1 The merger of New York’s two most powerful dynasties shocked the world—until I caught my fiancée, Sienna Hayes, kissing the scholarship student she sponsored at our engagement party. "Emmet, it’s not what it looks like." She hastily adjusted her couture gown, cheeks flushed. I laughed coldly as the man fumbled with his collar. "Blind, am I?" I threw the ring at her feet. "Finish this engagement, or your family goes bankrupt. Choose." Defiant, she retrieved it. "Fine." But when the ceremony began, she walked past me—straight to him. "The man I love has always been Ryan," she declared. "I’ll never marry a bastard like you!" The room erupted. Gasps. Mockery. Cameras flashing. And I, Emmet Reed, became New York’s biggest joke. As she kissed him, my heart turned to ash. You betrayed me first, Sienna. Don’t blame me for burning your world down. … “Mr. Reed, the company’s stock has already plummeted by 30%.” My assistant reported the news with his head bowed, his voice trembling. I stared at my phone. The top five trending topics were all about the engagement party fiasco. Under the hashtag #HeiressDefiesArrangedMarriageForLove, the comments were a firestorm of outrage. “Who does this Reed guy think he is? The girl has a true love, and he tries to force her into a marriage? What a shameless scumbag. He deserved to be dumped!” “Sienna Hayes, you are an icon! Show this bastard what karma looks like!” “Reed Corp should just go bankrupt. A trash company like that doesn’t deserve to exist!” Page after page, it was a public trial, and I was the villain. I scrolled through them calmly, my expression unreadable, until a notification for Sienna’s latest post popped up. 【Finally free. Heading toward a new future with the one I love.】 The accompanying photo was a close-up of her hand intertwined with Ryan’s. The engagement ring that was supposed to be ours was now on another man’s finger. I stared at the words for a long time, and then, I laughed. “Get the legal team on the line. I want them to activate the highest-level penalty clause in our contract. Terminate all partnerships with the Hayes Corporation. Immediately.” My assistant’s hand visibly shook. “Sir… shouldn’t we release a statement first? To explain? The entire internet is crucifying you right now…” “What is there to explain?” I cut him off, slamming my phone down on the desk. “I have no time to waste on a treacherous woman like her.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, the familiar ache of a migraine starting, and sank into the plush leather of the sofa. The memories came flooding back. Five years ago, the Hayes family was on the brink of ruin. At a high-profile auction, she had stubbornly kept bidding, trying to save her family’s last ancestral home. The entire room was waiting for her to make a fool of herself. But I saw the fire in her eyes, the refusal to surrender. So I stepped in, bought the estate, and gifted it to her, no strings attached. Back then, she had nothing. She saw me as her lifeline, kneeling at my feet and promising, “Emmet Reed, if you save my family, I will do anything for you.” I had chuckled and helped her up. “Anything? Then marry me.” Her eyes had flashed with anger, but also with a glimmer of something else. To help her family’s company recover, I’d drank myself into a bleeding ulcer at business dinners. She had stayed by my hospital bed, her eyes red, and whispered, “Emmet, don’t you ever do that again.” Seeing her looking at me like I was her entire world, I thought it was all worth it. I thought we were each other’s salvation. I used the Reed Corporation’s resources and my own network to help her rebuild her family’s business empire. I taught her how to be a savvy businesswoman. The Hayes Corporation went from a struggling startup to a global powerhouse. But somewhere along the way, our relationship soured. She started resisting my touch, fighting my decisions. She began to romanticize the past, a simpler time she imagined she’d lost. And that was when Ryan, the scholarship student, appeared. She projected all her nostalgia, all her yearning for a life unburdened by wealth and power, onto him. A month before the engagement, I had warned her directly. “Sienna, I don’t need to tell you how important this merger is. I expect you to act accordingly.” She’d toyed with her teacup, her reply dismissive. “Don’t be so dramatic, Emmet. I just see Ryan as a little brother. His family is struggling. What’s wrong with helping him out?” “He’s a grown man,” I’d reminded her, my voice low. “He can get a job.” She’d slammed her cup down. “It’s not the same! When did you become so cold-hearted? You’re nothing but a cynical, money-obsessed businessman now! Ryan is so much purer than you!” It was in that moment that I understood. She was no longer the girl who needed me. And she was desperate to escape my control. I decided to take a step back, to treat her as nothing more than a business partner. As long as she played her part, everything could proceed as planned. But I forgot one crucial thing: people change. Especially when they convince themselves they are the victim. The door to my office was thrown open. Sienna stormed in, radiating fury, with Ryan trailing timidly behind her. I glanced up at her, my voice cold. “What is it?” She pulled a document from her purse and slapped it onto my