Chapter 6 - THE DESPERATE MEASURES
Desperation makes people dangerous, but it also makes them stupid. Three days after the gala, the legal hammer fell on the entire family. Elias’s team successfully executed the liens. Samantha came home to her luxury penthouse to find a foreclosure notice taped to the door, legally barring her from selling or taking out loans against the property. His parents received identical notices in Aspen. The fake empire Bryce had built for them was collapsing in real-time.
At 2:00 AM on a Tuesday, the alarm system in the Interlomas mansion blared to life. The piercing wail shattered the quiet of the night. I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart hammering in my chest. Before I could even reach for my phone, Miller’s voice crackled through the intercom system.
"Ms. Sterling, stay in your room. The outer perimeter has been breached. We have eyes on the suspect on the rear terrace."
I grabbed my silk robe and hurried to the security monitors in the hallway. The night-vision cameras showed a figure frantically smashing a patio chair against the reinforced, shatterproof glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was Bryce. He looked disheveled, wild-eyed, and completely unhinged. The glass splintered but didn't give way.
Within seconds, Miller and two other guards swarmed him. Bryce swung wildly, but he was no match for trained professionals. They had him pinned to the ground in the wet grass before he could even register what was happening.
I walked down the stairs, turned on the floodlights, and opened the terrace door just as the wail of police sirens echoed up the canyon.
"You ruined my life!" Bryce screamed, spitting grass and dirt from his mouth as Miller held him down. "My parents won't even speak to me! Samantha has nowhere to go! You have all the money, Candice! You could have just let it go!"
I stood in the doorway, looking down at the man I had once thought I would spend the rest of my life with. There was no pity left in me. Only a cold, clinical disgust.
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"You ruined your own life, Bryce," I said quietly, wrapping my robe tighter around myself against the chill night air. "You thought I was weak. You thought because I loved you, I would just let you erase me. You miscalculated."
The police arrived in force, storming the backyard with flashlights. They pulled Bryce to his feet, slapping heavy metal handcuffs onto his wrists. He didn't look arrogant anymore. He didn't look charming. He looked like a broken, pathetic man who had finally realized the game was over. As the police read him his rights and marched him toward a squad car, I turned off the floodlights, plunging the yard back into darkness.
