Everyone Expected Revenge, I Gave Them My Blessing

My boyfriend's mistress posted a pregnancy announcement with him on Instagram. They looked ridiculously happy. Then she tagged me and asked for my blessing in front of everyone. Naturally, the whole internet waited for me to tear her apart. They had every reason to expect bloodshed. I'd dragged myself out of the ruins of a crime family and fought my way to the top of Wall Street. Julian Rhodes, meanwhile, was the son of the nanny who had raised me. And Emily Nash? She was a medical intern who grew up in the slums. Soon, even underground bookies were taking bets on what I'd do. Half bet Emily wouldn't make it out alive. The rest bet Julian would die beside her. I did neither. Instead, I shocked everyone by congratulating them. There was a reason for that. A month earlier, Julian had been badly injured while protecting me during a shootout at the pier. The head injury had left him with an alternate personality. That other Julian had fallen hard for the first person he'd seen when he woke up—Emily. A few days earlier, Emily twisted her ankle as she walked past me. That alone was enough to bring out Julian's other personality. He grabbed an antique vase and smashed it against my forehead. Hot blood ran down my brow and into my eye. My hand went straight to the gun at my hip. Then I stopped myself. He laughed and pointed at me. "Caroline, touch Emily again, and the real Julian will never wake up. You'll never see him again." Julian had saved my life the night my family was wiped out. He also held the access keys to everything I owned. So if I wanted the real Julian back, I had no choice but to endure it. Chapter 1 Emily said I always held back—that I was too boring for Julian and he needed more excitement in his life. So she invited me to Hudson Pier. The place where my family had been slaughtered. The place where Julian had risked his life to save mine. 10 years ago, I was the spoiled heiress of the mob. Then Rafael, the Don of a rival family, decided he wanted to marry me—and he wouldn't take no for an answer. My three brothers were furious. They wanted him dead. None of us knew that Rafael was the illegitimate son of the Sorels, the most powerful drug family in the world. His father wasn't about to let anyone threaten his son. He lured my family to Hudson Pier with a billion-dollar deal, then had them all killed. A bullet grazed my hair on its way toward my forehead. At the last second, someone shoved me off the dock. When I woke up, my father, my mother, and my three brothers were dead. The family members who had once followed me everywhere had vanished without a trace by morning. I couldn't even blame them. Everyone was terrified of the Sorels. I'd already decided to join my family in death. But despite his family's objections, Julian came to me and promised to protect me forever and stay by my side as I grew stronger. Now I was strong, and he was the one who was sick. I owed it to him to do what he'd once done for me. So I accepted Emily's invitation and returned to the place where my nightmare began. Hudson Pier was once beautiful. Now it was nothing but a filthy, crumbling ruin. The pier had once belonged to my family. After the massacre, everyone treated it like cursed ground. For years, even I couldn't bring myself to return. But if returning could help Julian find his way back to himself, I could face it. I pushed through the cobwebs with my bare hands and followed the dusty, gold-trimmed walkway toward the main hall. As I crossed the threshold, my foot caught on something, and I fell onto a deck smeared with excrement. I'd thought about this place every day for 10 years. I knew every crack in every tile by heart. There was no way I'd simply tripped. I got to my feet and examined the entrance. Sure enough, someone had raised the stone threshold on purpose. "Who's there? Come out!" I drew my gun and swept it across the room. "Jumpy, aren't you? Guess that's what happens when a woman gets old!" Emily descended the stairs in black stockings and heels, a smug look on her face. The sweet young doctor from the hospital was gone. Now she looked like the kind of high-end escort you would see at an exclusive nightclub. I scoffed. Julian's alternate personality had to be incredibly naive to fall for such a cheap act. Fine. I'd clean up his mess for him. I slapped Emily hard enough to knock her down. But before I could do anything else, the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of my neck. "On your knees! Apologize to Emily!" I knew that voice. I turned in disbelief and saw Julian glaring at me with pure hatred. This was a man who had once valued my life above his own. How could his alternate personality hate me this much? I fought back my tears and kept my voice gentle. "Julian, don't let her fool you." I never got to finish. A slap sent me crashing back into the reeking filth. "Apologize to Emily right now, or forget about ever seeing your precious real Julian again!" he screamed like a madman. The despair I'd felt 10 years ago, when the whole world abandoned me, came rushing back. Then I remembered something. I wasn't that helpless little girl anymore. "Then I won't see him. Thank you for saving me back then. You helped me survive, and I've repaid that debt many times over with everything I've built since." Ignoring the pain, I pushed myself up, stripped off my filthy cashmere coat, and dropped it on the floor. Then I straightened my back. "We're even now. Julian, you're on your own." Julian's eyes widened, then slowly reddened. I ignored him and walked away. A soft, broken whimper came from behind me. "Caroline, you can't mean that. How could you throw me away?!" His whole body shook, his face slick with tears and cold sweat. He looked exactly as he had 10 years ago, when I'd tried