The Vengeful Siren

The helpless saleswoman rubbed her temples, caught entirely off guard by the imposing man's ruthless demand. She cast a desperate, apologetic glance at Daphne before attempting to reason with him. "Sir, the thing is... the lady only looked at the fabric swatches last time. Without a formal financial deposit on file, company policy dictates it simply wasn't an official reservation."

"I explicitly told you to hold it for me," Daphne countered instantly, her lips parting in clear indignation.

"Our luxury line operates strictly on advance payments, ma'am," the employee tried to clarify, her posture shrinking under the mounting pressure.

Daphne immediately pivoted to her fiancé, her fingers clutching the tailored fabric of his suit jacket. She gave his sleeve a petulant tug, her lower lip jutting out in a practiced pout. "Silas, I really want that exact set."

Silas didn't even blink at the retail worker's pathetic excuses. "Get the current buyer on the phone right now," he ordered, his baritone voice leaving zero room for debate. "Tell them I will double whatever they just paid to take it off their hands."

The clerk shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her features twisting in pure hesitation as she scrambled for a polite way to decline the absurd request.

"Spare her the corporate headache. I have absolutely zero interest in giving up my purchase."

The lazy, melodic drawl sliced right through the tense air of the showroom.

Daphne's spine snapped rigid.

She whipped her head toward the source of the sound, the last traces of color draining entirely from her complexion. A sharp gasp tore from her throat as she stumbled backward in rapid, clumsy steps, staring at the approaching figure as if a buried corpse had just strutted into the luxury boutique.

Silas froze in place. His commanding presence evaporated, replaced by raw, unadulterated disbelief as his eyes locked onto the woman strolling toward them. "Maeve?"

Hearing that discarded, pitiful alias made Viviana dip her chin.

A slow, deliberate curve formed at the corner of her lips.

She absolutely despised that pathetic name.

But the expression completely paralyzed the man standing across from her. Silas felt a jarring jolt in his chest. He had never witnessed such an expression on the face of the woman he once owned. The old Maeve was a fragile, overly cautious shadow who had tiptoed around his moods, desperate to please him.

The woman standing in the aisle was practically radiating reckless confidence.

She moved with a dangerous, magnetic pull, entirely aware of the devastating effect she commanded in the room.

"You can't be Maeve. She's already..." Daphne choked on her own panic, the sheer terror scrambling her brain. She desperately wanted to scream that the girl was dead and rotting.

The realization that her fiancé was standing mere inches away hit Daphne like a physical blow, forcing her to violently swallow the fatal word before it could slip past her lips.

Viviana closed the distance, her voice dropping into a chilling, lethal register. She pinned the trembling woman under an unforgiving stare. "Oh, I'm Maeve. And I crawled all the way back here to collect your life."

All the strength instantly vanished from Daphne's knees.

She collapsed, practically dragging Silas down before he hooked a firm arm around her waist to keep her upright. He immediately shifted his broad shoulders, securely tucking his terrified fiancée behind his back.

Silas directed a heavy, condemning scowl at the woman he still thought he knew. "Daphne is incredibly timid. Stop intentionally terrifying her."

At his protective gesture, Daphne dug her perfectly manicured nails into his bicep, desperately clinging to him as her only shield.

"Is she really that timid?" Viviana let out a short, abrasive huff of mockery. "Do fragile little things usually hire contract killers to do their dirty work?"

Daphne's grip on Silas's arm clamped down with desperate force.

"What absolute garbage are you spewing?" Silas fired back, not wasting a single second to consider the accusation. "Daphne wouldn't even think of doing something so vile."

"That is simply because you are completely blind." Viviana was already operating on a painfully thin thread of patience due to her throbbing temple.

Now, forced to breathe the same air as the two people she loathed most in this world, she refused to filter a single syllable.

Silas's expression hardened into rigid fury.

Everything about this interaction felt entirely wrong to him. For three consecutive years, she had bent to his every single whim without a single word of complaint. Now, she stood there hurling insults at his face without an ounce of respect.

"You were the one who stubbornly packed up and left without taking a single cent," Silas lectured, his voice dripping with condescension. "Don't you dare take your petty frustrations out on Daphne."

Viviana actually rolled her eyes at the sheer arrogance of his logic.

