The Shadow King's Deceit

Chapter 1

Mallory

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”

The voice is pure sugar, spun fine enough to hide the arsenic underneath. I don’t have to turn to know it’s my stepsister, Seraphina. I feel her presence like a change in air pressure, a drop that promises a storm.

I keep my eyes fixed on the city lights glittering through the panoramic window of the hotel ballroom. Our hotel ballroom. My father’s name is etched into the marble by the entrance. Tonight, that feels less like a legacy and more like the engraving on a tombstone.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I say, taking a long swallow of champagne. The bubbles sting, a welcome distraction. It’s my third glass. Or maybe my fourth. The number stopped mattering when I saw her walk in on his arm.

“It means so much to us that you came to celebrate,” she continues, moving to stand beside me. The scent of her perfume, a cloying gardenia, invades my space. She places a hand on her perfectly rounded stomach, a gesture that is anything but maternal. It’s a declaration of victory. “Julian was so worried you’d be… upset.”

I finally turn, forcing a smile that feels like it might crack my face. “Upset? Why would I be upset? It’s a party.”

Her own smile is a masterpiece of feigned sympathy. She’s dressed in a cream-colored silk gown that showcases her pregnancy like a trophy. She won. The prize is standing ten feet away, laughing with some business associate, looking every bit the conquering hero.

Julian. My Julian. For eight years, he was my Julian.

“Well, after everything…” she trails off, letting the words hang in the air between us. Everything. Eight years of my life, a shared apartment, plans for a future, all erased and rewritten with her as the heroine.

“It’s very adult of you to be so gracious,” she adds, her eyes flicking over my simple black dress with subtle disdain. “Some women would make a scene.”

“I’m not some women,” I reply, my voice tight. My grip on the champagne flute is the only thing keeping my hand from shaking.

“No, you’re not.” Julian’s voice, deep and smooth, joins the conversation. He slides an arm around Seraphina’s waist, pulling her against his side and kissing her temple. The gesture is so familiar it physically hurts to watch. He used to do that to me.

“I told you Mallory would handle this with class,” he says to her, but his eyes are on me. They’re filled with a mixture of pity and condescension that makes my stomach churn. “Glad you’re here, El. Truly.”

He calls me El. No one else has ever called me that.

“Wouldn’t miss my own public execution,” I mutter into my glass, but it’s too quiet for them to hear over the string quartet.

“What was that?” Julian asks, leaning in slightly.

“I said, it looks like a beautiful occasion,” I say louder, my smile stretched painfully thin.

“Only the best for my Seraphina,” he beams, stroking her belly. “And for our little one.”

The word ‘our’ hits me like a punch to the gut. I drain the rest of my champagne in one go, the cold liquid doing nothing to numb the fire in my chest. I set the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter and immediately grab a fresh one.

“Easy there,” Julian says, his tone shifting to that of a concerned parent. “You know how you get when you’ve had too many.”

It’s a low blow, a reference to a single night a year ago when I got emotional at a Christmas party after my mother’s death anniversary. He’s using it now, here, to paint me as unstable. To justify his betrayal.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I say, my voice dangerously calm.

Seraphina gives Julian’s arm a little squeeze. “Julian, be nice. Of course she’s emotional. It’s a big night. Our engagement, the baby announcement… it’s a lot to take in.” She looks at me, her eyes wide and deceptively innocent. “We just want you to be happy for us.”

Happy for you. The phrase echoes in the hollow space where my heart used to be. Happy that my stepsister, who moved in with my father and me after her own mother died, who I treated like my own blood, stole the man I was supposed to marry.

“I’m ecstatic,” I say, the word tasting like acid. I raise my glass in a mock toast. “To the happy couple. May you get everything you deserve.”

The double meaning hangs in the air, sharp and clear to me, but they choose to hear only the polite sentiment. Julian claps his hand on my shoulder, a gesture of dismissal.

“That’s my girl. Always a good sport.” He turns his attention back to the room. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, darling, I believe my father wants to make a toast.”

