# Chapter 6: The Gala Trap

The chandeliers cast their golden light across the ballroom like scattered coins, but all I could see was the storm brewing behind Adrian's cold gray eyes. He stood thirty feet away, glass frozen mid-air, watching me cling to the arm of his biggest rival.

Marcus Hale. The CEO of Hale Industries. The man who'd been bleeding Adrian's company dry for years through hostile takeovers and whispered betrayals. Adrian had never told me that—I'd learned it in my previous life, after it was too late.

Tonight, it would become my weapon.

"You're trembling," Marcus murmured, his lips brushing dangerously close to my ear. "Nervous about dancing with the devil?"

"Dancing with the devil is the only way to learn his steps." I smiled, letting my fingers trail down his tailored sleeve. "And I've always been a quick learner."

His laugh rumbled through his chest. "I see why Adrian keeps you close. You're dangerous."

"Not dangerous. Just observant."

The orchestra swelled, and Marcus pulled me onto the dance floor. His hand settled on my lower back with practiced ease, but I felt nothing—no spark, no electricity. Just calculation, cold and clean as glass.

"This is quite the spectacle," he said, spinning me in a slow circle. "The infamous Elena Pierce, walking into my arms while her patron watches. Tell me, is this revenge or strategy?"

"Can it not be both?"

He threw his head back and laughed, and I felt Adrian's stare like two heated coins pressed into my spine. Across the ballroom, I watched him set down his glass with deliberate care, saw the vein pulse in his temple as he began moving toward us.

In that moment, every humiliation he'd ever dealt me crystallized in my chest: the affair with my sister, the way he'd frozen me out of the company I'd helped build, the cruel smile he'd worn while announcing our engagement to a woman he never intended to marry. The poison he'd fed my champagne, disguised as love.

I'd drunk it willingly once.

Never again.

"You wield pain well, Elena." Marcus twirled me, and I caught a glimpse of Adrian pushing through the crowd. "I admire that. It takes a special kind of fire to burn the hand that feeds you."

"The fire doesn't care who it consumes."

As the music slowed, I leaned closer to Marcus, pressing my lips to his ear. "Hale Industries is about to close the Ashworth deal, isn't it? A billion-dollar acquisition that would cripple Blackwood Enterprises."

His muscles tensed beneath his expensive suit. "How would you know that?"

"I know lots of things." I pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, letting my smile sharpen. "Like the fact that Adrian plans to underbid you at midnight—unless you announce your partnership with Pierce International first."

Marcus's gaze flickered with something dangerous. "You're offering me your company?"

"I'm offering you my victory."

The music ended. Around us, couples applauded as Marcus's fingers tightened around mine. Then, with a showman's grin, he guided me toward the stage where the auctioneer stood preparing for the charity event.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Marcus's voice cut through the murmur of conversation. "If I may have your attention."

Adrian stopped mid-stride, his expression shifting from fury to cold surveillance. I saw his hand move toward his phone, already texting his security team.

"I'm thrilled to announce," Marcus continued, "that Hale Industries will be partnering with Pierce International on the Ashworth acquisition—effective immediately."

The room erupted. Gasps, whispers, the sharp clink of champagne glasses frozen mid-toast. I watched Adrian's face drain of color, watched his carefully constructed mask crack just long enough for me to see the rage underneath.

Then I walked toward him, heels clicking against the marble floor, the taste of vindication sweet as honey on my tongue.

"You're going to regret this, Elena." His voice was silk wrapped around steel.

"Regret?" I stopped a breath from him, letting him smell my perfume—the same one I'd worn the night he'd poured poison down my throat. "I'm just getting started."

His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Neither did you."

I wrenched free, turning to walk away—but the look that crossed his face stopped me cold. It wasn't anger.

It was fear.

"I loved you once," he said, so quietly only I could hear. "Before you became this."

The words hit me like a bullet. A memory flashed: Adrian, five years ago, cupping my face in his hands, promising me forever. Before the betrayal. Before the poison. Before I learned that forever was just another word for mercy.

I opened my mouth to respond—

And the lights went out.

Screams. Shattered glass. In the chaos, a hand grabbed mine—but the grip was wrong. Calloused in places Adrian's weren't. A voice, low and familiar, breathed against my ear.

"Did you really think I was the only monster you'd been dancing with?"

Marcus.

The lights flickered back on. I was standing alone in the center of the ballroom. Adrian was gone.

But lying at my feet, glittering under the chandeliers, was a single drop of blood.

And my engagement ring—the one I'd destroyed in my previous life—was no longer in my possession.