Chapter 12
Emily Windsor's POV
After the gala ended, I declined Luke's offer to drive me home and left alone.
Back at my apartment, I didn't even bother turning on the lights. I went straight to the living room bar cart and poured myself a whiskey.
Ice clinked against crystal, the sound crisp and sharp, like hammers striking my frayed nerves.
Luke's proposition loomed before me like a devil's bargain—one path led to certain destruction, the other to swift vengeance and intoxicating power.
I leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the endless stream of traffic below, my mind racing through every angle.
There was no way out. Jacob and the corrupt elements within the Victor family already saw me as a target on their backs.
Without Luke's protection, I'd eventually become collateral damage in this war of capital and power. If that was inevitable, I might as well make a deal with the devil. Walk into the eye of the storm willingly—maybe then I'd have a fighting chance.
The next day, I submitted my resignation to the firm.
The partners' shock and attempts to retain me were all expected, but my mind was made up.
The transition process would take time, which I used to quietly compile files on every commercial project connected to Jacob I'd handled during my tenure.
As his ex-girlfriend and a firm partner, no one knew better than I did how many of his impressive achievements rested on legally dubious operations.
I backed up every suspicious contract, email exchange, and financial statement.
It was a monumental task. With each piece of evidence I uncovered, my hatred for Jacob deepened, and the flames of vengeance burned hotter.
Wednesday afternoon, as I was organizing the last batch of documents in my office, Joe knocked and entered, carrying a cardboard box.
"Emily, this is... Mr. Johnson asked me to give you these things." Joe's expression was awkward.
I opened the box. Inside were my personal belongings.
Items I'd left in Jacob's office for convenience when working late. A spare cashmere cardigan, my favorite coffee mug, a half-read legal treatise with a gold leaf bookmark tucked between its pages—a gift from him.
I picked up the delicate bookmark. The golden veins caught the light, intricate and beautiful.
Once, this had been a symbol of our love. Now it felt like nothing but cruel irony.
I stared at the bookmark, lost in thought. Past sweetness and present betrayal intertwined like a suffocating net, wrapping tighter and tighter around me until I could barely breathe.
"Thinking about him?" A cold, familiar voice suddenly cut through the silence from the doorway, laced with unmistakable fury.
I spun around. Luke stood in the entrance, his presence commanding and ominous.
He wore a sharply tailored black suit, his expression dark as a thundercloud, those ice-blue eyes fixed on the bookmark in my hand like frozen daggers. The air around him crackled with dangerous energy.
The temperature in the office seemed to plummet several degrees.
Joe, terrified by his overwhelming presence, stammered a greeting and quickly fled.
"A worthless piece of trash, and you're staring at it like a widow?" Luke advanced toward me, each step radiating menace.
He stopped directly in front of me and snatched the bookmark from my fingers without ceremony, his gaze full of contempt.
Then he walked to the box and swept everything I'd been looking at into the trash can with brutal efficiency.
"What are you doing!" I couldn't help but protest—those were my things.
"Throwing out garbage." Luke's voice was arctic. He turned, bracing his hands on either side of me against the desk, caging me between his body and the solid wood. He leaned down, his devastatingly handsome face filling my vision, those ice-blue eyes churning with emotions I couldn't decipher.
"Emily, look at me." He gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze, his tone dripping with possessiveness and rage. "Remember this—from the moment you decided to enter my world, your past had to be erased. Your body, your heart, every ounce of your attention belongs to me alone."
His breath enveloped me completely, the cold scent of cigars and cedar invading my senses with ruthless dominance. My heart hammered wildly in my chest—half from fear of his intensity, half from an unexpected thrill at his blatant claim, one I hadn't even acknowledged to myself.
"Your answer?" He stared into my eyes as if trying to see straight through to my soul.
I held his burning gaze. In those ice-blue depths flickering with dark fire, I saw my own reflection—trapped, with nowhere to run. I drew a deep breath and, with every ounce of strength I possessed, said clearly, "I accept."
The rage in Luke's eyes instantly subsided. He studied me for several seconds, as if branding my promise into his soul, before slowly releasing his grip.
"Good," he straightened, resuming his commanding posture, though the coldness had vanished from his voice. "Miss Windsor, gather your things. You're coming with me now."
I didn't argue. I placed the remaining personal files on my desk into my bag. As for the items he'd swept into the trash, I didn't even glance at them.
Luke was right. To enter his world, I had to erase the past completely.
That gold leaf bookmark and the foolish chapter it represented deserved to be discarded like garbage.
When I left the firm, several colleagues witnessed me following Luke out.
Their expressions were complicated. I could imagine that by tomorrow, every lawyer in New York would be gossiping about how Emily, dumped by Jacob, had immediately latched onto the Victor family's heir apparent.
I didn't care about the rumors. In fact, I looked forward to seeing Jacob's face when he heard them.
Luke brought me to his private office on the top floor of a building in the financial district.
This space was even more austere and intimidating than the Nightingale suite. Massive floor-to-ceiling windows looked down upon all of Manhattan's financial district like a throne surveying a kingdom—radiating raw, oppressive power.
"These are files on all of the Victor family's legitimate business operations," he said, gesturing to a thick stack of folders on the desk. "Starting today, they're yours to manage. The authority I'm giving you is second only to mine."
He paused, then pulled a black card from a drawer and handed it to me. "This is your access credential. It'll grant you entry to any Victor property worldwide, including full access to their financial records."
I took the heavy card. The metal felt cold against my palm, embossed with the same dragon insignia that marked his chest.
The power this card represented was enough to make any Wall Street titan take notice.