Kael’s POV
The bankruptcy leak hits the morning after the engagement party, but I'm not watching it. I'm watching the TMZ clip of me being dragged out of the Met.
It's on a loop. Me, in a tux, screaming like a lunatic. "YOU ARE MINE!" Then it cuts to Maeve. She's not even looking. She's turned to Caelen Rhys, her hand on his chest. Safe.
I can't fucking watch it anymore. The sight of her looking safe with him makes me want to put my fist through the screen.
I slam my thumb on the remote, desperate to switch to anything else, something less personal. The screen flips from TMZ to CNBC, but the image is just as brutal.
The Dareth empire is imploding in real time on live television.
CNBC's running a special segment. "The Fall of Dareth Industries: A Dynasty's Collapse." Bloomberg's got charts showing our stock price death spiral. Wall Street Journal's headline reads "Dareth Family Bankruptcy: How They Hid $170M in Debt."
I watch it all from my penthouse. Can't look away. Like watching footage of your own funeral.
My phone won't stop buzzing. Reporters. Lawyers. Board members demanding answers I don't have. Former friends suddenly remembering prior commitments when I try to call.
Seventeen voicemails from Mother. Each one progressively more unhinged.
I ignore them all. Pour myself scotch at 10am because what the fuck does it matter anymore.
I'm on my second glass when I hear a key in my private elevator lock. The doors slide open and my mother storms into my penthouse, my father trailing behind her, already drunk. She doesn't knock. She never knocks.
"How did this leak?" Mother demands. Her voice is shrill enough to shatter crystal, and she's not even looking at me, just pacing my living room.
"Who talked? Which one of you fucking betrayed this family?" My father collapses into an armchair. "It doesn't matter who leaked it, Victoria. It's over."
"It is NOT over!" she shrieks. "Gia's family money—" "Isn't enough." Father cuts her off. Words slurred but certain.
"It's not even close. We need two hundred million minimum to stay afloat. Gia's dowry was three. We're still drowning."
The truth lands like a bomb. Three million. A Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
"Then what was the point?" I hear myself ask, turning from the TV. "Why Gia? Why did you make me marry her if it wouldn't save us?" "To buy time!" Mother snaps, finally focusing her rage on me.
"To keep the creditors at bay while we secured the real money. While we secured Maeve's inheritance through you!"
They always needed Maeve. Always. Gia was just temporary patchwork on a sinking ship.
I sit there processing this. The full scope of how completely I fucked everything for nothing.
I kissed Gia last night. Publicly. Out of jealousy. Out of being an emotionally driven idiot.
The memory hits me. Princeton. Maeve asleep on my chest in my dorm room, surrounded by Econ textbooks. I'd spent an hour just rubbing her back until she drifted off.
I remember looking at her, this brilliant, fierce woman who chose me, and thinking, 'This is the only thing that's real.' I destroyed the only person who ever made me feel safe. For this.
"You need to grovel to Maeve," Mother's voice cuts through my spiral. "Beg for mercy. Convince her to help us. She's your wife—she has an obligation."
"She won't even take my calls." "Then show up at her office! Make her listen!" Mother is desperate now, her hands shaking. "You're charming. Remind her why she fell in love with you."
Father adds, voice thick with alcohol: "Tell her you're leaving us. That you choose her. Whatever it takes to get that money." Whatever it takes. Like I'm a prostitute they're pimping out.
I look at them. Desperate. Drowning. Willing to use me one last time. These are the people I destroyed my marriage for.
"No." The word comes out quiet. Certain. "What?" Mother blinks.
"I said no." I stand, legs steadier than they've been in weeks. "I told you I was done."
"Kael Dareth, you get back here!" Mother’s screaming as I walk toward my bedroom, away from them.
"You owe this family! We gave you everything!" "You gave me guilt and obligation," I say, not turning around. "Not the same thing as love."
Father's voice: "You walk out that door, you're cut off! Nothing!" "Good." I stop and look back at them, standing in my living room. "Now get out of my home."
Vera, who I didn't even notice was there, is crying harder now. "Kael, please. We need you."
That almost makes me stop. But she's the one who filmed Maeve's humiliation. None of them deserve my loyalty.
I walk into my bedroom and lock the door. I hear them screaming in the hall, then the elevator doors finally close. Silence.
The silence is deafening. I lean my head against the cool wood of the door. The adrenaline from the fight drains away, leaving me hollow.
My private elevator pings again. For a second, I think my mother is insane enough to come back. But when the doors open, it's Gia.
She's not in Chanel. She's in jeans and a simple black sweater, a stark contrast to the performative glamour from the party.
She looks at the overturned glass on my bar, the scattered news alerts on my TV. She looks... tired.
"They're gone?" she asks, her voice flat.
"I kicked them out." "I saw the news," she says, not moving from the elevator entrance. "The real numbers. One hundred and seventy million."
She isn't crying. She's just looking at me with a cold, clear understanding.
"My father's three million," she says, the words sharp as glass. "That was just... what? An insult? A joke to your family?"
I can't lie anymore. The part of me that builds facades is broken. "It was a band-aid," I whisper. "A pathetic, useless band-aid. Gia, I..."
"Don't." She holds up a hand. "I don't care about the money. My father will survive. But I care about this."
She gestures to her own face. "The humiliation. You put your grandmother's ring on my finger. You kissed me at that party."
Her voice finally cracks, just once. "Was that a lie, too? Was any of it real?"
This is it. The moment to be a man. To tell her some comforting lie that lets her leave with her dignity. I can't even do that right.
"The ring was my mother's idea," I say, my voice hollow. "And the kiss... I'm sorry, Gia. I was looking at Maeve. I just... I wanted to hurt her."
The admission hangs in the air, more brutal than a slap. I watch the last bit of warmth drain from her face, replaced by a chilling pity. It's the same look Maeve gave me.
She doesn't slap me. She doesn't scream. She just nods, once. "You're pathetic, Kael."
She steps back into the elevator. The doors close, and she's gone. She's right. I'm just wreckage. I walk to the window, finally, completely alone.
The city blurs past my windows. My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number:
"The bankruptcy filing's just the beginning. Wait until the criminal investigations start. - A Friend"
I stare at the words. He's right. Alexander Welch isn't just bankrupting me. He's coming to bury me.