My Fiancé Plotted to Lock Me in an Asylum to Steal My Fortune — So I Married a Ruthless Billionaire to Destroy Him
Part 2
The absolute silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
It was the sort of silence that precedes a devastating avalanche.
Greg sneered, all his charming pretense dropping away instantly.
“A beast?” he laughed mockingly.
“No respectable man in this city will ever look at you again, Megan.”
“You are completely ruined.”
“You will come crawling back to me when your father’s creditors circle.”
“She will do no such thing.”
The voice did not come from the crowd of whispering corporate executives and socialites.
It came from the shadowed alcove near the grand balcony.
It was a deep, gravelly baritone that commanded instant, terrified obedience.
The affluent crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Billionaires practically shoved each other out of the way to avoid proximity to the man who stepped into the light.
It was Craig, the reclusive titan of the city’s investment world.
He was a man of fearsome, unparalleled reputation.
Standing well over six feet tall, he possessed a frame built for warfare rather than high-society galas.
But it was his face that fueled the city’s darkest rumors.
The left side of his jaw and cheek was marked by a jagged, pale scar.
It was the remnant of a violent past that no one dared speak of aloud.
He was famously ruthless in business, merciless to his enemies, and had personally ruined three corporate dynasties that had crossed him.
He never attended society events.
He openly despised them.
Yet, here he was.
Craig walked slowly toward me, his heavy shoes making no sound on the polished marble floor.
He ignored Greg entirely, stopping only when he was a breath away from me.
His eyes, a striking, piercing shade of slate gray, studied my face intently.
He saw the tremor in my hands, but he also saw the unyielding iron in my posture.
“You require a beast, Megan?” Craig asked softly.
In the dead silence of the room, every word was a thunderclap.
I stared up at him.
He was terrifying.
He was incredibly dangerous.
But as I looked into his eyes, I saw no deception or manipulation.
There was only raw, unapologetic truth.
“I require a man who does not hide his true nature behind pretty words,” I replied, my chin lifting defiantly.
Craig’s lips twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile.
He turned his imposing bulk toward Greg.
My ex-fiancé shrank back, suddenly looking very small and exceedingly mortal.
“Greg,” Craig said, his voice dropping to a lethal purr.
“If you ever speak to this woman again, or if you so much as look in the direction of her company, I will dismantle your life so thoroughly that financial regulators will find no record of your existence.”
“Do you completely understand me?”
Greg opened his mouth, stammered incoherently, and backed away, disappearing into the crowd like a frightened rat.
Craig turned back to me, and smoothly, gracefully, dropped to one knee.
He ignored the collective gasp of the city’s elite.
He extended a large, calloused hand toward me.
“Marry me, Megan,” he proclaimed, loud enough for the entire ballroom to hear.
“I offer you my protection, my resources, and my solemn vow that no man will ever dare call you a liar or a lunatic again.”
It was absolute madness.
It was social and corporate suicide.
It was the most reckless thing I could possibly do.
I placed my hand firmly in his.
“I accept your offer.”
We were married four days later by special license in a cold, dimly lit courthouse downtown.
There were no flowers, no white gown, and no family.
He had saved me from being institutionalized, but as the heavy iron gates of his remote estate locked behind us, I couldn’t help but wonder: what exactly did the most ruthless man in the city want in return?
