Chapter 4

“If you’re trying to shame me, Ethan, you’re wasting your breath. I’m not the one who screwed my best friend behind closed doors and pushed me off a cliff for good measure.”

His face went pale, like I’d slapped him. “What did you say?”

I smiled thinly. “You heard me.”

He stared at me for a long time. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense,” I said. “And if you knew what was good for you, you’d walk away now.”

“I’m not leaving until I get an explanation.”

“Fine,” I snapped, crossing my arms. “You want the truth? I saw through you. Through your lies. Your fake smiles. Your dirty money games. You thought I was some porcelain doll you could dress up and parade around in exchange for loyalty. You thought I’d never figure out that you’re laundering money through Lila’s fake art gallery. That your father's holding company is being gutted piece by piece. That everything you have is rotting from the inside out.”

His eyes widened a fraction, just enough for me to know I’d struck true.

“Serena…” he warned.

“I’m not scared of you anymore,” I said. “You and Lila can burn in each other’s ambition. But you won’t take me down with you.”

He moved fast, hands grabbing my arms, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to remind me who he used to be.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said through clenched teeth. “You don’t know what you’re walking into.”

“I already walked through hell,” I whispered, “and I survived. Can you say the same?”

For a beat, we just stood there. The house was dead silent. His fingers loosened and dropped from my arms.

“You’ve changed,” he said softly.

“Yes,” I said. “And I’m never going back.”

He looked at me, one last time. I could see him searching for the girl I used to be. The one who blushed at his compliments. Who believed every lie. Who wore a dress he picked and walked into a fire for a love that never really existed.

But she was gone.

“Goodbye, Ethan.”

He left without another word.

As soon as the door closed, my knees buckled and I sank onto the steps, chest heaving.

I hadn’t cried. Not once.

But the weight of it, the confrontation, the truth, the surreal fact that I was back here, in time, rewriting my own fate, pressed down like a thundercloud.

I looked up at the moonlight spilling through the stained glass window. And I thought of Lucien.

His voice still lingered in my ear.

“You’ll fit in just fine.”

I hadn’t come to him for anything more than strategy. But something about the way he watched me, like he could see past my skin and bone into the fire underneath, unsettled me.

His kiss, if you could even call it that, was a test. A game. But it felt like the opening of something dangerous. Something I didn’t want.

Or so I told myself.

Because fate had a twisted sense of humor. And somewhere in the shadows of this war, it had already chosen its next move.

Ethan's POV

The night air hit his face like ice the second he stepped out of the estate.

Ethan walked to his car in a daze, each footfall feeling heavier than the last. The door shut behind him with a quiet finality, but her words kept echoing like gunshots in his mind.

“You thought I was some porcelain doll…”

“…You and Lila can burn in each other’s ambition.”

“…I already walked through hell.”

She was unrecognizable.

Serena.

The woman who used to smile at his smallest gestures, who trusted him so blindly it bored him sometimes, was gone. Replaced by someone sharper, colder, fearless.

And worse, she knew things.

Things she shouldn't. Things he was sure were buried deep enough even his father didn’t question.

Ethan slid into the backseat of his car, loosened his tie further, and leaned back, staring at the roof.

How?

It had to be jealousy. That was the only thing that made sense. Maybe she found something, some report or transaction, linked to the shell companies tied to Lila’s gallery. Maybe she confronted Lila and got some half truth. It wasn’t impossible.

And she was impulsive. Always had been. Her father used to joke she’d tear down the world just to prove she could rebuild it prettier.

But the wedding dress…

He closed his eyes.

That wasn't a tantrum. That was… symbolic. Calculated.

And the look in her eyes, he'd never forget it. She wasn’t bluffing. She wasn’t confused. She had stood there in front of him like a queen unseating her king.

He tapped his fingers against his knee restlessly.

“You don’t know what you’re walking into,” he’d told her.

Now he wasn’t sure he did.

He pulled out his phone.

17 missed calls.

8 from Lila. 6 from his assistant. 3 from his father.

Lila’s name blinked at the top, demanding attention.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he scrolled to a private contact buried under layers of fake IDs and burner names.

The Zhao family didn’t rise to the top of the industry by being soft. They had people for information. For surveillance. For silencing.

He clicked Send Message.

“Watch Serena Lin. Discreetly. I want to know who she meets. Where she goes. What she knows.”

He hesitated. Then added:

“And find out if she’s in contact with Lucien Feng.”

He stared at the message for a long moment before hitting send.

Lucien.

He hadn’t heard that name in months. Not since that boardroom war two years ago that nearly dismantled half of Zhao Corp’s overseas partners. The man was a ghost in a Brioni suit, brilliant, unpredictable, impossible to buy or sway.

If Serena had met him…

No. That would mean she wasn’t emotional. She was tactical.

And that possibility chilled him more than anything else.

Because if Serena Lin had stopped loving him, and started thinking like him, then he wasn’t looking at a broken engagement.

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