Chapter 3: The Price of Oxygen

The dining room at the Saint Regis was a gilded cage of old money and suffocating pretense. Crystal chandeliers dripped like frozen tears over a long mahogany table laden with heavy silver and white orchids.

Angelica sat in her designated seat, her freshly sheared, razor-edged short hair drawing sharp, disapproving glares from her adoptive father.

Across the table, Evelyn Vance adjusted her silk scarf, her golden hair perfectly coiffed to frame a face that weaponized innocence.

In her past life, those wide, watery eyes had convinced everyone that Angelica was a unstable, parasitic fraud.

Now, Evelyn looked at her with a subtle, venomous smirk, entirely oblivious to the execution warrant resting beneath the tablecloth.

A heavy, manicured hand slid onto Angelica’s bare shoulder, the grip firm and dripping with a possessive, greasy warmth.

Michael leaned down, his breath smelling of expensive scotch as he pressed his lips close to her ear.

"You look... different tonight, darling," Michael whispered, his eyes narrowing slightly at her cut hair before his voice smoothed into a rehearsed pout. "A bit frantic. Did you finish transferring the final encryption blocks for the patent? The board is getting impatient."

Angelica didn't flinch, nor did she pull away from his touch; she merely looked at him as if he were a ghost already fading from reality.

"The code is exactly where it needs to be, Michael," she said, her voice dropping into a soft, melodic purr that sent a strange chill down his spine.

She raised her hand, summoning the white-gloved sommelier with a single, regal tilt of her chin.

"We’ll have the golden almas caviar," Angelica announced smoothly, her ice-blue eyes locking onto her adoptive father’s stern face. "Three tins. Put it on my father’s personal tab, please."

Charles Vance slammed his crystal water glass down, the liquid splashing onto the pristine linen.

"Have you lost your mind, Angelica?" Charles hissed, his voice cutting through the soft violin music in the background. "That costs more than your monthly allowance. You haven't earned the right to waste my money."

"Consider it a consultation fee," Angelica replied, leaning back and resting her chin on her interlaced fingers. "After all, oxygen is about to become very expensive in this room."

Michael laughed nervously, adjusting his platinum watch as he sat down in the chair beside her.

"Don't mind her, sir. She’s just stressed from the tech development," Michael said, reaching over to pat Charles’s arm before turning a sharp, warning glare on Angelica. "Angelica, stop playing games. Sign the paper copies we brought, or we’ll have to discuss your position in this family."

Evelyn let out a soft, theatrical sigh, her lower lip trembling with practiced perfection.

"Please, Angelica, don't ruin daddy's dinner," Evelyn whispered, her eyes pooling with instant, weaponized tears. "We only want to protect you. You know your slums background makes you vulnerable to Wall Street sharks."

Angelica looked at her sister, a slow, terrifyingly beautiful smirk spreading across her lips.

"Five," Angelica said softly, ignoring Evelyn’s whimpering.

Michael frowned, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"What did you say?" Michael demanded, his voice losing its polished, gaslighting edge.

"Four," she continued, her voice steady and rhythmic, ticking down like a digital detonator.

Charles growled, leaning forward to grab the contract from his leather briefcase.

"Sign it now, you ungrateful brat, or I will cut you off entirely," Charles threatened, his veins bulging against his stiff collar.

"Three," Angelica murmured, her gaze shifting to the grand entrance of the dining room.

"Angelica, stop this childish behavior!" Evelyn cried out, her voice rising in pitch as she looked around to ensure the other wealthy patrons were watching her victimhood.

"Two."

The sommelier arrived, elegantly placing the shimmering golden tins of caviar in front of her.

"One."

Angelica picked up a mother-of-pearl spoon, scooping a perfect portion of the impossibly expensive delicacy onto her plate.

"Zero."

Right on cue, Michael’s iPhone exploded with a harsh, high-pitched emergency alert sound that shattered the room's aristocratic silence.

Before he could even slide the screen open, Charles’s phone began to vibrate violently against the mahogany table, followed instantly by Evelyn’s tablet.

The sharp, synchronized chiming of their devices sounded like a digital death knell echoing through the gilded room.

Michael’s face drained of color as he stared at the red flashing text illuminating his screen.

"What... what is this?" Michael stammered, his fingers trembling so hard he nearly dropped the phone into his soup. "Our primary tech subsidiary... the trading has been halted. Someone is dumping millions of shares into the market."

Charles snatched his phone, his eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror as he read the incoming flash alerts.

"It’s a predatory short attack!" Charles roared, his aristocratic composure evaporating into raw, primitive panic. "Federal investigators just breached the lower Manhattan office. They have a warrant for corporate accounting fraud!"

Evelyn let out a genuine, unchoreographed shriek, her weaponized tears turning into a hysterical sob as her tablet flashed a live news feed.

"Daddy! The news says our net worth just plunged forty percent in the last three minutes!" Evelyn screamed, clutching her head. "Everything is freezing! My trust fund accounts are locked!"

Angelica elegantly took a bite of the caviar, the rich, salty flavor bursting on her tongue with the taste of absolute vindication.

She watched them spin into a frantic, chaotic spiral, their faces twisted in the ugly, desperate terror of the suddenly ruined.

They looked so small, so remarkably fragile without their inherited armor and stolen brilliance.

To her, they were no longer the terrifying monsters who had poisoned her in the rain; they were merely insects caught in a glass jar.

Michael turned his frantic, wild eyes onto her, noticing her eerie, undisturbed calm amidst the wreckage of his life.

"You..." Michael gasped, lunging across the table to grab her arm. "Did you do something to the system code? Fix it, Angelica! Use your backdoor access and fix it now!"

Before his hand could make contact with her skin, a massive, black-suited security guard from the restaurant stepped into his path, blocking him with an iron wall of flesh.

Charles’s phone rang again, and he answered it with a trembling hand, pressing the speaker button in his desperation.

"Sir!" his chief financial officer's frantic voice screamed through the speaker, distorted by panic. "Vance Media is entirely defunded! But a major Wall Street institutional fund just offered a predatory, total-takeover lifeline!"

Charles gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white as he yelled back into the phone.

"Who is it? Which fund? Who is buying us out?!" Charles demanded, his voice cracking with age and terror.

"The Del Toro Sovereign Fund!" the CFO wept. "Alessandro Del Toro is on the line. He says he will buy our remaining debt for pennies on the dollar, but he demands a hundred percent voting control by midnight!"

Hearing that name, Angelica smiled, a cold, dark satisfaction warming the icy chambers of her heart.

The apex predator had begun to feed, exactly as she had engineered at two o'clock that morning.

She rose from her chair with slow, deliberate grace, her movements fluid and entirely unbothered by the screaming chaos surrounding her.

She picked up a pristine white silk napkin, gently dabs her lips to clear any trace of the expensive meal, and tossed it onto her plate.

"Enjoy the dinner, Father," Angelica whispered, her voice cutting through their panic like a razor blade. "Though I doubt you can afford the tip."

She turned her back on her screaming family, walking out of the golden dining room without casting a single glance behind her.

As she stepped through the grand glass doors of the hotel, the freezing New York winter storm rumbled, drenching the avenue in a heavy downpour.

But the rain didn't touch her tonight.

An immaculate, armored black Maybach pulled up smoothly to the curb, its tinted window sliding down just an inch to reveal a pair of burning amber eyes.

Marcus stepped out into the rain, holding a massive black umbrella over her head as he opened the door to the velvet dark of the backseat.