Chapter 4 - The Poisoned NestThe penthouse apartment Derek had rented with Sienna in the fashionable West End was usually immaculate, filled with ambient lounge music and the faint scent of luxury candles.
Tonight, it was a war zone.
"What do you mean, you can't freeze her accounts?!" Sienna screamed, slamming her wine glass onto the kitchen island so hard the stem snapped, splashing dark red Cabernet across the white marble. "She’s your wife! You have a right to her assets!"
Derek sat at the glass dining table, his suit coat removed, his tie hanging loose around his collar. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were bloodshot. On the table before him lay three separate legal notices delivered by Marcus Vance’s process servers just two hours ago.
"Did you read these documents, Sienna?!" Derek yelled back, his voice hoarse from hours of panicking. "She has my emails! She has the clinic records! Her lawyer is Marcus Vance—the man who bankrupted the CEO of Zenith Logistics last year!"
"So what?!" Sienna hissed, stepping toward him, her eyes flashing with venom. "You tell the court you made a mistake! You tell them the vasectomy recanalization was a medical freak accident!"
"It WAS a medical freak accident!" Derek shouted, standing up so fast his chair fell backward onto the rug. "The twins are MINE, Sienna! They are my biological children! Conceived on our anniversary! She never cheated on me! I called my wife an adulteress and threw her out on the street because I was stupid enough to listen to you!"
"To listen to me?" Sienna let out a bitter, mocking laugh. "You were the one who didn't want kids, Derek! You were the one who complained every night that Clara was too focused on her little architectural drawings to give you attention! You walked into that clinic on your own two feet!"
"Because you told me a family would ruin my corporate image!" Derek roared, his face turning dark red. "You told me we could take Clara’s estate, merge it with my company, and build an empire together!"
"And you believed me because you're weak!" Sienna sneered, taking a step back and wrapping her arms across her chest. "You're a pathetic, arrogant weakling who needed a woman to tell him how big he was. And now that your little wife turned out to have bigger teeth than you, you're sitting here crying like a child!"
Before Derek could reply, his phone rang loudly on the marble counter.
He snatched it up, hoping against hope it was Clara calling him back.
It wasn't. It was his chief financial officer at Apex Delivery Solutions.
"Derek!" his CFO’s voice burst through the speaker, frantic and breathless. "Where the hell are you?"
"I'm at home," Derek said, his stomach sinking into a pit of cold dread. "What happened?"
"The bank just issued a temporary freeze on our primary operating line!" the CFO shouted. "A court order was served thirty minutes ago from the Chancery Court! Clara’s attorneys filed an emergency petition claiming marital fraud involving company funds! We can't clear payroll tomorrow morning, Derek!"
Derek felt the floor tilt beneath his feet. "What... what about the two-million-dollar fleet expansion loan?"
"Canceled!" the CFO yelled. "The lender pulled out the moment they saw the fraud filing! And there’s more—the board of directors just called an emergency meeting for 8:00 AM tomorrow. They’re calling for your immediate resignation!"
Derek dropped the phone. It clattered against the marble floor, the CFO’s voice faintly shouting through the speaker until the screen went dark.
He looked up at Sienna.
She was already walking toward the master bedroom.
"Where are you going?" Derek demanded, his voice shaking violently.
"I'm packing my bags, Derek," Sienna said without turning around, her voice cold and completely devoid of emotion. "I don't stay on sinking ships."
"You... you're leaving me?" Derek gasped, running into the bedroom behind her. "After everything I gave up for you?! I blew up my marriage for you!"
Sienna pulled a large designer suitcase from the closet and threw it onto the bed. She began dumping her silk dresses inside with cold, mechanical efficiency.
"You didn't blow up your marriage for me, Derek," Sienna said, looking at him with absolute disdain. "You blew it up for your own ego. And now that your ego has bankrupted you, you're useless to me."
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She zipped up the suitcase with a sharp, definitive shhhk, swung her coat over her shoulders, and picked up her handbag.
"Good luck with your twins, Derek," she said with a cruel, mocking smile as she pushed past him into the hallway. "You're going to need it."