"Please tell me you don't actually believe I'm putting on a jealous act over you?" she challenged, perfectly reading the dismissal in his posture.

Silas pressed his lips together, stubbornly refusing to vocalize his confirmation.

His silence was a loud enough answer.

A sharp, genuine bark of laughter escaped Viviana's throat.

"You know, maybe I shouldn't call you blind. Because during those three years my memory was wiped, my vision was clearly far worse than yours," she mocked.

She truly couldn't fathom how she had ever reduced herself to a groveling servant for such a remarkably arrogant idiot.

"Let Daphne have the bedding she picked out," Silas ordered, completely steamrolling over her insults. "If it's money you're after, the financial compensation I promised you back then is still on the table."

He completely wrote off her hostile attitude as the bitter tantrums of a spurned lover. He slipped effortlessly back into the high-and-mighty dictatorial tone he had utilized for three entire years. To him, he was still the untouchable lord, and she was merely the stray dog he had temporarily sheltered.

But the pathetic, amnesiac girl was long gone.

"Keep your loose change and go finance a cure for your terrible eyesight," Viviana shot back with brutal finality. She shot one last venomous glare at Daphne before turning on her heel to leave the shop.

She knew if she stayed in their proximity for another sixty seconds, she would physically strangle the woman on the spot.

But as she stepped past him, Silas reached out and locked a punishing grip around her bare wrist.

"Quit throwing this ridiculous tantrum!" he barked, his temper flaring.

"Get your hands off me!" Viviana snarled, glaring down at his fingers clamped against her skin.

A violent impulse to sever the limb right at the joint rushed through her veins.

"You're turning down a massive payout just to make a scene? Have you lost your mind?" Silas completely ignored the visible disgust radiating from her expression.

The dull ache in Viviana's head spiked into a sharp throb, turning her beautiful features dangerously cold.

She was genuinely calculating the easiest angle to break his arm.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a harsh, explosive voice ripped through the tense standoff.

Declan stormed down the aisle.

Seeing a random man manhandling his cousin, he didn't hesitate. He forcefully yanked Viviana out of the suffocating grip, securely positioning her behind his own frame.

"Are you tired of keeping that hand attached to your wrist?" Declan leveled a lethal, unblinking glare at the man in the tailored suit.

Silas blinked, the sheer anger in his face fracturing into temporary shock. "Declan?"

He immediately recognized the infamous Alden socialite, his mind racing to connect the dots of how a wealthy dandy had ended up aggressively defending Maeve.

"Oh, so you know who I am?" Declan sneered, stepping aggressively into the other man's personal space.

Silas knew of him, but they ran in vastly different circles. Silas prided himself on his disciplined, rigid lifestyle, while Declan was notorious for dominating the city's extravagant party scene. They had merely crossed paths from a distance at high society functions.

"Since you know exactly who I am, where do you get the nerve to lay a finger on my people?" Declan demanded, his voice rising in volume. "Are you actively begging to be put in the ground?"

"Your people?" Silas repeated, a cold, calculating suspicion flashing in his eyes as he tried to look past the angry man.

He shifted his gaze to the woman standing safely behind Declan's shoulder.

Viviana didn't even notice the scrutiny. She had already unzipped her bag and pulled out a sterile, alcohol-soaked medical wipe. With agonizingly slow, deliberate friction, she vigorously scrubbed the exact patch of skin Silas had grabbed, treating his brief physical contact like exposure to a highly contagious disease.

The veins in Silas's neck bulged, his entire face turning a furious, livid shade of red at the profound public humiliation.

"Mr. Adler, please, this is all just a massive misunderstanding. We had absolutely no idea Maeve was your kept woman," Daphne rushed to intervene, her voice shaking as she desperately tried to de-escalate the explosive situation.

Maeve?

Declan glanced back over his shoulder, silently looking to Viviana for her cue.

"I don't think there is a single thing being misunderstood here," Viviana stated coldly, her patience entirely evaporated. "They are the ones who chose to ruin my mood."

Hearing the most treasured princess of the Thorne family explicitly confirm she was upset, Declan's simmering fury instantly boiled over.

No one in the world dared to cross her, yet these two arrogant, blind fools had just willingly signed their own death warrants.