Chapter 4 - The Puppet Master
While Khloe recovered, the Thorne empire began to hemorrhage. The Board of Directors, sensing blood in the water, began to secretly orchestrate a vote of no confidence. Marcus was distracted, spending every waking hour at the hospital or managing the legal logistics of keeping Isabella hidden away, and his rivals knew it.
Isabella, meanwhile, was not as "dealt with" as Marcus thought. In her holding cell at the Thorne estate, she had managed to bribe a young guard—a man with heavy gambling debts—with the promise of a million dollars in an offshore account she controlled.
Isabella knew Marcus’s weakness. She knew his vanity. She knew that he kept a private server at the estate—a "Shadow Library"—containing not just company secrets, but the private, blackmail-heavy information he had collected on every major politician and corporate rival he had crossed in his climb to the top.
"Get me a phone," she whispered to the guard, her eyes dark and frantic. "And get me the encryption key for the server in his office. You do that, and you’ll never have to work another day in your life. You do that, and I will be the one who destroys Marcus Thorne."
The guard, looking at the life-changing sum in his phone app, didn't hesitate.
As Marcus sat in his office at the estate late one night, oblivious to the fact that his internal security was being compromised, he stared at a photo of Khloe from before they were married. She looked so happy. So simple. He hadn't realized that the moment he had married her, he had introduced her to a world of predators. He was the biggest predator of all, and he had been feeding her to the others, one piece at a time.
He heard a soft click at his door. He assumed it was Elias. "I told you, no interruptions tonight," Marcus said without turning around.
"It’s not Elias," a voice replied.
Marcus spun around. Isabella stood in the doorway, wearing one of the maid’s uniforms, her hair disheveled. She was holding a suppressed handgun.
"How did you get out?" Marcus asked, his voice calm, his brain working at a thousand miles an hour, calculating the distance to the drawer where his own piece was hidden.
"Money talks, Marcus. Your money," she laughed. "And it turns out, your security is just as loyal as your love—completely transactional."
"You won't get away with this," Marcus said, slowly rising from his chair.
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"I don't need to get away," she said, raising the gun. "I just need to make sure you never walk out of this room. And then, I’m going to visit your little wife in the hospital. I hear she’s doing much better."
Marcus didn't hesitate. He dived for the desk, but Isabella fired. The bullet shattered a crystal decanter, showering the room in glass. Marcus rolled, grasping the handgun from the drawer, but as he turned, he realized his mistake—he had underestimated the reach of Isabella’s obsession.
