The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance

"If she tries to go live and expose us, we have nothing to worry about," someone said. "She's the one who messed up in the first place, and she still refuses to admit it. Once the truth gets out, her whole image will collapse."

A vein throbbed in Jonathan's temple. "Israel, you know Stella isn't someone to be taken lightly. If you call her here, there's every chance she'll just make things worse."

Israel scoffed. "Come on, big brother, Stella's all bark and no bite. Since when did you start letting people like her get under your skin?"

He leaned back, a smug smile on his face. "Besides, I doubt she even has the guts to show up. She's already burned bridges with Leonard Lerman and Sellers Burton. If she tries to cross two more powerful foreign families, she must have a death wish. And with security at the front desk, she'd never even make it upstairs. I just want to teach her a lesson. That's all."

The truth was, Israel simply couldn't swallow his pride.

Thanks to Stella, this morning's meeting had almost turned into a public shaming for the Williams men. Israel had seen the comments online, too-people were calling him a hypocrite. The socialites who used to message him every day had gone silent. A few-hurt after being turned down by him—started posting thinly veiled insults on their social media.

Worse still, their voices had been turned into meme soundbites, spliced together with snarky TV clips and reaction gifs. The revelation that Aurora was an illegitimate child had already left Israel humiliated. Now, with this mess, his reputation was in ruins.

Jonathan considered all this and reluctantly had to admit Israel had a point. Stella had always been a rebellious one. Now that she'd made enemies, she'd be more likely to run than show up. She probably wouldn't come anywhere near.

***

Elsewhere, Stella and Abby Murphy were glued to the latest headlines.

Abby couldn't hide her excitement as she nudged Joshua Gardner. "Joshua, that was brilliant! I can't believe you actually got your hands on the evidence. We really pulled off a satisfying win this time!"

Abby's heart was still racing. Joshua seemed to be good at everything-able to protect Stella, stand up to their enemies, and even find crucial evidence when they needed it.

She looked at him, eyes wide with curiosity. "Joshua, how did you even get your hands on this stuff? People are saying Sellers disappeared... Is he in your custody or something?"

A while ago, Abby would've dismissed the idea outright. But lately, Joshua seemed capable of anything. If Sellers really had fallen into his hands, it wouldn't have surprised her.noveldrama

Joshua shook his head. "No. He's not with me."

Abby was dying of curiosity. "Then how did you do it?"

Joshua explained, "There's this thing called hacking. You told me Sellers had his people record videos. That gave me a place to start. I began investigating Sellers's bodyguards."

Sellers's security team wasn't made up of anyone important, which made digging into their backgrounds tricky-but not impossible.

According to Abby, Sellers onhol net

brought a handful of men with him. That meant they were his best.

After Sellers vanished, the Burtons were desperate to find him. Joshua had managed to slip one of his own people into the Burton search team. The Burtons had to know which of the bodyguards had gone missing, so with that list, Joshua hacked into their phones.

It sounded simple, but it had taken him a good deal of time. After collecting all the video files, he had to carefully edit out anything that would incriminate himself or Stella, and leave only the clips that showed Leonard and Sellers in a compromising light. That alone took quite a bit of work.