He leads a glowing Seraphina toward the small stage at the far end of the ballroom. I watch them go, my hand trembling so badly the champagne sloshes over the rim of the glass. A good sport. He makes it sound like I lost a tennis match, not the entire future I had built my life around.

The crowd quiets as Julian’s father, a man whose approval I spent years trying to earn, takes the microphone. His speech is a gushing tribute to the perfect couple, to new beginnings, to the merging of two powerful families. Every word is a fresh cut.

I can’t listen to this. I turn away, my back to the stage, and scan the crowd of smiling, gossiping faces. They’re all watching the spectacle, but I can feel their sideways glances. They’re watching me, too. The jilted ex-fiancée. The tragic figure in the corner. Their pity is suffocating.

My gaze drifts past the clusters of designer suits and jewel-draped necks, landing on a figure standing alone near a marble column. He’s not part of their world. I can tell instantly. While everyone else is dressed in tailored tuxedos that scream old money, he wears a simple, dark suit that fits him perfectly but lacks the ostentatious branding of the others. It’s his stillness that catches me. He isn’t talking, or networking, or trying to be seen. He’s just watching.

Watching me.

His eyes are dark, and his expression is unreadable. There’s no pity there. No curiosity. It’s an unnerving intensity, a focused assessment that makes me feel seen in a way that’s entirely different from the pitying stares of the crowd. He sees the fury I’m trying to choke down with champagne. He sees the cracks in my carefully constructed composure.

As Julian’s father finishes his toast to thunderous applause, an idea, born of desperation and alcohol, sparks in my mind. It’s reckless. It’s self-destructive. It’s perfect.

I’m not going to be their tragic figure. I’m not going to slink out of here and cry myself to sleep. If they want a scene, I’ll give them one they’ll be talking about for months.

He will be my revenge.

My heart starts hammering against my ribs, a wild, frantic beat. I put my half-full champagne glass down on a table with a decisive click. I smooth down my dress, lift my chin, and start walking.

The ballroom feels a hundred miles wide. Every step is a conscious effort. The plush carpet muffles the sound of my heels, but in my head, each footfall is a drumbeat counting down to detonation. I don’t look at Julian or Seraphina, but I feel their eyes on me as I bypass the stage and head directly for the man in the corner.

He doesn’t move as I approach. He just watches me come, his gaze never wavering. It’s like he’s been waiting.

I stop a foot in front of him. Up close, he’s even more striking. Sharp jaw, dark hair that’s just a little too long, and eyes that seem to see right through me.

“You look incredibly bored,” I say, my voice steadier than I expected.

One corner of his mouth lifts in a ghost of a smile. “The champagne is mediocre and the conversation is worse. I was considering leaving.”

“Don’t,” I say, the word coming out with more force than I intended.

His dark eyes hold mine. “Give me a reason to stay.”

This is it. The point of no return. I take a breath, the air thick with expensive perfume and the low hum of self-important chatter.

“I need a favor,” I say.

“I’m not in the business of favors,” he replies, his voice a low, smooth baritone.

“Then consider it a business proposition.”

He raises an eyebrow, intrigued. “I’m listening.”

“I need an escort,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. Julian and Seraphina are watching us now, their smiles frozen, confusion dawning on their faces. Perfect. “Out of this party. Right now.”

“An escort,” he repeats, the word laced with amusement. “And what’s in it for me?”

I look him straight in the eye, letting him see the raw, jagged edges of my desperation. “Anything you want. But we leave together. We make sure everyone sees us leave together. Especially them.” I nod discreetly in their direction.

He follows my gaze, taking in the happy couple, the adoring crowd, the whole sickening tableau. His eyes linger on Julian for a moment before returning to me. He sees the entire story in a single glance.

I expect him to laugh, to dismiss me as some drunken, scorned woman. I expect him to turn me down flat.

Instead, he says, “Public humiliation is a messy business.”

“I’m not the one who’s going to be humiliated,” I promise, a fierce, unfamiliar confidence surging through me.

A slow smile spreads across his lips, transforming his face. It’s a dangerous, captivating smile that makes the air crackle.

“Alright,” he says, his voice dropping lower, sending a shiver down my spine. “I’ll be your proposition.”

