Page 113 of Corrupting Camille
Ivy retreats slowly, the echo of her heels fade away into silence, leaving the ghost of her words hanging between us, a warning and a prophecy rolled into one. I crush the cigarette beneath my shoe, pulse steady and ruthless.
I stand in the silence, watching the dying ember from the cigarette fade out at my feet, smothered like every warning Ivy left behind. Her words linger at the edges of my mind, circling slowly, whispering caution, but I don’t flinch. I don’t retreat.
I’m not afraid to burn.
Camille is already the inferno beneath my skin, scorching through every nerve ending, erasing every boundary I ever set between control and chaos. Ivy was right about one thing: fires like this spare no one.
But she’s wrong to think I’d ever run from the flames.
I tilt my head back, breathing in the heavy night air, eyes closed for a heartbeat, feeling the recklessness simmer,the hunger sharpen. The pain of wanting Camille has long since fused with the pleasure, creating something dangerously addictive.
Something worth the destruction.
After all, I’ve been ruling in hell long enough…I know exactly how to handle the flames.
***
Morning breaks in silence.
Muted sunlight slithers through tinted glass, spreading thinly over the city like blood seeping from a wound. My phone buzzes, a quiet, lethal vibration confirming Joaquin has delivered exactly what I demanded.
Douglas Everhart’s life, dissected, now splayed wide open.
Flipping open the laptop, my eyes skim through the file, absorbing each secret with cold precision. Affairs. Offshore accounts balanced on lies. Prescriptions hidden beneath his wife’s name. A private investigator he quietly pays to spy on his married daughter and her lover. Everything.
Every weakness, every fracture.
My gaze halts on a photograph, his eldest daughter smiling carelessly, her arm wrapped around a man who isn’t wearing her ring. Hotel receipts. Explicit messages. Dates, times, precise locations. Perfect.
Power isn’t a loud, messy thing. It doesn’t explode in violence or chaos. Real power is quiet, surgical, watching a man lose control piece by careful piece until he’s bleeding from wounds he never saw coming.
I dial a number reserved for discreet annihilations.
The tabloid editor picks up fast, voice cautious. “Morning, Kane. You don’t usually call this early.”
“Check your inbox.”
Silence fills the space between us. Then a sharp intake of breath. “Everhart’s daughter. Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
He hesitates, weighing consequences. “How do you want it framed?”
“Family values. Hypocrisy. Let it sting but drip-feed it slowly. When he pushes back, leak the offshore accounts. Make each denial choke him a little more.”
A pause, then resignation. “Consider it done. It’ll break in an hour.”
Ending the call, I dial Joaquin next.
He answers instantly, voice tight, prepared. “I’ve got his itinerary. Phone tapped. Home office breached.”
“Start bleeding him out quietly. Rumors. Footage. I want him feeling whispers wherever he goes.”
“Copy that.” Joaquin pauses, tension sharpening his voice. “There’s more. I dug deeper. Found sealed civil complaints. Camille wasn’t alone.”
I straighten slowly, every muscle locked. “Tell me.”
“Two cases. First girl was fourteen, a minor. Settled privately a decade ago. The second, four years back, sixteen. Paid off and vanished quietly. Her name was Olivia Hart. Lives in Brooklyn now. Changed her identity, off-grid. But traceable.”
