I Built Your Empire, Now It Burns

Azalea Vitiello POV

I spent a week existing in the shadows.

I did not power on my main phone. I did not check the hemorrhaging balance of my bank accounts. I simply sat in the dim light of the brownstone and watched the old Azalea wither and die.

Azura came and went like a spectre, bringing sustenance and intelligence.

She told me the streets were whispering. Caleb was spinning the narrative, telling anyone who would listen that I was "unwell," resting at a private facility to manage my hysteria. He was controlling the story before I could even speak a word.

Then, against my better judgment, I logged into a burner Instagram account.

The photo was the first thing to assault my eyes at the top of the feed.

Kimberly.

She was perched on the white velvet sofa in my penthouse. My sofa. She cradled a glass of red wine, her bare legs draped casually over the lap of a man whose face was cropped out of the frame. But I knew those hands. I knew the platinum Patek Philippe on the wrist.

The caption was a masterclass in cruelty: Home is where the heart is.

And there, in the background, curled up at her feet like a traitor, was Brutus. Caleb's massive Cane Corso. The dog that snarled at everyone except Caleb and me.

She was in my house. With my husband. With our dog.

I hurled the phone across the room. It struck the plaster with a sickening crack and slid to the floor.

Azura looked up from her stack of files, her expression guarded.

"Do not look at it, Aza."

"She is touching my things," I said. My voice was low, vibrating with a deadly calm.

"It is bait," Azura warned. "She wants a reaction. She wants you to break."

I stood up, the decision crystallizing in my chest. "I need to go back."

"No," Azura said, rising quickly to block my path. "You are not going back there."

"I left my mother's rosary," I said, the image of it burning in my mind. "It was in the jewelry box on the vanity. The amethyst beads. The one the Pope blessed before she died. I am not leaving it with that woman."

"We can buy a new one," Azura said, though her eyes betrayed the lie.

"I am going," I said, grabbing my coat from the rack. "I am not going to fight him. I am just retrieving what is mine."

I took a cab to the Nexus Tower. The doorman looked startled to see me, his eyes darting nervously, but he opened the gate. On paper, I was still the owner.

I took the private elevator to the penthouse. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs, but my hands remained steady.

The apartment was silent.

I knew Caleb had a sit-down with the union representatives today. He would be out, playing the tycoon.

I stepped into the foyer. The air smelled wrong. It smelled like her. Cheap vanilla and raw ambition.

I walked straight to the master bedroom. The door stood ajar.

Kimberly was standing before the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She was wearing my silk robe. The emerald green one Caleb had bought me for our honeymoon in Como. She was applying lipstick in the reflection, watching herself with narcissistic adoration.

She caught my eyes in the glass. She did not flinch. She smiled.

"I wondered when you would show up," she said.

"Take it off," I commanded.

She turned around slowly, leaning her hip against the vanity. "It hangs better on me, don't you think? Caleb says green brings out my eyes."

I strode toward the vanity. The jewelry box was open.

"Where is it?" I demanded.

Kimberly feigned innocence, batting her lashes. "Where is what?"

"The rosary," I said, my patience fraying. "The amethyst beads. Where is it?"

"Oh, that old thing?" she asked.

She reached into the deep pocket of my robe and withdrew a tangled mess. She held it up for a moment, then let her fingers open. Purple beads and a snapped silver chain rained down onto the marble counter. They scattered like spilled blood.

"Oops," she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "I was trying it on, and it just... snapped. It was so fragile. Just like you."

Something inside me fractured. It was the last tether to my sanity, severing with a violent snap.

I did not think. I lunged.

My hand connected with her hair, twisting into the roots. I yanked her head back. She screamed, a high-pitched shriek that grated on my ears.

"You touch my mother's memory?" I hissed.

I slapped her. Harder than I had ever slapped Caleb. Her head cracked against the mirror. A crystal perfume bottle toppled and shattered on the floor, the scent of vanilla choking the air.

Kimberly clawed at my arms, her nails digging furrows into my skin. "Get off me! You crazy bitch!"

I dragged her away from the vanity and threw her onto the bed. She scrambled back against the headboard, gasping, a trickle of blood blooming on her lip.

"You are nothing," I told her, my voice shaking with a terrifying rage. "You are a placeholder. A warm body."

Kimberly wiped her mouth. She looked at the crimson smear on her fingers and laughed, a wet, breathless sound.

"And you are the past, Azalea. He tells me everything. He tells me how you just lie there like a corpse. He tells me he only married you for the clean money."

I grabbed a heavy glass vase from the nightstand. The weight of it felt good in my hand. I wanted to smash it. I wanted to smash everything.

"Do it," she taunted, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Show him you are the monster he says you are."