I Dropped The Bidder To Keep My Empire Chapter 08
The first week after the wedding, I officially took over Vance Group’s overseas operations.
Harrison Vance was sent to The Pines Retirement Home by my grandfather. Ashley’s safety net was gone for good.
She tried to beg Derek for help, but he slammed the door in her face.
Because Derek had gone off the deep end.
He spent all day locked in his office, replaying our videos and photos from the last three years on a loop.
And right around then, Beckett unearthed a sealed file from the orphanage.
Landon had always believed that the person who paid for his education and helped him take back the Kline family inheritance was Ashley. That she’d been the one pulling strings for him behind the scenes.
Because Ashley once showed him a blurry money order receipt and told him it came from her allowance.
But Beckett traced it to the original copy.
Every single dollar came from my scholarships and part-time jobs.
Even the letters that helped him open the right doors—the handwriting was mine.
Landon got the file right when he was waiting for me outside the Vance Group building.
After he read it, he went completely limp. He leaned against the wall. Tears rolled down his face in big, heavy drops.
“Sierra… I’m sorry… I didn’t know…”
He tried to run at me and grab my legs. Security shoved him to the ground.
I looked down at him. “Landon, when you helped Ashley humiliate me, you
never once thought about where that money actually came from. I saved every penny of it myself.”
Lucas showed up too. He brought proof that Ashley had set me up.
The truth was, three years ago, Ashley had locked herself in a storage closet on purpose and faked an allergic reaction.
In reality, I’d run myself ragged finding a doctor to save her. Meanwhile, she was in there directing her own little show.
Lucas knelt in front of me and started slapping himself across the face.
“I’m a monster! I broke your hand because of that woman’s lies!”
I watched him punish himself. I didn’t feel one ounce of satisfaction.
“Those slaps don’t mean anything,” I said. “They won’t fix the bone you snapped.”
Grant was the last one to break down.
He’d always thought I was a scheming woman who only got close to them for what I could take.
Until he found out that the “little notebook” Ashley had made fun of didn’t just track client preferences.
It also listed what medicine to keep on hand for his stomach. What protective gear Lucas needed before a match. What kind of scent Landon used for his insomnia.
The notes they’d sneered at as my “manipulation tricks” were actually the only real feelings I’d had for them in three years.
Grant hugged that notebook to his chest and sobbed in the rain like a little kid.
He saw that I’d torn out the page about all three of them.
Gone. Like we’d never crossed paths at all.