Chapter 152: Trash

<One Month Later>

The headline didn’t wait for permission.

By midnight, it was on every screen from quiet private offices to noisy, overcrowded bars.

It started as a small, unnamed thread on a gossip forum, then picked up speed, bouncing from blogs to major news sites until it was everywhere.

ISABELLA KINGSTON AND AARON KAZAROV. WEDDING DATE CONFIRMED.

No official statement had come out. Neither side had posted a photo or released a line of text to confirm it.

The public knew the event itself was locked away behind tight security, far out of reach for regular people.

But details had spilled through the cracks anyway. Select invitations had reached old-money families.

Certain board members had been informed. The Lotus Alliance knew, and so did a handful of high-profile business partners who held too much power to be left in the dark.

That was all it took. Just enough truth to set the internet on fire.

A little over two months had passed since the divorce papers were finalized. People who had followed the messy collapse of the Kingston marriage were glued to their phones, picking apart every word.

Some called it a scandal, swearing something had been going on behind closed doors long before the split.

Others talked about it like a movie script, obsessed with the idea of a disgraced heiress falling straight into the arms of a man like Aaron Kazarov.

In a private lounge on the top floor of an elite club, the noise of the city didn’t reach the glass.

The bass from the main floor was just a dull thump under the floorboards. Velvet couches lined the walls, and low dim lights cut through the drifting smoke of expensive cigarettes.

Vivienne sat with her legs crossed, a glass of dark liquor resting on her knee. She scrolled through her phone with one thumb, her red lips pulled into a faint, lazy smile.

Across from her, male hosts in sharp suits poured fresh drinks and moved out of the way, keeping their distance whenever the mood in the booth shifted.

Alice hadn’t touched her glass in ten minutes. Her phone was flat in her palm, the screen glowing bright against her face.

She kept refreshing the page, reading the same paragraphs over and over until the words stopped making sense.

"You’re going to burn a hole through the glass if you keep staring like that," Vivienne said softly, without looking up.

Alice didn’t answer. Her knuckles were white around the edges of the casing.

"It’s just noise, Alice," Vivienne added, setting her glass on the low table between them. "Press talk. Half of it is made up anyway."

"They’re calling it confirmed," Alice said, her voice tight, almost thin. "Look at the wording. They have the location type. They have the date."

"So what?" Vivienne leaned back, resting her elbow on the leather cushion. "Let her marry whoever she wants. She’s out of the picture. She left the company, she left the house, she left Kian. You won. You’re the one sitting in the executive office every morning."

Alice’s jaw set hard. She turned her phone off, then turned it right back on. "You don’t get it."

"I get plenty," Vivienne said dryly. "I get that you’re sitting in a five-thousand-dollar booth, letting an article about a blind girl ruin your night."

"It’s not about her!" Alice snapped, her voice cutting through the smooth jazz playing in the background.

A couple of host boys near the doorway glanced over before quickly looking away. Alice breathed out through her nose, forcing herself to lower her tone.

"It’s the fact that he’s doing it publicly. Aaron Kazarov is putting his name next to hers in front of everyone. And what am I doing? I’m still hiding in the shadows like a secret Kian keeps in his back pocket."

Vivienne sighed, shaking her head. "Kian is handling the company. He just got through a massive public split. He can’t just hand the press another story the next week. You know how this works."

"It’s been a month," Alice whispered, her eyes dark. "And every time I bring up making us official, he finds a way to slide around it."

Before Vivienne could answer, three women walked past their section.

They were wearing silk dresses that cost more than a year of a regular person’s salary, moving with the easy, slow confidence of people who had been born into money and never had to ask for permission to enter a room.

They weren’t looking at Alice. They didn’t even turn their heads. But their voices were perfectly clear, pitched just high enough to carry over the background music.

"I heard the guest list for the Kazarov event is completely locked down," one of them said, her voice light and musical. "Only old families. Real money."

"As it should be," the second woman chimed in, swirling the ice in her glass. "After everything Isabella went through, she deserves a proper match. Not some cheap mess."

"Well, at least Aaron has standards," the third one added with a soft laugh. "He’s taking care of a real heiress. Not picking up some ambitious little girl from the gutter who thinks sleeping with a CEO makes her royalty."

They kept walking, their heels clicking rhythmically against the polished dark wood floor.

Vivienne’s eyes narrowed instantly. She shifted her weight, setting her glass down hard enough to make the crystal ring. "Are you serious?"

Alice hadn’t moved. Every drop of color had drained from her face, leaving her pale and rigid under the warm lounge lights.

