After My Fiancé Cheated, I Destroyed His Empire

My father's office felt smaller after Palmer left. Like the walls had moved in while I wasn't looking.

Arthur Montgomery stood at the window, hands in his pockets, staring down at Madison Avenue like the traffic might have an answer he didn't. I'd seen him negotiate billion-dollar deals without blinking. I'd never seen him look like this.

"Sloan," he said, not turning around. "We should talk about settlement options."

I stayed in the doorway. "No."

"Palmer wasn't bluffing. Ross Capital pulls out, we lose the Singapore expansion. Maybe the London office too. Thirty years of partnership—"

"Built on what?" I asked. "On me staying quiet? On Julian getting to do whatever he wants because his mother knows how to make a phone call?"

He turned then. Looked at me the way he used to when I was twelve and told him I wanted to run Montgomery Enterprises someday — like he was seeing something he'd forgotten was there.

"I understand the risk," I said, stepping inside. "I also understand that if we let them do this now, they'll do it every time it's convenient. So I'm going to handle it."

"How?"

"However I have to."

My father studied my face for a long moment. Then he nodded once, slow and deliberate, and stepped back from the window.

It was the first time in my life he'd ever stepped back and let me walk forward alone.

—

Forty-eight hours later, my phone exploded.

Screenshots. Videos. A hundred messages in ten minutes, all saying the same thing in different words: *Have you seen this?*

I opened the first link.

Willa Chavez stood on the edge of the university's rooftop terrace, her face streaked with tears, her phone propped on the ledge filming her from below. She was talking to the camera in that soft, shaking voice she did so well.

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," she said, wiping her eyes. "I just... I don't know how much more I can take. Sloan won't stop. She won't let me breathe."

The angle was perfect. Close enough to see the tears. Far enough to see the drop behind her.

A crowd had gathered at the far end of the terrace. Phones out. Watching.

I set my coffee down very carefully and didn't let myself feel anything yet.

Haven called three seconds later.

"Please tell me you're not going over there," she said.

"I'm going over there."

"Sloan—"

"I'm not going to yell at her, Haven. I'm not going to give her what she wants."

Silence. Then: "What are you going to do?"

"Watch," I said, and hung up.

—

By the time I got to campus, the crowd had doubled. Someone had already made a hashtag. *#JusticeForWilla* was climbing the trending page like it had a motor attached.

I walked up the terrace stairs and stopped at the edge of the crowd. Willa was still talking, still crying. Her phone was still recording.

She saw me. I watched her eyes flick over, just for a second, checking to see if I'd react.

I didn't move.

I pulled out my own phone, opened the campus security app, and typed: *Request immediate preservation of all rooftop surveillance footage from the past two hours. Archive and secure. Will follow up in person within the hour.*

I hit send.

Then I looked up at Willa one more time. She was still watching me, waiting.

I turned around and walked back down the stairs.

Behind me, I heard the crowd murmur. Confused. Disappointed, maybe. They'd wanted a fight. A scene. Something they could film and caption and pick apart for days.

I gave them nothing.

Halfway down the stairwell, Haven stepped out from the landing, arms crossed, expression somewhere between awe and concern.

"You're genuinely terrifying," she said. "I mean that as the highest compliment I've ever given anyone."

I kept walking. "Good. I'm going to need you to be terrified for the next six weeks. Maybe longer."

"Why?"

"Because I'm about to make a phone call," I said, "and once I do, there's no going back."

Haven caught up, matched my stride. "Who are you calling?"

I didn't answer right away. We pushed through the side exit into the parking lot. The air was cold. Clean. I could still hear the crowd on the terrace above us, waiting for something that wasn't going to happen.

I stopped at my car and looked at Haven.

"Elliot Griffin," I said.

Her eyes went wide. "Julian's—"

"Oldest rival," I finished. "Yes."

"Sloan, that's—"

"Exactly what Palmer Ross is afraid of," I said. "Which is why it's going to work."

I unlocked the car. Haven didn't move.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked, quieter now.

I thought about Julian's hand in Willa's hair. Palmer's smile in my father's office. The way my father's shoulders had looked when he thought he might lose thirty years of work because his daughter refused to apologize for telling the truth.

I thought about the ring I'd stopped wearing and couldn't remember taking off.

"No," I said. "But I'm doing it anyway."

I got in the car, pulled up Elliot Griffin's contact — saved from a business conference two years ago, never deleted, never called — and pressed dial before I could think too hard about what came next.

He picked up on the second ring.