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Chapter 8: The $20 Bill

Gideon Valmont was entirely stripped. He had no wealth. He had no fiancée. He had no company.

The crushing, absolute reality of his destruction broke his mind.

He fell to his knees on the marble altar. He realized, in a flash of agonizing clarity, that the woman he had tortured, starved, and tested was not only the only human being who had ever truly loved him, but she was now the billionaire holding his literal life in her hands.

He crawled across the floor toward me.

“Nora!” he sobbed hysterically, his tears ruining his expensive tuxedo. He grabbed the hem of my red dress with trembling, desperate hands. “Nora, please! I’m sorry! I was wrong! I always loved you, I swear to God! I just wanted to be sure! Please, forgive me. We can fix this!”

I looked down at the pathetic, broken man weeping at my feet.

I didn’t feel anger anymore. I didn’t feel grief. I felt absolutely nothing.

I calmly opened my diamond-encrusted clutch. I reached inside and pulled out a single, crumpled, oil-stained twenty-dollar bill.

It was the exact bill he had thrown at me in the freezing rain the night my mother died.

I let it drop.

The bill fluttered through the air, landing softly directly onto his tear-stained, pathetic face.

“Take it,” I said, my voice echoing with an absolute, lethal calm. “Don’t ever say I didn’t give you anything.”

I turned my back on him. Silas stepped forward, offering me his arm. I rested my hand firmly against Silas’s suit jacket, feeling the strong, steady, unyielding support of a true partner.

We walked down the aisle together, exiting the grand doors of the ballroom.

Behind us, Gideon Valmont was left sobbing hysterically on the floor, surrounded by ruined white roses, waiting for the federal agents who were already en route to arrest him for corporate fraud.

Silas and I merged our empires the following year. We didn’t build our legacy on tests, deceit, or cruelty. We built a global dynasty based on mutual respect, absolute trust, and terrifying, undeniable equality.