to kill myself. Had I somehow shocked the real Julian back to the surface? Chapter 2 In an instant, all my humiliation and exhaustion vanished, replaced by a rush of joy. I spun around, grabbed both of Julian's hands, and held on tight, my voice trembling. "Julian, you remember, don't you? When the Sorel family opened fire on my family, everyone ran. You were the only one who rushed toward me and pushed me out of the way! "And five years ago, when our startup turned its first profit, you drove me past this place. You promised that one day you'd restore it to its former glory and make me feel like a princess again." I tightened my grip on his wrist, reminding him one by one of the memories seared into me. "I... I..." Guilt and confusion clouded Julian's eyes. The real Julian was still in there, fighting to break free of the false personality holding him captive! Then a sharp voice cut in. "Stop pushing him!" I turned to see my doctor, Layla Brennan, hurrying toward us. She had been the only doctor willing to treat me back then. Once I had money, I hired her as my private physician and financed a hospital for her. "Caroline, you know Julian suffered a serious head injury while protecting you. How can you keep pressuring him like this?" After 10 years, she was still just as naive. "Layla, look at me! Look at the bruises and the filth covering me. He did this!" I pointed at Julian, furious. Layla didn't flinch. "So what? When your family was wiped out and you tried to kill yourself, you were in far worse shape than he is now. Julian still cared for you for 10 years without losing patience once. He was injured only a month ago, and you already can't handle taking care of him?" I fell silent. One memory after another came flooding back. After my family was wiped out, I went overnight from an heiress worth ten billion dollars to a pariah buried under one hundred billion dollars in debt. I was determined to die. When I stood on the roof of an eight-story building, Julian stood below with his arms spread wide, ready to catch me. When I threw myself into the freezing Hudson River, he jumped in after me without hesitation. When I poisoned a glass of wine and tried to drink it, he caught me, snatched the glass away, and tried to drink it himself. I thought he'd lost his mind and demanded to know why he kept doing it. He told me he'd loved me since the first time he saw me, when he was eight. Back then, he'd expected to spend his whole life admiring me from afar. Then I lost everything, and according to him, that made him lucky because it finally gave him a chance to protect me. His eyes had held nothing but sincerity when he said it. I looked at Julian now, frightened and lost, and couldn't bring myself to give up on him. "I promise I'll do everything the doctors tell me so you can have your Julian back soon. Just try to get along with my Emily. Please?" He clutched my sleeve and looked up at me, begging like a child. I reached out, brushed the tears from his lashes, and nodded with a small smile. Fine. Emily had fooled him with a few cheap tricks. Once I ripped off her mask and showed him the truth, the real Julian would return on his own. As soon as we returned to the city, I ordered my bodyguard, Mateo, to investigate Emily. What he found left me stunned. Julian's alternate personality had been a lie Emily invented from the start! She had used her psychology training to manipulate his subconscious and create an alternate personality obsessed with her and obedient to her every word. She'd done it for one reason: she wanted to take my place. Chapter 3 Rage burned through me. Emily wanted my money and my position. Worse, she was twisting Julian's mind to get both. He had already suffered enough because of me. I wouldn't let her hurt him again. I went straight to the company and headed for Julian's office. His secretary hurried over to stop me. "Ms. Hart, Mr. Rhodes is with a major client. He shouldn't be disturbed." I scoffed. I'd built this company from the ground up. What major client would choose Julian over me? One look from me made the secretary step aside. I pushed open Julian's office door. He was on the couch, with Emily on her knees between his legs. The pleasure vanished from his face the moment he saw me, replaced by panic. There was nothing childlike about him now. He looked like a guilty coward. My stomach turned. I tried to reassure myself. It's fine. This isn't the real Julian. I swallowed my disgust and slammed down the evidence of Emily's deal with Barbara, the fixer who had helped her manipulate Julian. The video showed Emily exactly as she was—vicious and greedy. She called me a brainless idiot and Julian a spineless loser. Then she bragged that all it took to control a man like him was a little praise and adoration. After that, he'd do anything she wanted. Emily didn't even finish dressing. She rushed at me half-naked, snatched my phone, and smashed it. Then she burst into tears. "Why would you use AI to fake a video like this? Why are you trying to destroy what Julian and I have? If you have a problem with him, talk to him. Why put such disgusting words in my mouth? Thank God Julian is smart enough not to fall for something this cheap!" For a moment, I was speechless. Then I laughed in disbelief at how quickly she'd turned the accusation back on me. Julian's face flushed with anger, and his lips trembled as he struggled to speak. I was sure the real Julian was fighting his way back. This time, I'd put the truth right in front of him. There was no way Emily could talk her way out of it. I had Mateo bring in Barbara, her partner in the scheme, and ordered Barbara to tell Julian everything. The moment Barbara walked in, however, she handed Julian a stack of photos showing Mateo and me in bed together. She claimed I'd fabricated the evidence against Emily because I was terrified my affair with Mateo would be exposed. I stared at the photos, frozen. Her AI fakes looked even more convincing than my real security footage. Barbara hadn't become a top fixer for nothing. She'd been terrified and obedient when she confessed everything to Mateo, but now she changed her story without missing a beat. "I've seen every dirty trick in the book, and there's nothing I hate more than a woman who loses her mind over a man. But Emily is different. Her love for Julian is real. In all my years in this business, I've never seen anything like it. Even I was moved." Emily seized the opening. