His Fiancée Tore the Maid’s Dress in Front of 300 Guests and the Scar Made the Billionaire Drop His Glass

Marcus Vance was a man who looked like an unmade bed.

At forty-two, his once-handsome features had been dissolved by cheap bourbon, late-night poker games, and decades of dodging child support. He was wearing an ill-fitting leather jacket over a faded graphic tee, waving a sheaf of legal documents in the face of a security guard who looked like he could bench-press an engine block.

“I have a court order!” Marcus yelled, spittle flying from his lips. “I am her biological father! You rent-a-cops touch me, and I’ll have your badges—I’ll sue this entire company!”

Behind him, two nervous-looking men with briefcases—clearly Lawrence’s low-tier legal fixers—stood shivering in the Brooklyn damp.

The Maybach rolled to a stop at the curb. The heavy doors swung open.

When Julian Cross stepped onto the asphalt, the temperature on the street seemed to plummet. He didn't hurry. He buttoned the single middle button of his suit, adjusted his cuffs, and then reached back into the car to offer his hand to Elena.

Elena took it. She stepped out into the glare of the streetlamps, Julian’s jacket wrapped securely around her, her chin raised.

“Elena!” Marcus barked, his face twisting into a triumphant, ugly sneer. “There she is! Tell these goons to back off! The court granted me emergency temporary custody of Lily tonight! She’s coming with me to New Jersey!”

“She isn't going anywhere with you, Marcus,” Elena said, her voice shaking with rage. “You haven't seen Lily in three years. You didn't even come to Caroline’s funeral!”

“Caroline was a liar, and you’re a thief!” Marcus spat, taking an aggressive step forward. “You’ve been hiding her trust fund! But the Lawrence family’s lawyers were kind enough to enlighten me. You’re an unfit guardian, Brooks. You live in a slum, you work as a scrub-woman, and now I hear you’re running around getting arrested at society parties!”

Marcus took another step, raising the rolled-up legal papers as if to strike the air in front of her.

Before his foot touched the concrete, Julian moved.

It was impossibly fast. Julian closed the distance in two strides, his hand shooting out to grip Marcus by the front of his leather jacket. With a single, explosive heave, Julian slammed the older man backward against the brick wall of the brownstone.

The impact knocked the breath clean out of Marcus’s lungs with a wet *thud*.

“Hey!” one of the process servers yelled, stepping forward. “You can’t do that—!”

Julian’s head of security simply stepped into the process server’s path, crossing his massive arms. The lawyer stopped dead, his mouth snapping shut.

Julian leaned in close, his face inches from Marcus’s terrified, bloodshot eyes. Julian’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of an anvil dropping into deep water.

“You have five seconds to drop those papers,” Julian whispered.

Marcus struggled, his heels kicking against the pavement, but Julian held him pinned to the brickwork like a butterfly under a pin. “Do you… do you know who I am? I’m the father—!”

“You are a biological accident,” Julian said coldly. “Your name is Marcus Vance. You owe one hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars to illegal sportsbooks in Atlantic City. Three of your bookmakers are currently awaiting trial for loan sharking. If I make one phone call, the Manhattan District Attorney will unseal an indictment naming you as an unindicted co-conspirator in an extortion ring. You will be in federal custody before breakfast.”

Marcus’s eyes bulged with terror. The color drained from his ruddy cheeks, leaving him a sickly grey. “H-how… how do you know that?”

“I know what you had for breakfast three weeks ago, Marcus,” Julian replied smoothly. “I know Richard Lawrence gave you fifty thousand dollars in a paper bag behind a diner in Queens two hours ago. That money constitutes witness bribery and conspiracy to subvert a family court proceeding.”

Julian leaned in even closer, his grip tightening until the leather of Marcus’s jacket groaned.

“If you ever come within five miles of Elena or Lily Brooks again,” Julian said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it made the hair on Elena’s arms stand up, “I won't call the police. I will simply buy the debt you owe in Atlantic City. And then I will collect.”

Julian released him.

Marcus collapsed onto the pavement like a sack of wet flour, gasping for air, clutching his bruised chest. He looked up at Julian, then at Elena, and finally scrambled to his feet, abandoning his paperwork on the sidewalk.

“You’re crazy,” Marcus wheezed, stumbling backward toward his car. “You’re all out of your minds!”

He dove into the passenger side of the process server’s sedan, and the vehicle peeled away from the curb, tires screeching into the Brooklyn night.

Elena stood on the sidewalk, trembling. The adrenaline, the cold, the sheer unreality of the last three hours finally caught up to her. Her knees buckled.

Julian caught her before she could hit the ground.

He scooped her up effortlessly, one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, cradling her against his chest as if she weighed nothing at all.

“Julian, put me down,” she murmured weakly, though her hands instinctively clung to his dress shirt. “I can walk…”

“You’ve walked enough for one night,” Julian said softly. He looked up at the second-floor window of the brownstone, where a small, pale face was peering down through the curtains.

Lily.