Heartbreak Billionaire: He Should Never Have Let Go: Part 3 – The Weapon and the Weakness

In her lavish, penthouse apartment, surrounded by towering arrangements of white orchids that filled the air with a cloyingly sweet fragrance, Seraphina Rivers watched the clip of Luna’s performance on her tablet.

She replayed it three times, a sneer of contempt twisting her beautiful lips. The raw, undeniable talent was a personal affront. The public’s overwhelmingly positive reaction was infuriating.

“She’s more resilient than I gave her credit for,” Seraphina muttered to her caregiver, who was silently polishing a silver tray in the corner. “This quiet, mousy act is just that—an act. She’s playing the victim, and they’re eating it up.”

She tossed the tablet onto the silk settee. The public sympathy she had so carefully cultivated with her “dying cancer patient” narrative was being threatened by this mysterious, soulful singer.

She needed to reassert control, to remind everyone who the real protagonist of this drama was.

Just then, her private phone, the one she used for more delicate matters, buzzed on the marble coffee table. It was her private investigator, a former tabloid journalist with no discernible scruples.

“I have the information you wanted,” the man’s oily voice said on the other end. “It took some digging, and a rather generous ‘donation’ to a records clerk, but I found out about Elara Vance’s visit to Sterling Medical Center.”

Seraphina sat up straighter, her full attention captured. “And?”

“She didn’t visit a friend. She didn’t have a check-up. Her appointment was with Dr. Maya Khan. Head of the obstetrics and gynecology wing.”

Seraphina went completely still. The words hung in the air. OB-GYN.

The implications hit her not like a bolt of lightning, but like the slow, satisfying click of a tumbler falling into place in a complex lock.

Pregnancy. A baby. Julian’s baby.

This was a complication she hadn’t anticipated, but it was also, she realized with a dizzying rush of excitement, the most powerful weapon she could ever have hoped for. A triumphant, exquisitely cruel smile spread across her face.

“Is there more?” she purred, her mind already racing, connecting dots, formulating a strategy.

“Yes,” the investigator continued. “Dr. Khan’s private schedule was… accessible. There’s a follow-up appointment for Mrs. Croft-Vance in two days. It’s coded as a ‘surgical procedure.’ Given the department, there are only a few things that could mean.”

“She’s getting rid of it,” Seraphina whispered, the words tasting like victory. “Oh, this is perfect. How deliciously, wonderfully tragic.”

She now held the ultimate trump card. A secret pregnancy was leverage. But a secretterminatedpregnancy? That was a character assassination tool of the highest order.

She wouldn’t use it yet. The timing had to be perfect. She would wait until Luna, until Elara, was at her highest point.

She would let her believe she was winning, that she had escaped. And then, she would bring her crashing down in the most public, most humiliating way imaginable.