CHAPTER 1: THE FALL THAT STARTED A WAR
Harrison Cole did not shout.
He did not call for help, though people were already rushing forward, phones out, voices rising in chaos.
He pressed both hands firmly against his sister’s wound, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like stone might crack before he did.
“Ambulance,” he said quietly, and somehow the word cut through the noise sharper than a scream.
Khloe’s blood soaked into his cuffs, into the fabric of his thousand-dollar suit, turning it into something far more valuable—evidence.
He leaned closer.
“You don’t get to leave me,” he whispered. “You fought too hard for this baby.”
A faint monitor beep echoed as paramedics finally reached them. Oxygen mask. Compression. Urgent hands.
Harrison stood only when they forced him to.
But his eyes never left the top of the staircase.
Vanessa Kensington had stepped back.
Richard Harrington had not moved at all.
That told Harrison everything he needed to know.
Not shock.
Not remorse.
Just calculation.
Harrison slowly pulled out his phone.
One call.
“That firm in D.C. I told you about?” he said calmly. “I need everything you have on Harrington Commercial Group. Offshore accounts, shell companies, all of it.”
A pause.
Then—
“And flag a civil suit for attempted homicide.”
He looked back at the blood on the marble.
May you like
“No,” he corrected softly.
“Make that war.”
