Sonia Van der Berg had not spent the last three years idle.
While Nancy built empires and Adrian fought for his life, Sonia had been planning. Scheming. Arranging the pieces for a final, devastating checkmate.
"He's meeting with her tonight," Marcus reported, entering her study. "Dinner. Public place. Very proper."
"How disappointing." Sonia didn't look up from her laptop, where financial projections glowed. "I expected more passion. More recklessness. The old Adrian would have swept her into his arms, consequences be damned."
"The old Adrian is dead. The new one is... careful. Methodical."
"Broken," Sonia corrected. "I broke him. Just as I planned." She finally looked at Marcus, noting the gray in his hair, the lines of stress around his eyes. He'd aged in her service, sacrificed for her dreams. She felt nothing. "Phase three begins tonight. Are the documents prepared?"
"Everything you requested." Marcus set a folder on her desk. "But Sonia, I have to ask—are you certain? Once we do this, there's no going back. We'll be criminals. Fugitives."
Sonia laughed, crystalline and cold. "We've always been criminals, Marcus. The difference is that tonight, we win." She opened the folder, reviewing the forged signatures, the fraudulent transfers, the evidence that would frame Nancy Clark for embezzlement—this time for real. "By morning, Thorne Enterprises will be in freefall. Adrian will be ruined. And Nancy..." She smiled, beautiful and terrible. "Nancy will be in prison. Where she belongs."
"And then?"
"And then Adrian will come to me." Sonia stood, moving to the window, looking out at a city that would soon be hers. "Broken, desperate, finally understanding that I'm the only one who can save him. Who ever truly loved him."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Then: "And if he doesn't? If he chooses prison with her over freedom with you?"
Sonia's reflection in the glass showed a woman unrecognizable—hollow-eyed, obsessed, consumed by a love that had long since become indistinguishable from hate.
"Then they both burn," she said softly. "And I dance in the ashes."