was trying to protect him. Trying to give us a chance. Everything I did—"
My phone buzzed.
I stared at it, lying on the bathroom tile where I'd dropped it. Unknown number.
Of course.
I let it ring. Once. Twice. Ten times. It finally went to voicemail.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
I grabbed it with my good hand and answered, my broken hand screaming in sympathetic pain.
"WHAT?" I screamed into the phone. "What the fuck do you want from me now? You've already won! You've already destroyed everything! What more—"
"Shh." Catherine's distorted voice was almost gentle. "Don't yell, Victoria. It's not ladylike."
"Fuck you."
"That's better." I could hear the smile in her voice. "How's your hand?"
I looked down at the swollen, purple mess wrapped in a bloody towel.
"You could have killed me."
"But I didn't." Her tone turned cold. "Because death would be too easy. Too quick. I want you to suffer, Victoria. For months. Years. However long it takes."
"Why?" My voice broke. "Why can't you just finish it? Just—just do whatever you're going to do and end this?"
"Because watching you fall apart is so much more satisfying than watching you die."
Silence stretched between us. I could hear her breathing through the distortion. Slow. Steady. Patient.
"How long?" I whispered. "How long are you going to keep this up?"
"As long as it takes for you to understand what you've done. What you've taken from people. From me. From Elena. From everyone whose life you've touched with your poison."
"I never meant—"
"Yes, you did." The words were like a slap. "You always mean it, Victoria. That's what makes you so dangerous. You know exactly what you're doing. You just don't care about the consequences."
"I cared about Julian." Tears streamed down my face. "I loved him. Everything I did was for—"
"For yourself." Catherine's voice turned sharp. "You didn't love Julian. You loved the idea of Julian. The status. The power. The validation of being chosen by a Sterling."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? Then why did you destroy Elena? Why did you manipulate me? Why did you orchestrate the Vanderbilt collapse? Why did you hire those men to attack them on the hospital rooftop? Because you loved Julian so much?"
My blood ran cold.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." Catherine's laugh was bitter. "I know everything, Victoria. The gunmen you hired. The orders you gave. The money you paid. Did you really think you could cover your tracks that well? That Julian would never find out?"
"He—" My voice failed. "He doesn't know. He can't—"
"Oh, but he does. Or he will soon. I made sure of that."
The line went dead.
I sat there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone until it became white noise.
Julian knows. About the rooftop attack. About the gunmen.
The hospital assault. I'd been so careful. Used intermediaries. Paid in untraceable cryptocurrency. Made sure there was no paper trail leading back to me.
But Catherine had found out. And if she'd found out, she could prove it.
And she's told Julian.
That's why he'd been so cold when he called earlier this week. Why he'd looked at me with such disgust at the hospital. He knew. He fucking knew.
I had to get out. Had to run. Had to—
But my passport was here. My money was being monitored. And with a broken hand, I couldn't even pack a suitcase properly
---
I don't know how long I sat on that bathroom floor. Long enough for my good hand to go numb from clutching my phone.
Long enough for the light filtering through the window to fade from gray to black. Long enough for the pain in my broken hand to transform from sharp agony to a dull, throbbing torture that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
The apartment was dark when I finally stood, my legs stiff and uncooperative. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and flinched.
Monster. You look like a monster.