The words hung in the air, heavy and filthy, hitting every single nerve she had spent years trying to numb.

Girl from the gutter.

Sleeping with the boss.

"Don’t," Vivienne said, her hand reaching out to grab Alice’s forearm as Alice stood up. "Alice, stop. They’re doing it on purpose. Look at them. They want a reaction."

"Let go of me," Alice said. Her voice wasn’t loud anymore. It was cold, trembling with a sudden, violent heat.

"Alice, listen to me—"

Alice yanked her arm out of Vivienne’s grip, knocking a crystal water glass off the edge of the small table. It shattered on the floor, but she didn’t even look down. She walked straight toward the three women, who had stopped near a tall marble display near the VIP railing.

The leader of the group, a woman with high cheekbones, dark hair pulled into a sleek bun, and a diamond necklace resting against her collarbone, turned around slowly as Alice approached.

Her expression didn’t change. She looked at Alice the way someone might look at a spill on a rug.

"Can we help you?" the dark-haired woman asked, her voice smooth and completely unbothered.

"What did you just say?" Alice demanded, stopping a foot away from her.

The woman raised an eyebrow, tilting her head slightly. "I’m sorry? We were just having a private conversation."

"You were talking about me," Alice said, her chest rising and falling fast. "Say it to my face. Come on. You were talking so loud back there, say it right here."

The woman’s two friends exchanged a amused glance. One of them actually covered her mouth with two manicured fingers, taking a tiny step back as if Alice carried something contagious.

"We didn’t mention your name," the leader said softly, her tone dripping with fake pity. "If you felt like those words applied to you, darling, maybe that’s something you need to work out on your own time."

"You snobby, arrogant bitch," Alice hissed.

"Alice, come on, let’s go back to the booth," Vivienne said, finally reaching them and grabbing Alice’s shoulder, trying to pull her back. "It’s not worth it."

"No!" Alice shoved Vivienne away. She stepped closer to the dark-haired woman, her eyes wide, wild with a rage that had been building up for months.

"You think because your father has money, you can look down on me? You think you’re better than me?"

The woman didn’t flinch. She simply looked Alice up and down, her eyes lingering on Alice’s dress, her hair, the desperate tension in her posture.

"We don’t think about you at all," the woman said calmly, her voice carrying across the quiet lounge.

A few other guests at nearby tables were turning around now, watching. "You’re just the secretary who forgot her place. Kian Carter might let you sleep in his bed, but out here? You’re still nobody."

Something snapped inside Alice’s head.

The noise of the lounge faded out completely. She didn’t think about where she was.

She didn’t think about the people watching, or the security guard standing fifty feet away, or the fact that Kian was downstairs ending a high-stakes dinner with investors.

Her hand moved before her brain could stop it. She reached out, grabbed a heavy glass bottle off a passing waiter’s tray, and swung it with everything she had.

The glass crashed into the side of the woman’s head with a sharp, sickening crack.

The woman screamed, stumbling sideways into her friend, her hands flying up to her hair as blood dark and thick began to seep through her fingers.

The bottle didn’t break, but the force of the blow sent her crashing against the marble display, bringing down a stack of crystal glasses with a deafening shatter.

Instant chaos broke out.

Women screamed. Tables were pushed back. Security guards burst through the velvet curtains, shouting into their radios, while host boys scrambled to move out of the way.

Alice stood there, breathing heavily, the heavy bottle still clutched in her hand, her hair messy and falling into her eyes.

"What is going on here?!"

A sharp, command-heavy voice cut through the noise.

Kian Carter stepped into the section, flanked by two older men in dark custom suits. He had his coat over one arm, his tie slightly loosened, looking every bit the cold, collected executive until his eyes landed on the blood on the floor, the crying woman held up by her friends, and Alice standing in the middle of it all with a bottle in her hand.

For a second, Kian didn’t say a word. His face went entirely blank.

The father of the injured girl—one of the older men standing right beside Kian—let out a furious gasp and rushed forward.

"Julianna! Oh my god! Somebody call an ambulance!" He turned back to Kian, his face red with anger, pointing a finger directly at Alice. "Is this who you bring around us, Carter? Is this the kind of trash you keep on your payroll?!"

Kian didn’t look at the man. He walked straight toward Alice, his jaw locked so tight the muscle beneath his skin twitched.

"Drop it," Kian said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a dangerous, quiet weight that made even the security guards hesitate.

Alice blinked, looking down at the bottle in her hand as if she was just realizing she was holding it. She let it fall. It rolled across the rug, leaving a wet trail.

"Kian, she—she called me—"