The pristine, ordered world of Richard Sterling descended into chaos. The name on the divorce petition—Eliza Thorne—was a bomb that had detonated in the center of his life, and the shrapnel was tearing through everything he had built.
His first instinct was denial, followed by a surge of frantic, desperate anger. He snatched his phone, his hands shaking so badly he could barely type. He searched for "Eliza Thorne" online. The results flooded his screen, a tidal wave of articles from financial journals, society pages, and philanthropic publications. There she was, in photo after photo, sometimes with her brother, the formidable Julian Thorne, sometimes at charity galas, always exuding an aura of untouchable power and wealth. And in every photo, he saw a ghost of his Jane—in the curve of her smile, the intelligence in her eyes—but it was a ghost wearing a queen's crown.
He felt like a fool. A blind, arrogant, colossal fool.
He scrambled to call her. The number was still disconnected. He tried to find a number for her parents, only to remember the story she had told him: they were quiet academics who had died in a car crash years ago. Another lie in a tapestry of them. He tried to call Serena.
She answered on the fourth ring, her voice breathless and annoyed. "Richard? I'm busy."
"Serena, we have a problem," he hissed, pacing his office like a caged animal. "A huge problem. Her name. Her real name is Eliza Thorne."
There was a dead silence on the other end of the line. For a moment, he thought she had hung up. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost all its warmth. It was sharp and cold. "What did you say?"
"Thorne! As in Thorne Industries! She's Julian Thorne's sister! We are so, so screwed."
"You are screwed, Richard," Serena snapped, her voice turning venomous. "My name isn't on any of your company documents. Our arrangement was discreet. You need to handle your own messy divorce."
"Our arrangement? This was your idea as much as mine!" he shot back, his voice rising in panic.
"Prove it," she said, and hung up.
He stared at his phone in disbelief. She had cut him loose. Just like that. The realization hit him that he had been a pawn for her, too, a convenient tool to strike at a sister she clearly despised. He was utterly, completely alone in this.
The panic began to claw at his throat, hot and suffocating. He called his lawyer, a mid-level corporate attorney who was good at contracts but completely out of his depth for something like this.
"They can't do this!" Richard raged into the phone after explaining the situation. "She worked for me! I have emails! She lived as Jane Sterling! She can't just—"
"Mr. Sterling," his lawyer interrupted, his voice strained. "If she is who you say she is, she can do anything she wants. Thorne & Associates don't lose. You need to prepare for the worst."
The worst came faster than he could have possibly imagined. His primary investor called back, his tone no longer friendly. "Richard, I just got a call from a source at the Wall Street Journal. They're asking about irregularities in our third-quarter projections. What the hell is going on?"
Richard's blood ran cold. Those were the very projections Jane—Eliza—had helped him prepare. She knew them inside and out. She knew exactly where the numbers had been… massaged.
While Richard was drowning, I was breathing freely for the first time in years. From the quiet sanctuary of the Thorne estate study, I made my first power play. It was a simple, anonymous email from a burner account to a financial journalist I knew to be ambitious and tenacious. The email contained a single, coded tip:
"Ask Sterling Innovations about their reported supply chain efficiency. Compare it to the raw data on the APAC fuel levies from Q3. The numbers don't add up."
I didn't need to provide proof. I just needed to plant the seed of doubt. I was a gardener of chaos, and I knew exactly where to plant my seeds to cause the most damage.
The fallout was immediate. The journalist started digging. Whispers turned into questions. Questions turned into official inquiries. Richard's investors grew nervous. A deal that had been a sure thing yesterday was suddenly on shaky ground.
Richard spent the next two days in a living nightmare, trying to plug the holes in his sinking ship. He was besieged by calls from panicked investors, skeptical journalists, and his own terrified board members. He was so consumed by the professional crisis that he barely had time to think about his personal one. He was a man fighting a war on two fronts, completely unaware that both attacks were being orchestrated by the same unseen general. He was exhausted, terrified, and starting to unravel. And this was only the beginning.