Her smirk faltered for the briefest moment, almost imperceptible. Then she recovered, shrugging with practiced disbelief, as if brushing away the truth. "Come on... be realistic. It's Mira we're talking about. Our princess. She's no abuser," she said lightly, as if the words themselves could rewrite reality.
Before I could press the point further, the phone lit up again. Mira. I jabbed at the screen and set it to speaker. Her scream tore through the room, raw and jagged. "I can't find him! He's not at his apartment, not at the gym, where the hell is he?"
My pulse spiked, hammering in my throat. "Mira, baby, calm down. Your mother and I are coming to you."
"Daddy, please!" Her voice collapsed into sobs, the sound of a frightened child hidden inside a grown woman's mouth. "He's going to sue me? Arrest me? He said he loved me, maybe not in words, but I know he did! I can't lose him. I won't!"
Her mother leaned toward the phone, her face melting into that saccharine expression she always reserved for Mira. "Calm down, sweetheart," she cooed, glass still steady in her hand. "We're on our way. Everything will be fine."
The ease in her tone gutted me. To her, this was a tantrum, the sort a little girl might throw after being denied a toy. She truly believed it was impossible that Mira could hurt anyone. Her daughter could only ever be fragile, wronged, misunderstood. I knew better. I had carried her out of too many scenes like this, smoothed over too many outbursts, bribed and silenced too many witnesses. I didn't like the truth, but I knew it: Mira was dangerous, and she always had been.
When we arrived, Mira all but flew into her mother's arms, trembling, eyes wild with desperation. I stood rigid, fury and exhaustion fighting inside me, trying to hold the crumbling pieces together.
"You'll come with us, quietly," I said, keeping my voice firm, forcing a politician's control into every syllable. "We'll handle this quietly, keep it out of sight."
"No!" She wrenched free, her eyes blazing with a fury that twisted her features. "He was abusive to me."
The room froze, the words hanging in the air like smoke. Her mother blinked, eyes wide with disbelief. "What?"
Mira spat, her voice trembling with a mix of fury and conviction, " I can prove it. I'm the woman, for God's sake. Who's the public or the judge going to believe? Him or me? I'll destroy him and his reputation before he destroys me."
I ground my teeth until my jaw ached, every muscle tensing as the weight of her words pressed down. "Mira... he has evidence."
Her lips curled into a smile that never touched her eyes—cold, calculated, almost predatory.
"I have my own leverage, too. Come on, Daddy—you're the one who taught me that money leaves a trail, that evidence can be shaped. If he sees just how far I'm willing to go to ruin him, he'll come back to me. He won't have a choice. Please, Ma... you know how much I love him. I can't lose him. I know I've made mistakes, but I'll do whatever it takes, even if it means destroying him, then he will have nothing and he will come back to me."
I shook my head slowly, throat dry, every word like stone in my mouth. "I am not doing this."
Her eyes narrowed, a feral glint igniting in their depths. "Fine," she hissed, teeth bared. "Then you'll never see me again. Gone. For good."
My wife gasped, flinging a hand toward her in panic. "Mira—"
In a heartbeat, Mira's hand darted to the kitchen drawer, and a knife appeared in her grip, cold steel flashing under the overhead light. The blade pressed against her throat withterrifying force, skin blanching beneath it. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her eyes burning with desperate intensity.
"You think I won't?" she said, voice sharp and brittle. "If I don't—if you don't help me find him, ruin him, and get him back, you'll never have me at all. Do you hear me?"
The room froze. Time slowed. I could feel the panic crawling up my spine, my heart hammering. My wife's hand hovered midair, trembling, her face pale as she tried to comprehend the immediacy of the threat. She clutched at me with trembling fingers, her voice shrill. "Richie, do something, we are going to lose her!"
"And besides," she added with a bitter laugh, "you can spin all of this to your advantage. Use my 'abuse' as fuel for your campaign. Women's rights. Domestic violence. It's perfect. A win for me, and a win for you, Dad."
Every ounce of exhaustion pulled at my bones, but I forced myself to speak, steady and deliberate. "Okay. Okay, Mira. Put it down. We'll take him to court. We'll ruin him but you have to give me time."
Her lips curled upward, triumphant, as though she had already won. When the knife clattered onto the counter, the sound rang like a gunshot. I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. My hand went to my phone, not to call Harding, but to summon my own people, the sharks, the fixers who thrived in shadows the law refused to touch. They would scour the wreckage for witnesses to corrupt, narratives to twist, stories to plant. Ryder would not simply be silenced; he would be branded the villain for good.
Her mother, still stroking her daughter's hair, turned toward me. "I don't understand why Ryder would suddenly sue. He had been fine with you, hadn't he?"
Mira's face hardened. She froze mid-breath, then narrowed her eyes into slits. " Yes, as usual," she said, her voice low and sharp. "Until that night when the fat cow came in her lingerie."
Her mother gave a little laugh, indulgent, almost proud, as if Mira's fury were nothing more than righteous fire. "Don't upset yourself, darling. Ryder will come to his senses."
Mira's gaze snapped back to me, wild and fever-bright. "No. He won't. Not unless I make him. Sebastian and Brandon, those cowards ran. They knew they couldn't leave me, so they escaped the country. But Ryder? He's different. He belongs to me. He knows it. I can feel it every time he breathes near me. I will never let him go." Her voice rose, trembling with rage. "That bitch will never have him. I will cut her out of the picture myself if I have to."
My stomach knotted. Every instinct told me she was spiraling out of control, her obsession burning hotter than reason could ever contain. Yet I stayed rooted where I was. Mira was my daughter. Right or wrong, sane or unstable, I had always been her shield, the one who dragged her out of wreckage and hid the shards. She looked to me as her rock, her anchor, and God help me, I had never known how to be anything else.
The words I wanted to speak—You need help, Mira. You're not well—died in my throat. Instead, I tightened my grip on my phone, already calculating the moves ahead, the lies that would need to be spun, the fire I would have to put out once again. My daughter was unhinged, dangerous, but she was mine. I wouldstand before her, take the blows for her, even as the weight of it dragged me toward ruin.
Chapter 14: Waging Wars