desk. “Let’s call off the engagement.” She pulled Ryan into a chair beside her. “Let’s just end this amicably. For our own dignity.” I laughed. “Sienna, you have the nerve to talk about dignity? Where was your dignity last night when you publicly humiliated my family at our engagement party?” I stood up, planting my hands on the desk, and loomed over her. “You didn’t just ruin an engagement party. You destroyed a three-year strategic alliance between our families. You jeopardized the next five years of commercial development for this entire city. Are you telling me you didn’t know that?!” She gave a mocking smile and leaned back, her posture arrogant. “Of course I knew.” “All you ever see is profit! You even turned our engagement into a business transaction!” Ryan tugged at her sleeve, his voice barely a whisper. “Emmet, sir… please don’t blame Sienna. It’s all my fault. I… I couldn’t control my feelings…” “Shut up!” I roared, cutting him off. “No one asked you to speak!” Ryan’s face went white, and he immediately fell silent. The sight of his fear seemed to ignite something in Sienna. She shot to her feet, pointing a finger at me. “Emmet Reed, that’s enough! Just because you helped me once doesn’t mean you get to control my life forever! Every single day with you has been suffocating! You didn’t help my family or drink yourself sick for me! You did it to solidify your own empire! And I was just the most obedient pawn in your game!” Every word was a knife to the heart. I took a deep breath and met her eyes. “So, in your eyes, from the moment I bought your family’s estate, I was just using you?” “When I chartered a private jet to fly in the world’s top specialists for your father’s surgery, that was also an act?” “Sienna, do you even have a heart?” Her eyes flickered with a moment of uncertainty. I smiled, but my eyes were bloodshot. “Sienna, I’m going to ask you one last time.” “Did you ever—” “I loved you!” she blurted out, her face a mask of defiant anger. “Happy now? Did you need to hear that pathetic answer before you’d finally let it go?” Then, in a final act of provocation, she looped her arm through Ryan’s and placed her other hand on her stomach. “But things are different now.” “I’m pregnant with Ryan’s child. I have to do right by them.” The truth, so sudden and brutal, hit me like a physical blow. So that was it. I was just a pawn in their twisted little love story. The very next day, Sienna held a press conference. I sat in my office, watching the news feed, my face an impassive mask. Sienna’s eyes were red-rimmed and her face was pale, the carefully applied makeup unable to hide her exhaustion. Ryan sat beside her, looking like he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. “First, I want to sincerely apologize to everyone who has been following this,” she began, her voice catching with a practiced sob. “For five years, I have been repaying a debt of gratitude. Every moment of every day, I’ve had to live under the thumb of the Reed family! A single contract decided the course of my entire life.” She spoke with a tearful choke in her voice for the entire speech. Only when she spoke of Ryan did a genuine smile touch her lips. “Only Ryan cared about what I truly wanted.” She wiped away a non-existent tear. “I admit, Emmet Reed is a brilliant businessman. The Hayes Corporation wouldn’t be where it is today without his help.” But in the next breath, her words turned sharp. “But he controlled every aspect of my life. Which clients I met with, which restaurants I dined at. Even the gowns I wore to galas and the jewelry I was allowed to put on were all pre-approved by him. I felt like a puppet, a marionette with no thoughts of my own, living completely in his shadow.” Ryan, on cue, wrapped a protective arm around her trembling shoulders and cried to the cameras, “Sienna just wanted to be her own person! I couldn’t bear to see her in so much pain! Mr. Reed… I’m so sorry. Please, I’m begging you, just let us go.” The room exploded with flashes. The comments on the livestream went berserk. 【Oh my God! I can’t believe this heiress was living in a gilded cage!】 【Emmet Reed is a monster! A controlling freak! A man like that deserves to rot in hell!】 【I support Sienna! True love will conquer all!】 Finally, Sienna announced that she would be starting a new company, completely separate from the Reed empire. “I will rebuild my company, my way.” “I know the road ahead will be difficult, but with Ryan, and… our child,” she said, her voice filled with resolve, “I know I can do it.” The press conference ended, and the internet boiled over. With the tide of public opinion turned against me, I became the villain of the story. The phones at Reed Tower rang off the hook with calls from the media. Several long-term clients tactfully terminated their contracts, afraid of being associated with the bad press. I stared at Sienna’s duplicitous face on the screen and felt a wave of nausea. A chilling, visceral hatred rose within me. I wiped a cold, damp tear from my own cheek and picked up the phone. “Get the legal team. Conference room in five minutes.” My assistant hesitated. “Sir… is there really no turning back from this?” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “The die is cast.” “I’m going to destroy them.”
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