Page 142 of The Owner's Temptation

I don’t offer him a smile or even the satisfaction of a sneer. There’s no need. The destruction speaks for itself.

Instead, I move toward him with calm, measured steps, each one deliberate, each one signaling the end of something he thought was untouchable.

When I reach his table, I place a single bottle down in front of him.

It’s the same whiskey that bottle had once been a symbol of truce.

Tonight, it’s a gravestone.

I say nothing. There’s no speech. No theatrical monologue. Just silence—he knows what it means.

I turn from him and walk a few paces before slipping the small remote from my jacket pocket. I lift it high enough that only Lorenzo can see, ensuring the message lands with the weight it deserves.

His eyes widen.

I press the button.

The explosion rattles the entire structure—glass trembles in its frames as the first blast echoes through the city.

A second follows almost immediately, closer this time, a deeper boom that makes the chandeliers shiver above our heads.

Gasps turn to shrieks as guests stampede toward the windows, heels skidding, phones raised, mouths agape.

Outside, the parking lot has become a battlefield. Cars and limousines—the prized possessions of the city’s wealthiest—are engulfed in flames.

Smoke pours upward in black coils, the orange glow of fire dancing in every reflection. Metal has been torn from its polished form, vehicles reduced to heaps of molten luxury scattered across the lot like a child’s overturned toy box.

Lorenzo rushes to the nearest window, pushing past a senator and nearly knocking over a journalist. He presses both hands to the glass, face stricken as he stares at the hell I’ve created.

Across the harbor is the real explosion.

The new development Lorenzo has been funding with dirty money. It’s supposed to be a new jewel added to his crown. Thirty seconds ago, it was still metal framing and scaffolding.

Now, the forty-story condominium goes down as each floor explodes perfectly timed.

But what he can’t see is what else crumbled the moment I pressed that button.

Jaxon’s virus.

In perfect synchrony with the chaos unfolding outside, his code began devouring Lorenzo’s empire from the inside out.

His business accounts, family trusts, offshore holdings, and encrypted files—everything he built with blood, money, and inherited power—has either been redirected to me or reassigned to causes that will never trace back to him.

The St. James’ Orphanage will wake to the news of a record-breaking anonymous donation, one that will fund them for the next decade.

Similar institutions across the city will find themselves suddenly, miraculously, whole again.

Everything Lorenzo thought made him untouchable is now burning. Not just in the parking lot, but in the foundation of his legacy.

And me?

I walk through the ballroom’s front doors, past security who wouldn’t dare stop me, through panicked guests who have no idea what just happened or who orchestrated it.

Untouched.

Unshaken.

Exactly as I planned.

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