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at me. "Caroline, this is all my fault. I fell in love with your man, so of course you hate me enough to drag my name through the mud. I don't blame you. I just hope you'll stop seeing other men and treat Julian well. Make him happy. As long as he's happy, I'll leave and never come back." I was still rolling my eyes when Emily grabbed the fruit knife from the conference table and slashed a major artery. Blood sprayed everywhere. Julian broke down sobbing, scooped her into his arms, and rushed her to the hospital. What the hell was this? What were they trying to pull now? I followed them to find out. Chapter 4 I should never have followed them to the hospital. Damn it. Emily had tricked me again. The moment I walked in, they pulled me aside for a blood test. Julian said Emily had lost too much blood and might die, so everyone had to be tested as a possible donor. And what a coincidence—I was the only person in the entire hospital whose blood matched hers. Every alarm bell in my head went off. I flat-out refused to give that bitch a single drop of my blood. There was no way I believed Emily would risk her life just for money. Julian believed it. He dropped to his knees in front of me. "Caroline, I'm begging you. Please don't stand there and let her die." He wept like an innocent man, making me look like a heartless monster. Not this time. I wasn't going to let his tears control me again. I pulled free and headed for the exit. Mateo already had the car waiting. "You're leaving me when I'm sick just to run off with that driver?" Julian choked out the words through his tears, then suddenly collapsed. Everyone in the hallway started whispering. "So this is what you get for loving someone with all your heart? Caroline is so damn ungrateful!" "Julian hurt his head protecting her, and all she does is act annoyed with him. She doesn't deserve someone who treats her that well!" Unbelievable. I was the one who had paid for this hospital. Every holiday, I came here with bonuses and gifts for the staff. And this was what they thought of me. I turned around and saw that Layla had already brought Julian around. At least now I could leave without worrying about him. But before I could go, Layla started pleading again. "Caroline, Julian's mental state is hanging by a thread. If you push him like this again, his mind could break completely. He could end up in a vegetative state. Please. Just give in this once. It's only a few tubes of blood. It won't hurt you!" Layla wouldn't let up. Finally, I sighed. Fine. I'd do one last stupid thing for Layla and Julian. I turned toward the operating room, but Mateo rushed after me and grabbed my arm. "Don't go in there! You can't keep falling into that woman's traps!" I laughed and patted his shoulder. "Relax. This is my hospital. They can't try anything here. Go back to the office and get the paperwork ready. When I get back, I'm cleaning house." Mateo left without another word. I entered the room, where a nurse in scrubs, her face hidden by a mask, led me to a bed. I lay down. Then she took out a syringe and injected something into me. Wait. I'm here to give blood. Why is she injecting me? I shot upright. "What is that?" "It's poison." The nurse smiled and pulled off her mask and cap, revealing Emily, her beautiful face twisted into a vicious grin. "Better get your will in order, Caroline. In seven days, you'll be dead!" I screamed and ran out. I had to find Julian. I had to get him away from that monster! But as I passed Layla's office, I overheard a conversation that shattered everything I thought I knew. "Julian, why would you choose that bitch Emily over me? I've stood by you for years. I've gone along with everything you wanted. What does she have that I don't?" "Because she's younger, hotter, and smarter. She came up with this whole alternate-personality act for me. I get to have her worship me without losing Caroline. Why wouldn't I want that?" My blood ran cold. All this time, I'd been trying to bring the real Julian back, but he'd never gone anywhere. The alternate personality was an act, and he'd been part of it from the start. Worse, he'd been sleeping with Layla right under my nose for 10 years. I pressed a hand to my chest and forced myself to keep moving. I had to get out of there. I was going back to the office to liquidate everything I owned and leave that lying hypocrite without a cent. Then Mateo called. I answered immediately. "Caroline, Julian has already used the access keys to transfer all your assets into his name." "What?" My legs gave out, and I sank onto the curb. One piece of trash had stolen my money. Another bitch had taken my life. I'd die before I let either of them get away with it. I forced myself back to my feet and searched for Rafael's number, my hands trembling. 10 years ago, Rafael had wiped out my entire family because he wanted to marry me. Now he was the head of the Sorel family. Before I died, I was going to make a deal with the devil himself. The phone rang once. He picked up. "Hello, Caroline. I've been waiting for you." My blood turned to ice. He'd been waiting for me? What the hell did he want?