He pushes off from the column and offers me his arm. The fabric of his suit is cool and solid beneath my fingers. His presence is a shield, an anchor in the swirling chaos of the room.

“My name is Victor,” he says as we begin to walk toward the grand exit.

“Mallory,” I reply.

We don’t rush. We walk with a deliberate, unhurried pace, a silent, unified front. The crowd parts before us. The whispers follow in our wake. I can feel Julian’s stare burning into my back. Seraphina’s too.

We’re almost at the doors when Julian’s voice cuts through the noise.

“Mallory? Where are you going?”

I stop, but I don’t turn around. Victor stops with me, his arm a warm, steady pressure against mine.

“I’m leaving,” I say, my voice ringing with a clarity that surprises me. I finally turn to face him, a real smile touching my lips for the first time all night. It feels powerful. It feels free.

Julian’s face is a mask of disbelief and fury. Seraphina looks utterly bewildered, her hand protectively on her stomach as if I’m a direct threat.

“You’re leaving with… him?” Julian asks, his gaze flicking to Victor with open contempt.

“Yes,” I say simply. “It seems I got a better offer.”

Victor’s grip tightens ever so slightly on my arm, a silent signal of support. He looks at Julian, his expression utterly unimpressed, and then he guides me through the ornate doors, out of the ballroom and into the unknown, leaving the wreckage of my old life behind in a stunned, suffocating silence.

Chapter 2

Mallory

The first thing I register is the light. Not the soft, filtered glow of my apartment, but a harsh, clinical slash of sunlight cutting through grimy blinds. It smells like bleach and regret.

My head pounds in a dull, rhythmic protest. A champagne headache. I pry my eyes open, and the world swims into focus. A popcorn ceiling, stained in one corner. Wood-paneled walls that belong in a bygone decade. A television bolted to a stand in the corner. This is not my room. This is not the hotel. This is… cheap.

The sheet beneath my cheek is starchy and thin, a universe away from the thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton I’m used to. I’m still in my black dress from last night, crumpled and smelling faintly of smoke and a man's cologne I don't recognize. Panic, cold and sharp, lances through me.

I sit up too fast. The room spins. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to force the memories to surface through the alcoholic fog. The ballroom. Seraphina’s gloating smile. Julian’s pity. And then… him.

Victor.

My eyes fly to the other side of the bed. It’s empty. The pillow is dented, the sheet thrown back, but the space is cold. He’s gone.

A wave of something complex and ugly washes over me. Is it relief? Disappointment? Humiliation.

Yes. That’s the one. Humiliation.

“What did you do, Mallory?” I whisper to the empty room. My voice is a rough, unused thing.

The night comes back in flashes, disconnected and sensory. The feeling of his hand on the small of my back as he guided me out of the party. The rumble of his car’s engine. The way he looked at me in the dim light of the dashboard.

“Are you sure about this?” His voice, a low baritone that seemed to vibrate right through me.

“I’m sure I can’t go back in there,” I’d answered, my own voice thin and brittle.

I remember the raw, desperate need to feel something, anything, other than the crushing weight of Julian’s betrayal. I wanted to burn the good girl, the ‘good sport,’ to the ground. And this stranger, this Victor, was the match.

He didn’t push. He didn’t pry. He just watched me with those dark, assessing eyes.

“This isn’t about him anymore, is it?” he’d asked later, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw.

“No,” I admitted, the confession tasting like freedom. “It’s about not being her. The tragic figure everyone pities.”

“Then who are you, right now, in this room?”

“Someone who’s making a terrible mistake.”

He had smiled then, that slow, dangerous smile. “The best mistakes are the ones you don’t regret until morning.”

Well, it’s morning.

My gaze sweeps the room, looking for any other sign of him. His suit jacket isn’t slung over the chair. His shoes aren’t by the door. It’s as if he was never here, a phantom conjured by champagne and fury.

Then I see it. On the battered nightstand, next to a lamp with a crooked shade, is a single piece of paper. It’s a page torn from the motel’s notepad. My heart does a frantic, stupid flip-flop.

