Chapter 18 - Adrian’s Ruin and Regret
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Down at Table Four, Julian Cross immediately shoved Sophia’s hand off his tuxedo arm as two FBI Special Agents and four Chicago police officers marched down the center aisle with handcuffs drawn.
"I have never seen that clinic footage in my life!" Cross barked at his defense attorney beside him as the agents reached the table. "If this woman tried to sell stolen jewelry or clone Moretti’s security pass to pay off her European markers, she acted on her own!"
Sophia’s jaw dropped as Julian Cross threw her to the wolves without blinking.
As two female police officers grabbed Sophia’s bare arms and pulled her wrists behind the back of her crimson couture gown, all the sweet, helpless childhood-sweetheart charm she had weaponized for a decade evaporated into ugly, screaming hysteria.
"You coward, Julian!" Sophia shrieked, thrashing against the handcuffs as the press photographers crowded against the velvet rope to film her arrest.
Then her wild, mascara-streaked eyes locked onto Adrian standing ten feet away by the marble pillar.
"Adrian!" Sophia screamed across the silent ballroom. "Adrian, do something! Tell your lawyers to stop them! It’s me—it’s Sophia!"
Adrian didn't move a muscle. His face was ghostly pale, his dark eyes hollow and terrifyingly dead as he looked at her in handcuffs.
"You stole my grandmother’s stone," Adrian said, his voice quiet yet carrying clearly across the marble floor. "And you used my brother’s memory to play me like a fool while you sold my vault codes to Julian Cross."
Seeing that the man who had rescued her a hundred times wasn't going to lift a finger to save her from twenty years in a federal penitentiary, Sophia spat venomous laughter right in Adrian’s face as the officers dragged her toward the exit.
"Of course I played you, you pathetic second choice!" Sophia screamed back over her shoulder while the entire room listened in horror. "Do you really think I ever loved you, Adrian?! Ten years ago, the only reason I dated you was to get into the Moretti house so your older brother Marco would notice me! When Marco died on that boat and my father lost his money, I went to Milan because nobody thought a dull workaholic like you would ever inherit the syndicate! The only reason I came back six months ago was because I owed four million euros and I knew you were still dumb enough to come running every time I cried!"
The heavy ballroom doors slammed shut behind the police escort, cutting off her screams in the lobby.
Nobody in the room looked at the doors. Five hundred pairs of eyes looked slowly at Adrian Moretti.
The man who had thrown away a devoted wife, forfeited two billion dollars in family shares, and humiliated himself in front of the entire city had just been told in front of five hundred witnesses that his precious childhood sweetheart had only ever wanted his dead brother.
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Adrian’s knees literally buckled slightly before he caught himself against the marble pillar, his hand gripping the stone so hard his knuckles bled. He slowly turned his head up toward the center stage where I stood beneath the chandelier light in my emerald gown.
Looking into my calm, untroubled eyes, Adrian finally understood the truth: I hadn't lost him to Sophia Reynolds. He had lost everything the afternoon he told me to stay home and rest.
