Two Hopeless, Four Ruthless

The banging continued, each impact heavier than the last. "Ms. Tanner, are you in there?"

Every head in the room snapped toward the doors. Hope surged through me. They were Calder's people, the ones he had stationed in Crestport. They had come.

I wrenched myself free from the bodyguards and screamed toward the doors until my voice cracked. "I'm in here!"

Relief flooded through me, and I screamed again with everything I had. "I'm here! Save Iver! Hurry, save him!"

Portia's expression shifted, then settled into something even more contemptuous. "So, your sugar daddy actually showed some spine and came? How touching."

She smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt and let out a cold laugh. "A pack of gutter rats who wouldn't dare show their faces in broad daylight, and they think they can storm a Beaumont party? They must have a death wish."

She snatched up her radio, her voice dropping low. "Security team, riot squad, I want everyone mobilized. Beat those thugs within an inch of their lives. Break their legs. Initiate full lockdown. Seal every electromagnetic door in this building. I don't want so much as a fly getting through tonight."

The metal security shutters around the banquet hall slammed down on her command, cutting off every sound from outside. Heavy steel chains locked the mahogany doors into place. The muffled sounds of fighting and battering beyond the entrance grew fainter and fainter until they were almost gone.

The hope that had just sparked inside me was crushed in an instant.

"No! Open the doors! Open them!" I threw myself at the entrance like a woman possessed, pounding my fists against the shutters. The skin over my knuckles tore and bled, but I could not feel any of it. "Iver can't wait! Open the doors!"

Portia came up behind me, grabbed me by the collar, and flung me to the ground. "Go ahead, keep screaming."

She stood over me, savoring every inch of my despair. "You see that? That's your backup? A little underwhelming, wouldn't you say? When Portia Beaumont doesn't want someone getting in, not even the President himself could make it through those doors."

She pointed at Iver, who lay on the ground barely conscious.

"He's dying, isn't he? And it's all your fault. If you'd just admitted you were the other woman from the start, if you'd gotten on your knees and confessed, he wouldn't be suffering like this. Now the doors are sealed, and kneeling won't save him either."

Tears spilled down my face as I stared at Iver's lips, which had turned a dark shade of purple. I had never hated anyone this much in my entire life. Even when the catty socialites back in Kingsgate used to take their little jabs at me, I had always laughed it off.

I had four siblings shielding me. I never needed to fight. I never needed to compete. All I had to do was be happy and play the part of the carefree little princess. Yet now, the most important person in my world was dying right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do.

"Portia Beaumont."

I locked my eyes on hers, my voice raw and wrecked. "If anything happens to him today, I will drag your entire family down with him."

Portia threw her head back and laughed. "Oh no, I'm so scared."

Just then, the butler hurried in. His composure had slipped, and he leaned close to Portia's ear, whispering something in a rush.

Portia's eyes went wide. "Ronan is here?"

The name sent a flicker of hope through me. If he stepped forward and cleared things up, if he confirmed that he did not know me and that the woman in the photograph was not me, the whole misunderstanding would collapse.

Iver could get to the hospital.

"Ronan!" Portia rushed to greet him, her eyes already glistening. "Look what this woman did. She had the nerve to show up at my banquet and cause a scene. She even brought some idiot along just to humiliate me."

Ronan Whitford's gaze swept across the room and came to rest on me.

I forced myself to my feet and pointed at the photograph on the screen. "Mr. Whitford, tell her that I don't know you. I've never met you in my life. That woman in the photo isn't me."