I reach for it, my hand trembling slightly. His handwriting is clean and strong, black ink against cheap paper. It’s just two lines.

Victor.

And below it, a phone number.

That’s it. No goodbye. No ‘I had a great time.’ No ‘sorry for ditching you in a fleabag motel.’ Just his name and a number.

The stark simplicity of it is somehow more insulting than a hurried, scrawled apology. It’s transactional. A business card left after a service.

“A business proposition,” I say, the words I used last night coming back to haunt me. I got exactly what I asked for. An escape. An escort. A warm body to help me forget.

So why does this feel so… hollow?

I sink back against the lumpy pillows, the note clutched in my hand. The defiant fire from last night has been extinguished, leaving behind cold, gray ash. I imagine Seraphina and Julian waking up in their penthouse suite, tangled in silk sheets. I imagine them laughing about me. The pathetic, drunken Mallory who stormed out with some random stranger.

I gave them exactly the ammunition they needed. Now I’m not just the jilted ex. I’m the trashy, jilted ex who picks up men in corners.

My phone is in my clutch on the floor. I should call someone. My best friend, Chloe, maybe. She’d listen without judgment. But what would I even say? ‘Hi, I just had a one-night stand with a complete stranger as part of a revenge plot that completely backfired. How’s your Tuesday?’

No. I can’t. This shame is mine to carry alone.

I stare at the phone number in my hand. What kind of man leaves just a number? A man who expects a call? Or a man who knows he won’t get one and doesn't care either way?

The arrogance of it starts to relight a tiny ember of my anger. He used me just as much as I used him. He was a willing participant in my self-destruction. And he just walked away, leaving me to deal with the fallout in a room that costs fifty-nine dollars a night.

I should rip the note into a thousand tiny pieces. I should burn it. I should flush it down the toilet and forget his name and his sharp jawline and the way he made me feel seen for the first time in months.

I bring the paper to my nose. It smells like nothing. Just paper. There’s no trace of him left at all.

But a different thought pushes through the shame. A stubborn, defiant thought. Last night, for the first time in eight years, I wasn’t Julian Croft’s fiancée. I wasn’t Richard Ellis’s dutiful daughter. I wasn’t Seraphina’s pathetic stepsister. I was just Mallory. A woman who made a choice. A reckless, stupid, and possibly catastrophic choice. But it was mine.

I stood up and walked across that ballroom. I made the offer. I walked out on my own terms.

It wasn’t a victory. I can see that clearly in the harsh light of morning. But it wasn’t a complete surrender, either.

I look at the note again. His name and a number.

A loose thread. A piece of the night I can’t account for. A mystery.

I stand up and walk over to the cracked mirror above the cheap dresser. The woman looking back at me is a mess. Her mascara is smudged beneath her eyes. Her hair is a tangled wreck. The expensive black dress looks out of place, a piece of a different life accidentally dropped into this one.

But her eyes… her eyes are different. They aren’t filled with the desperate, pleading grief I saw in the ballroom mirror last night. They’re shadowed with regret, yes, but there’s something else there, too. A hardness. A resolve.

This is the price of my little rebellion. Waking up alone in a place like this. Facing the whispers and the stares that are sure to come.

I will not call him. Calling him would be an admission of defeat, a sign that the night meant more than a simple transaction. It would make me the vulnerable one.

He will be a secret. A mistake. A ghost.

I fold the note carefully, the creases sharp and deliberate. My mind screams at me to destroy it, to erase the evidence of my lapse in judgment. But my hands have other ideas. I open my clutch, slip the note inside a side pocket, and zip it shut.

I don't know why I'm keeping it. Maybe as a reminder. A trophy of my own stupidity. Or maybe, just maybe, as proof that for one night, I was in control of my own destruction.

I smooth down my dress as best I can, kick off the heels I can’t bear to put back on, and lift my chin. There’s no point in slinking out. The damage is done.

I walk to the door, my bare feet silent on the worn, stained carpet. I don’t look back at the empty bed or the rumpled sheets. The past is the past. Last night is over.

I step out into the blinding morning sun, into the noise of the city waking up. I have no idea who Victor is, or what he does, or why a man like him was at my ex-fiancé’s engagement party.

