Chapter 16: Gambler’s Daughter
Champagne tower prisms danced across the gala, but the delicate violin strains couldn’t mask the razor–edged tension in their corner.
Scarlett snapped, her voice dripping with sarcasm as champagne sloshed in her glass, “Your precious Little Miss Innocent has nearly emptied the company coffers, and you’ve got nothing better to do than crash a gala?”
Zane’s knuckles whitened around his glass. “Watch your tone, Ms. Bennett.”
“Or what?” Scarlett stepped fully in front of Nova, shielding her. “Three months. Enough stolen to buy a private island. Her island.”
Whispers crescendoed. Eyes darted toward them.
Nova tugged Scarlett’s sleeve. “Let’s go-
“Why spare his pride?” Scarlett’s voice cut through the murmurs. “He torched his empire for a con artist! And now he dares harass you?”
Zane seized Nova’s wrist. “We talk Now,”
“Unhand her!” Scarlett slapped his grip away. “The divorce decree’s ink is dry, Blackthorn. What’s this pathetic charade?”
Phones lifted, recording
Nova exhaled sharply. “Follow me.”
In the moonlit rose garden, fountain mist cooled the air but not the fury.
“Nova,” Z
Zane’s voice was raw sandpaper. He reached for her. “It wasn’t-”
“Irrelevant.” Nova evaded his touch, stepping back “We are done. No more contact. Ever.”
“Enough theatrics!” Zane advanced, frustration cracking his control. “I never wanted divorce! Ivy was vulnerable–needed support! Must you be this jealous? 1-
The slapeclined. A nightingale burst from the hedges.
Scarlett shook her stinging palin. “Support? You call bankrolling her theft support? Letting her squat in your marital home? Flaunting jewels she siphoned from your company?”
Her laugh was ice. “Countless are vulnerable, Blackthorn. Why lavish ruin only on her?”
Zane turned his stinging cheek, tongue probing the coppery tang Rage darkened his eyes. “You know nothing. Ivy is-
“Is what? Scarlett slashed the air. “Orphaned? Helpless?”
She yanked her phone out, stabbing the screen. “See what your ‘precious innocent‘ really does!”
Images flashed under moonlight
Ivy draped over a sliver–hatred tycoon on a yacht’s deck
Ivy pushing stacks of chips toward a blond croupier in Monte Carlo
The killing blow–Ivy, arm in armwith Blackhorn Group’s fiercest rival, entering the Ritz–timestamped three days ago
“No.“Zane staggered back as it gut punched “Impossible-”
know why she really fled back! Scarlett closed in, relentless. “Her “hopeless gambling–addict father‘? Alle! She owed millions to Macau loan sharks! Ran when they came for her kneecaps!”
Nova’s breath caught Shock flickered across her face.
Zane’s skin turned parchment–white A vein throbbed at his temple. “Lies!”
ReelShort
“Verify it yourself.” Scarlett hooked her arm through Nova’s, protective. “And spare us your wounded act. You reveled in having both women—until Nova broke free. That’s why you’re scrambling ”
“Nova–it’s not true!” Zane’s plea scraped his throat, desperate as he looked past Scarlett to Nova. “I didn’t know–Is
| swear-
Nova met his shattered gaze. Only serenity looked back. “It changes nothing, Zane. This ends here.”
Spines
straight, she turned. Scarlett followed without a backward glance.
Alone, Zane’s hand trembled violently as he fumbled for his phone. The dial tone pulsed like a failing heartbeat.
“Dig,” he choked out when his assistant answered, “Ivy Callahan. Everything! Five years back. I need to know…” His voice broke. “Who betrayed me.”
Daughter
