The rain in Solana City felt like needles against the window of the penthouse Elena had spent six years cleaning.
On the mahogany table sat a single sheet of paper that smelled of Sandra's expensive, sickly-sweet perfume.
"Sign it, Elena," Tom's voice was like a whip. He didn't even look at her. He was too busy adjusting his cufflinks in the mirror cufflinks Elena had bought him with my secret savings.
"Sandra is pregnant she's giving me the heir you were too 'fragile' to carry. I need a wife who can stand beside me, not a housewife who smells like onions."
Elena looked at the pen for six years, she had played the part of the "Useless Daughter" of a fallen family. She had cooked, cleaned, and endured his mother's insults, all while waiting for the right moment.
"You're sure about this, Tom?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"Once I sign this, there is no going back and you will lose everything."
Tom laughed, a harsh, mocking sound.
"Me? Lose everything? I'm the CEO of Phoenix Logistics. You're a woman who doesn't even have a bank account in her own name, sign the paper and get out. I've already had your 'trash' moved to the taxi,"
Elena picked up the pen with a sharp, elegant flourish, and signed her name not the name on their marriage certificate, "Elena Phoenix" but the name she had been born with.
"Elena Luo."
"Done," she said, standing up her back was straight, her eyes no longer filled with the tears he expected.
"What's this?" Tom frowned, looking at the signature.
"Who is Elena Luo?"
"The woman who just bought your debt," I said. "And the woman who owns the land this very building sits on." She added.
Before Tom could process the words, a heavy knock echoed through the penthouse. The doors were pushed open by four men in identical black suits, their presence turning the luxury apartment into an interrogation room..
In the center stood a man with eyes as dark as the midnight sea, Silas Luanda.
Elena's phone buzzed, she didn't hide it this time. It was a gold-plated device that only five people in the world had the number to, she answered it on speaker.
"Madam," a deep, commanding voice boomed through the room, itt was Silas Luanda the man the whole city feared.
"The private jet is waiting, the elders of the Luo Empire are gathered. Shall we begin the liquidation of the man who dared to mistreat our Princess?"
Tom's face went from arrogant red to a ghostly, pathetic white. The cufflinks Elena had bought him hit the floor with a hollow clack.
"Princess?" Tom stammered looking at the woman he had treated like a servant for half a decades.
"Elena... what is this joke?"
"The joke is over, Tom," she said, walking toward the door.
"Keep the house. By tomorrow, the bank will own it anyway."
""Elena... what have you done?"
Elena didn't look back. As she walked past him, the air seemed to chill.
"I didn't do anything, Tom. I just stopped pretending to be small so you could feel big."
She walked out of the door and into the arms of the waiting security detail. Seven years of hiding was over.
The 'Second Choice' was about to become the world's biggest nightmare.
The hallway of the penthouse, once a place where Elena spent hours polishing the marble floors until her knees ached, now feels like a runway towards her true destiny.
The Luanda security detail's footsteps drowned out Tom's frantic breathing behind her.
Sandra stood frozen by the balcony her smug expression replaced by a mask of pure terror.
As Elena passed, she didn't even grant the woman a glance. Sandra was a mosquito that was annoying, but ultimately insignificant to the storm that was about to break....
"Elena! Wait!" Tom's voice cracked as he stumbled out into the hallway, his fingers clutching the doorframe.
"You can't just leave! We have a contract! The Phoenix assets...."
Silas Luanda stopped he didn't turn around fully, but the tilt of his head was enough to freeze the blood in Tom's veins.
"The Phoenix assets died the moment she signed that paper, Mr. Phoenix," Silas said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble.
"You were never a CEO you were a placeholder a temporary steward for a crown you weren't worthy to touch."
Silas moved towards the elevator, his hand hovering protectively behind Elena's back, never touching but always present. The gold-plated phone in Elena's hand buzzed again. A text message appeared.
"The King is waiting, the throne has been cold too long."
As the elevator doors began to slide shut, Elena caught one final glimpse of Tom. He was on his knees, staring at the scuffed floor where the cufflinks she had bought him lay forgotten. He looked small he looked exactly like the "nothing" he had tried to make her feel for six long years.
The descent to the lobby was silent, the air in the elevator filled with tension that made Elena's skin tingle. She looked at her reflection in the polished metal doors.
The tired, "useless" housewife was gone in her place stood a woman with a gaze that could incinerate empires.
"Are you ready, Princess?" Silas asked softly as the elevator dinged.
Elena adjusted her silver brooch, her eyes fixed on the lobby doors where a fleet of black SUVs waited.
"I've been ready for seven years, Silas," she replied.
"Let's go show them what happens when the Luo Empire reclaims its own."
The lobby doors swung open, and the flashes of a hundred hidden cameras exploded like star, the news of the Phoenix Logistics collapse was already hitting the wires, but the world wasn't ready for the real headline, * The Princess had come home.*
"I will use this chance to rewrite my destiny and therefore I will not give room for weakness since they will never appreciate me' she said. She wondered how love can be beautiful one day and bitter the next day.