And I vow, right here, right now, standing in the parking lot of the Sunset Glow Motel, that I will never, ever find out.

Chapter 3

Mallory

“Welcome to The Ellis Astoria. How may I help you?”

The words are automatic, a smooth, polished script I’ve recited a thousand times from behind this marble concierge desk. For two days, I have clung to this script. It’s my armor. My shield against the whispers I can feel rippling through the staff, against the pitying looks from guests who read the society pages.

“Well, look at you. The dutiful daughter, right back at her post.”

The voice is Seraphina’s. Of course it is. I look up from my computer screen, and my practiced smile freezes on my face. She and Julian are standing on the other side of the desk, a united front of smug satisfaction.

Seraphina is wearing a white cashmere coat that probably costs more than my car. Julian has his hand resting proprietorially on the small of her back. They look like an advertisement for entitled bliss.

“I work here, Seraphina,” I say, my voice clipped. “It’s Tuesday.”

“We know,” Julian says, his eyes sweeping over the grand lobby, a space he was once supposed to co-manage with me. “Just surprised to see you. We thought you might need a few… personal days.”

The insinuation is clear. We thought you’d be at home, crying. Pathetic.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I say, straightening a stack of brochures that are already perfectly straight. “Is there something I can help you with? A dinner reservation? Theater tickets?”

“Actually, yes,” Seraphina chirps, leaning forward and lowering her voice into a conspiratorial whisper that carries across the lobby. “We were worried about you, Mallory. After you ran off the other night.”

My knuckles turn white where I’m gripping the edge of the desk. “I didn’t run off. I left.”

“With a complete stranger,” Julian adds, his tone dripping with disapproval. “It was reckless. Not like you at all. We were just concerned that you might have put yourself in a… compromising position.”

“My positions are no longer any of your concern,” I bite back.

Seraphina places a hand over her heart. “Don’t be like that. We care about you. In fact, we were so worried about the kind of man you’d pick up at a party, I had my father’s security team do a little digging.”

Ice floods my veins. “You did what?”

“It wasn’t hard,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Just a quick look at the hotel’s security footage from the entrance. We got his license plate. It was surprisingly easy to find him after that.”

My stomach twists into a painful knot. This is a nightmare. A public, meticulously orchestrated nightmare.

“You had no right,” I whisper, the words barely audible.

“We had every right to make sure you were safe,” Julian says, his voice booming with false magnanimity. “To make sure he wasn’t taking advantage of you in your… emotional state.”

“And?” I challenge, lifting my chin. “What did your high-priced investigators find? That he’s a serial killer?”

Seraphina’s smile is pure poison. “Oh, nothing quite so interesting. Just that he lives in a fifth-floor walk-up in the worst part of town and drives a ten-year-old car. Not exactly your usual type, is he?”

She’s enjoying this, every second of my public evisceration. The lobby is starting to fill with the afternoon check-in crowd. People are beginning to stare.

“In fact,” Seraphina continues, her eyes flicking towards the revolving glass doors. “Since we were so concerned, we thought we should talk to him. Man to man, so to speak. So I invited him to stop by.”

I follow her gaze. My heart stops.

Walking through the doors of my family’s five-star hotel is Victor.

He looks utterly, completely out of place. He’s wearing worn blue jeans, a simple grey t-shirt, and a faded denim jacket. He hasn’t shaved. His dark hair is a little messy, as if he just ran his hands through it. In this cathedral of wealth and opulence, he looks like a stray who wandered in from the street.

He stops just inside the entrance, his eyes scanning the lobby until they find me. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a flicker of something in his gaze. He sees Seraphina and Julian standing at my desk. He understands the setup instantly.

“There he is now,” Julian says loudly, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. He raises his voice, beckoning Victor over as if he were summoning a valet. “Over here!”

Victor walks toward us, his stride unhurried, his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look intimidated or ashamed. If anything, he looks… amused. The crowd in the lobby parts for him, their expressions a mixture of confusion and disdain.

He stops next to the desk, not beside me, but a few feet away, creating a clear line in the sand. Us and him.

