Chapter 123: The Devil’s Iron Cage
The massive, quiet hallways of Northwood were cast in long, dark shadows.
Furious, restless, and stripped of her phone, Anastasia couldn’t sleep. The silence of her room felt suffocating.
Barefoot and still wearing her oversized sweater, she slipped down the grand spiral staircase toward the kitchen to get a glass of cold water and clear her spinning head.
She pushed the swinging double doors open… and stopped.
Valerie was sitting alone at the dark marble island, a warm mug of chamomile tea cradled between her hands, her eyes rimmed with red.
”Can’t sleep either?” Valerie asked softly, offering a faint, self-conscious smile.
Ana stepped inside, pouring herself a glass of water before leaning against the opposite counter. “It’s a little hard to sleep when your brother takes away every lifeline you have to the outside world.”
Valerie let out a low, weary sigh, staring down into her tea.
”Damian is brutal, Ana. I know. He treats everything like a battlefield.”
Valerie murmured, her voice laced with guilt.
“After your divorce two years ago, he became a ghost. He was secretly tracking every move your father and Mark made around the Vance properties. Then, a few months ago, he suddenly brought you back under his roof. We all thought it was a mistake that you two reconciled after everything Richard did to our father. But looking at Damian… he looked like a man possessed, desperate to keep you within arm’s reach before something caught up to you.”
Ana forced a tight, quiet nod, swallowing down the bitter secret she carried alone.
Valerie, Victoria, the entire world.. believed that she and Damian had simply gotten back together after a painful divorce.
No one knew the humiliating reality… that three months ago, Damian had forced her into an absolute slave contract, trapping her as his personal property behind closed doors to pay off the endless “debt” he claimed she owed him.
The conversation lingered heavily in Ana’s chest long after Valerie excused herself to the west wing.
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Walking back upstairs, driven by a burning curiosity, Ana turned down the long east corridor and quietly pushed open the heavy oak doors to Damian’s private study.
The room smelled richly of aged leather, mahogany, and Damian’s distinct cedar cologne. The large executive desk was impeccably neat, bathed in the faint blue moonlight spilling through the windows.
Ana walked over to the desk, searching for a spare tablet or landline. As she opened the deep lower drawer, she found a heavy lockbox. The brass latch had been left slightly open, unlocked in the rush of Damian’s emergency departure one day ago.
Her breath caught. She lifted the lid. Inside was a thick, black leather folder stamped with her family’s corporate crest… Vance Enterprises.
With trembling hands, Ana pulled the file into the moonlight.
The first document was a classified historical brief detailing the legacy of the Sullivan Syndicate and her late grandfather. Decades ago, her grandfather had forged a joint offshore depository in Switzerland with the elder Sullivan patriarch.
Distrusting his own greedy son, her grandfather had locked the billions behind an ironclad bloodline clause… the trust could only be unlocked by the living biometric authorization and signature of his granddaughter… Anastasia Vance.
Her father, Richard Vance, had been completely blind to that clause. Four years ago, blinded by sheer greed, Richard thought he had hit the ultimate jackpot when Damian offered a staggering one hundred million dollars to buy Anastasia out from under her family’s roof and make her his bride.
Richard and Mark had gleefully taken the fortune, laughing all the way to the bank, utterly oblivious that they had just given away the literal key to the Sullivan billions.
Now, with the elder Sullivan dead and young Dante Sullivan taking command of the syndicate, the wolves had returned.
Dante had realized the truth Richard never knew… and he didn’t want Anastasia dead. He needed her in his clutches to seize the fortune her grandfather left behind.
Ana’s fingers shook violently as she turned to the next page.
It was the marriage license she had signed four years ago, but attached to it was a confidential memo from Damian’s lead legal counsel.
Mr. Sterling,
Executing this absolute private guardianship agreement completely strips Miss Vance of all independent legal standing. Bound as your direct legal dependent under the Sterling name, Dante Sullivan cannot legally claim her, freeze her assets, or force her to execute her grandfather’s trust. She is fully shielded under your absolute immunity.
Ana clutched the paper, the breath completely knocked out of her lungs.
For three months, she had despised Damian for enforcing that ruthless slave contract, believing he was merely using that four-year-old financial debt to torment and control her after their divorce.
In reality, the moment Dante Sullivan began hunting her down for her grandfather’s fortune, Damian had weaponized that old debt into an unbreakable legal iron cage.
He had stripped her of her freedom, letting her hate him every single day, entirely to make sure Dante Sullivan could never lay a finger on her.
Ana clutched the crisp white paper, her breathing shallow and uneven as her mind raced to connect the fractured pieces.
Why would Damian go to such extreme, tortuous lengths to keep her tethered to him?
How could he possibly know about a secret bloodline clause that her grandfather had kept buried from his own greedy son and grandson?
Then, like a cold shock to her system, the memory clicked into place.
Arthur Sterling.
Before Damian built his ruthless empire and became the untouchable devil of the corporate world, his late father, Arthur, had served as the personal, trusted head butler to the Vance estate.
In a household where Mark tormented her and Richard treated her like a burden, Arthur had been Anastasia’s only gentle refuge… a quiet guardian who brought her warm tea in the library and watched over her when her own parents couldn’t be bothered.
Her grandfather had trusted Arthur with everything. If anyone had known the truth about that locked Swiss trust, it was Arthur Sterling.
Before his tragic fall and suicide, had Arthur passed that final, dangerous secret down to his son?
Had Damian known from the very beginning that the quiet, broken girl he bought for a hundred million dollars carried a lethal syndicate target on her back?
A sudden, sharp click at the doorway shattered the quiet.
Ana gasped, her head snapping up toward the entrance.
Walter stood framed in the threshold, a secure tablet tucked under his arm as he completed his final midnight security sweep.
His sharp, vigilant gaze instantly locked onto the open lockbox on the executive desk, and the classified files clutched tightly in Anastasia’s trembling hands.
The veteran security chief’s, unreadable expression fractured with a sudden, grave tightness.
”Anastasia,” Walter said, his deep tone cutting through the moonlight with solemn, chilling finality. “You were never supposed to see those.”