Chapter 3
1533words
"Ava? It's late—everything okay?" His voice came through bright and cheerful, tinged with surprise.
"Are you free right now? I need to see you in person. There's something important I have to tell you face-to-face." My voice was eerily calm.
Alex hesitated briefly. "Alright. Meet me at that coffee shop near my office."
Half an hour later, I sat by the window, watching my handsome, gentle brother push open the door. He walked toward me with an easy smile—a smile that cut through my heart like a blade.
"What's so damn important you had to drag me out in the middle of the night?" He dropped into the seat across from me, his tone teasing as he flagged down a waiter for an Americano.
I had no patience for small talk. My nails dug crescents into my palms under the table. "Nina's pregnant, isn't she?"
His smile widened instantly, pure joy radiating from him. "You know already? Did Mom tell you? I was going to surprise everyone tomorrow."
I drew a deep breath, as if I could inhale courage from the air, and pushed my phone toward him. On the screen was a screenshot from the manor's security footage—Father's Bentley and Nina's Porsche entering the estate one after another, with timestamps showing they left three hours later.
"Before you share your 'surprise,' can you explain why—on Thanksgiving night, after Nina supposedly went home sick—she and Father spent three hours alone at the manor?"
Alex's smile froze. He picked up the phone, confusion clouding his eyes. "This... this is impossible. Nina said she wasn't feeling well and went straight home. Dad left ages ago. Ava, are you sure? This is just a screenshot—it doesn't prove anything. Could be a coincidence."
"A coincidence?" I sneered, my heart breaking at his denial. "Then what about this?"
I swiped to a video I'd recorded through the cracked door. Despite the dim, shaky footage, the sounds came through with brutal clarity—the unmistakable moans, my father's face twisted with pleasure, and the writhing female form I knew all too well. The audio cut through the quiet café like a scream.
The color drained from Alex's face. He stared at the screen, his body trembling uncontrollably. His freshly delivered Americano tipped over, scalding coffee flooding across his hand. He didn't even flinch.
"No... this isn't real... can't be real..." he muttered, his eyes hollow as if his soul had fled. He looked up at me, pleading. "Ava, tell me this isn't real. You edited this. You're messing with me, right?"
I shook my head, fresh tears welling. "I'm so sorry, Alex. I don't want to believe it either, but I saw it with my own eyes."
Alex shot to his feet like a wounded animal and bolted from the coffee shop without another word.
I couldn't catch him—only watched his car roar to life and tear into the night.
He was heading straight for the home he shared with Nina.
Alex nearly kicked the front door off its hinges. The living room was dark except for a seductive pink glow from the bedroom. He stormed to the bedroom door and flung it open to find Nina perched on the edge of the bed in a sheer silk nightgown, leisurely applying lotion to her legs.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Alex's voice rasped like sandpaper, his eyes bloodshot.
Nina startled but quickly composed herself, even showing irritation at the interruption. "What's wrong with you? I told you I wasn't feeling well and came home early."
"Came home?" Alex let out a hollow laugh. He hurled my phone onto the bed where the video still played on loop. "You came home to fuck my father?!"
Nina glanced at the screen. Her expression flickered briefly before settling into something cold and contemptuous—a smile that shattered her gentle, graceful facade.
"Yes, your father and I are together." She didn't bother denying it, her tone as casual as if discussing dinner plans. "You've seen it now. Good. Saves me the trouble of pretending anymore."
Alex's body shook violently as he stared at this stranger before him. "Why? Haven't I been good to you? We're having a baby..."
"Baby?" Nina laughed as if he'd told the funniest joke. She rose and stalked toward him with deliberate slowness, her eyes filled with pity and mockery. "You really think this child is yours? God, you're pathetic, Alex. Did you think I married you for love? What I love is the Victor name and everything it can give me."
She extended one crimson-tipped finger and jabbed it into his chest. "What I want are the resources and status of this family. I want to be the matriarch. Your father can give me far more than you—his lapdog of an heir—could ever dream of."
Her words crushed Alex's last shred of hope. He grabbed her wrist, his eyes so bloodshot they seemed ready to weep crimson. "You fucking bitch!"
"Let go!" Nina wrenched free, not a trace of fear on her face. "What? Going to hit me? Think carefully. I'm carrying your father's child now—the true next heir of the Victor family. You really want to touch me?"
Alex released her, hollow and broken. He stared at this stranger wearing his wife's face, feeling like the universe's biggest joke. Then he turned and fled that poisoned space, with only one thought remaining—he needed to find the father who had destroyed everything he loved.
At dawn, Alex stormed into Victor Group's headquarters like a man possessed. Ignoring the receptionist's protests, he charged to the executive floor and bellowed at the closed mahogany door: "VICTOR! GET OUT HERE NOW!"
The door flew open. Father stood there in his immaculate suit, brows furrowed in irritation. "What the hell are you doing causing a scene? This is a place of business."
"Business?" Alex glared at him with feral, bloodshot eyes. "When you were fucking my wife, did you think about business then? Did you think about your family?"
The words exploded across the quiet office. Every employee froze, staring at father and son with shocked expressions.
Victor's face went ashen. He grabbed Alex's collar and dragged him into the office, slamming the door with a bang that cut off the spectators.
"You reckless idiot!" Victor shoved Alex away, jabbing a finger in his face. "You'd cause a scene at the company over a woman? Want to humiliate the entire family because of your bruised ego?"
"I'm embarrassing? Who's really embarrassing here?!" Alex snapped, lunging forward to grab Victor's tie. "That's my WIFE! Your DAUGHTER-IN-LAW! How could you do this?!"
CRACK! The sound of a slap echoed through the office.
Immediately after, Victor drove his fist into Alex's face.
Alex stumbled backward, blood trickling from his split lip. He collapsed to the floor, staring up at his father in disbelief as the last spark of hope died in his eyes.
"All this fuss over a plaything?" Victor looked down at him, not a trace of guilt in his eyes—only cold contempt and rage. "I give you everything. The best life. A clear path to success. And this is how you repay me? Destroying our family's reputation over a woman who can be replaced tomorrow?"
At that moment, the office door swung open.
Emma—who had rushed over after an urgent call from the company secretary—arrived to find her eldest son bleeding on the floor while her husband stood over him like a hunter admiring his kill.
In that instant, the world went silent.
Emma froze in the doorway, her gaze shifting from her son's pale face to her husband's remorseless one. The color drained from her face, and in those eyes that had always held a gentle smile, something collapsed forever.
She didn't cry. She didn't scream.
She simply walked to Alex's side and, with movements both gentle and steel-firm, helped him to his feet.
She wiped the blood from her son's mouth, then turned and—for the first time—looked directly at Victor with an utterly foreign coldness.
"You've touched what you shouldn't have," her voice was soft yet carried a bone-chilling edge, "and destroyed what should never have been broken."
Victor stood stunned by her unprecedented gaze. For the first time, he felt a primal fear stirring in his bones—fear of this woman he'd always seen as meekly obedient.
"From this day forward," Emma said, each word precise as a blade, "I will make you pay."
With that, she turned away without another glance. Supporting her broken son, spine straight as steel, she walked out of that poisoned room.
Back at the mansion that once symbolized happiness and success, the air now felt thick as a crypt.
Emma settled Alex on the sofa and called me in. She looked at us both, the last trace of softness gone from her eyes, replaced by a hardness like forged steel.
"I need your help," her voice rang calm and clear with undeniable authority, "to unearth every filthy secret in this family. I'm going to make sure he and that woman never hold their heads up in the Victor name again."
