CLAIMING THE WOLF OF WALL STREET FOR MY REVENGE

Emilia

I stood frozen in Lucas’ bedroom with a diamond ring trembling between my fingers.

It was large without being gaudy, a pear-shaped stone surrounded by smaller diamonds that glittered beneath the bedroom light. It had been tucked beneath a stack of black shirts in the back of Lucas's wardrobe, inside a small velvet box that had no business being there. Lucas had asked me to find his spare cufflinks because he was running late for a meeting, and I had been searching through the things he never bothered to organize when the box caught my eye.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. Lucas was about to propose to me! My mate was about to make me his wife!

It felt as though I'd been bestowed with blessings by the goddess herself. My life couldn’t have been more perfect.

Less than a week ago, I turned twenty-five, and because of that, the last restriction on my father's will had finally expired. The controlling shares in Hale Industries, the properties, the trust funds, the investments—everything my father had left me was finally within my reach. And now Lucas was going to propose.

I had spent most of my life believing I was waiting for something that would make all the fractured pieces of my family feel whole again. My father had been dead for years. My mother had been dead even longer, and before his death, my father had spent the rest of his life choosing Vivian, my stepmother, a woman who had never hidden how much she resented me, over me.

But Lucas had always been different. He'd been the person I ran to when Vivian made me feel unwanted. He'd held me when the board questioned whether an Omega like me was capable of running my father's company. And now, he’d finally chosen me, above everyone else.

An eternity must have passed before I returned the box exactly where I had found it, then spent the next ten minutes pretending I had never seen it. I even practiced looking surprised in the mirror. It was ridiculous, considering Lucas and I had been together for almost three years.

I was still grinning when I left the room. I couldn’t lie, though; Lucas had been behaving strangely in the last few days. I barely saw him anymore. He stopped picking up my calls and hardly responded to my texts. He began taking calls outside and even started keeping his phone face down whenever we were together. Yesterday, he kissed my forehead instead of my lips and told me he had a lot on his mind. Now everything made sense!

On Friday night, I was curled up on my bed with my laptop, half-watching a rerun and half-scrolling through wedding venues, while imagining Lucas down on one knee, when my phone buzzed with a notification from the "Find My" app we had both installed years ago.

I expected to see his office. Instead, the blue dot sat on the opposite side of the city. I zoomed in. The location was an abandoned building in an industrial district that had been mostly shut down for years. I sat up slowly.

Why would he be there? At nine at night?

A quick survey of the app showed that he'd been visiting there a lot recently. Wait! Was this part of the surprise? Did he rent it? There was only one way to find out. A private location with no cameras, prying eyes, or chance of running into someone who'd spoil the surprise was totally his style! Grinning, I grabbed my keys and headed out, telling myself that I was just curious.

By the time I reached the industrial district, the city lights had thinned into darkness. The drive took almost forty minutes because of the rain hammering against my windshield. I pulled into the cracked parking lot. The building looked even worse up close. Half the windows were boarded up, and weeds had swallowed the pavement.

I confirmed Lucas's location again, then grabbed my coat, stepped out, and hurried toward the entrance, pushing through a rusted metal door that groaned loudly enough to make me wince.

The place smelled of damp concrete, rust, and something faintly familiar; Vivian? No, that was impossible. Light streamed out from somewhere deeper in the building. I recognized Lucas' voice but couldn’t make out the words. I moved closer until I was by the door. My heart dropped.

Vivian stood near a broken window, her long red hair falling over one shoulder. She was wearing a black dress that looked completely out of place in the abandoned building. Lucas reached for her waist, and she giggled.

I don't know how long I stood frozen. Still, it was long enough to watch him, my mate, and Vivian — my stepmother, the woman who had perfected the art of making me feel unwanted in my own home — kiss and make out with a familiarity that told me, with a sick, plummeting certainty, that this was not the first time and that they were lovers.

I swallowed. The floor had started to feel like it was tilting. My brain refused to understand what I was witnessing. I couldn’t breathe. My heart felt like it was in a grinding machine.

“— told you I'd handle it. She trusts me. She's never once questioned anything I've said to her.” Lucas was saying, pushing her onto the table as he trailed kisses on her neck and breasts.

“She better not start now,” she panted. “She's pathetic and irritating.”

“Careful,” Lucas chuckled. “That pathetic little girl is about to sign over everything her father left her. Don't insult the golden goose before we've plucked her.”

A small sob escaped me, startling them. Lucas didn't even have the decency to step back from her or look ashamed.

“Well,” Vivian said, straightening her dress, unbothered, almost bored. “This is earlier than planned. You weren't supposed to find out until after you signed. I suppose that saves us the trouble.”

I was still so shell-shocked that I hadn't noticed that Lucas had moved until his hand closed around my wrist and roughly pushed me into the room.

“What the hell?” I screamed as I crashed into the wall. I turned around to find that Vivian had locked the door and leaned against it.

“Isn’t it obvious, dear stepdaughter?” She purred. “Don't make this harder than it needs to be.”

“How dare you!” I raged.

Vivian burst into laughter, covering her mouth with her hands. My eyes caught the ring glinting on her finger and widened; It had been the same one I’d seen in Lucas’ wardrobe. Noticing my gaze, Vivian admired her hand, looking smug. My heart cracked all over again.

“Lucas!” I screamed. “How could you? After everything!” I was crying now. I could not believe it. He was my mate, the man I had loved for three years and had trusted with every vulnerable part of me. And he had the guts to propose to the woman who had spent years making me feel like an intruder in my own home!

“Shut up!” He shoved me so hard that I crashed into a chair I hadn’t noticed.

I jumped up, still screaming, when I noticed a stack of documents titled ‘Transfer of Controlling Rights’, bearing my name and my company’s seal. Suddenly, their earlier conversation clicked.

Fear crawled down my spine. I immediately scrambled toward the door.