“You must be Victor,” Julian says, looking him up and down with an expression of profound disgust. “I’m Julian Croft. This is my fiancée, Seraphina.”

Victor just nods, his eyes still on me. “Mallory.”

He says my name, and it feels like a lifeline in a churning sea of humiliation.

“We’re glad you could make it,” Seraphina says, her voice oozing fake sincerity. “We just wanted to clear the air. Mallory… she wasn’t herself the other night. She can be a little impulsive when she’s been drinking.”

“She seemed to know exactly what she wanted,” Victor replies, his voice a low, calm rumble that cuts through their saccharine tones.

Julian’s smirk tightens. “Look, let’s cut the crap. I know what this is. You saw a vulnerable woman from a wealthy family and you saw an opportunity. I get it. I can respect the hustle.”

He reaches into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket and pulls out a checkbook and a gold pen. The gesture is so theatrical, so deliberately insulting, that I feel the air leave my lungs.

He can’t be.

Oh, but he is.

Julian scribbles something on the check, his movements sharp and angry. He tears it from the book with a vicious rip. He slides it across the marble countertop toward Victor.

“Here,” Julian sneers, his voice loud enough for half the lobby to hear. “Ten thousand dollars. That should be more than enough for a man in your… position. Take it, and stay the hell away from her. She’s been through enough without a bottom-feeder like you latching on.”

Silence descends on our corner of the lobby. The air crackles with tension. I can feel dozens of eyes on us. My manager is hovering by his office door, his face pale. This is it. The ultimate humiliation. My ex-fiancé, paying off my one-night stand in the lobby of my own family’s hotel.

I want the marble floor to swallow me whole. I want to disappear.

But then I look at Victor. He hasn’t flinched. He hasn’t even glanced at the check. His gaze is fixed on Julian, and the amusement in his eyes has been replaced by something colder. Something still and dangerous.

“You think she’s worth ten thousand dollars?” Victor asks, his voice quiet.

Julian scoffs. “I think that’s a generous price for your silence. Take it or leave it.”

I finally find my voice, a ragged, furious thing. “Julian, stop it. You have no right.”

“I’m protecting you, Mallory,” he snaps, not looking at me. “Something I should have done from the start.”

Victor slowly reaches out, but he doesn’t pick up the check. He taps a single finger on the amount Julian wrote.

“You’re undervaluing your asset,” Victor says calmly. “For a man in business, that’s a fatal mistake.”

He then picks up the check. My heart plummets. He’s going to take it. He’s exactly the man they think he is.

He folds it. Once. Twice. His movements are precise, deliberate. He doesn’t put it in his pocket. Instead, he holds it between his thumb and forefinger and extends his hand back toward Julian.

“No, thank you,” Victor says, his voice still unnervingly level. “I’m not for sale. And you’re going to find out, very soon, that neither is she.”

He drops the folded check onto the floor between them. It lands silently on the plush oriental rug, a small white square of pure contempt.

Julian stares at the check, then back at Victor, his face turning a blotchy, furious red. He’s been challenged. He’s been refused. And in public.

“You’ll regret this,” Julian hisses, his voice low and venomous.

“I doubt it,” Victor says.

Seraphina, seeing she’s lost control of the situation, grabs Julian’s arm. “Julian, let’s go. He’s not worth it. We’ve made our point.”

Julian allows himself to be pulled away, but not before shooting me a look of pure hatred. “I see you’ve found your level, Mallory. I hope you’re happy in the gutter.”

They turn and stride toward the exit, a king and queen abandoning their court. The whispers in the lobby swell behind them.

I’m left standing in the wreckage, trembling not from humiliation anymore, but from a white-hot, unfamiliar rage. And standing a few feet away is the stranger who just defended me in a way no one ever has.

He finally looks at me, his dark eyes searching my face.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I can’t form words. I just shake my head.

He takes a step closer. “He’s wrong, you know.”

“About what?” my voice is a croak.

“About you,” Victor says. “And about the gutter.” He glances down at the folded check on the floor. “Some people just don’t know value when they see it.”