Discarded Fiancée: The Ruthless Billionaire's Obsession

The yellow cab jerked to a halt on Fifth Avenue.

It was past midnight. The air in Manhattan was thick and damp. Jeannette stepped out onto the pavement, pulling the brim of her black baseball cap down low over her eyes. She paid in cash, turned her back to the main entrance of the ultra-luxury residential building, and walked briskly toward the side alley.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, heavy rhythm that made it hard to breathe. She found the discreet, resident-only side door. Her fingers were ice-cold as she pulled Devyn's black keycard from her pocket.

She pressed it against the scanner.

A tiny light flashed green. The heavy magnetic lock clicked open.

Jeannette pushed the door and slipped inside. The hallway was dimly lit, smelling of expensive floor wax.

She walked to the private elevator bank and hit the button for the penthouse. The doors slid shut. The elevator shot upward with a sickening speed that made her stomach cramp violently. She pressed her hand against her abdomen, forcing herself to breathe through her nose.

The doors opened directly into a sprawling, dark foyer. She swiped the card one more time on the heavy mahogany door. It unlocked.

She stepped inside.

The air in the apartment hit her like a physical blow. It reeked of Bvlgari perfume. Zara's signature scent. Acid burned the back of Jeannette's throat. She swallowed down the bile.

She pulled a pair of tight medical rubber gloves from her pocket and snapped them onto her hands. She turned on her phone's flashlight, keeping the beam pointed at the floor. The living room was massive. She swept the light over the expensive white Persian rug and the custom Italian sofa.

There, draped carelessly over the armrest, was a piece of black lace lingerie.

A sharp pain twisted in Jeannette's chest. Her fingers curled into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms through the gloves. She wanted to scream. She wanted to take a baseball bat and smash every piece of glass in this room.

Instead, she climbed onto the sofa. She reached up toward the base of the massive crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the room. She pulled the first pinhole camera from her bag.

The metal gap between the base and the ceiling was incredibly tight. She forced the tiny device inside. The sharp edge of the metal fixture sliced into her index finger through the thin rubber glove.

A drop of blood welled up, heavy and dark. It hovered, about to fall straight onto the pristine white rug below.

Jeannette gasped. She dropped the camera, grabbed a tissue from her pocket with her other hand, and caught the blood drop mid-air. She wrapped the tissue tightly around her bleeding finger, ignoring the throbbing pain. She forced the camera into the gap, angling the lens perfectly.

She jumped down, pulled out her receiver, and checked the feed. A crystal-clear, wide-angle view of the living room filled her screen.

She moved to the master bedroom. Pushing the door open felt like stepping onto a battlefield. The king-sized bed was a tangled mess of sheets. Used condoms sat openly on the nightstand. It was a brutal, visual confirmation of every lie.

Her hands shook as she installed the second camera—the one with the audio bug—behind the eye of a modern art portrait hanging directly over the bed.

She was just testing the audio feed when a sharp ding echoed from the hallway outside.

The private elevator had arrived.

Jeannette's blood ran entirely cold. Her heart rate spiked so fast she felt dizzy. She killed her phone flashlight instantly. She darted across the room and shoved herself into the massive walk-in closet, pulling the louvered doors shut just as the front door of the apartment opened.

"I swear to God, the mess they leave," a woman's voice complained loudly. The clack of high heels echoed on the hardwood floor. It was the building's exclusive night-shift housekeeping.

The living room lights flicked on. Bright, harsh light sliced through the slats of the closet door, striking Jeannette's face. She pressed her back against the back wall of the closet, burying her face in a row of Devyn's expensive suits to muffle her breathing. She gripped the small canister of pepper spray in her pocket.

The housekeeper walked into the master bedroom. Her footsteps were heavy. She started stripping the bed, muttering under her breath. She was less than six feet away from the closet door.

Jeannette's calves began to cramp from crouching. The pain was excruciating, a sharp tearing sensation in her muscles. She bit down on her inner lip so hard she tasted copper, refusing to make a sound.

The housekeeper finished the bed. She turned and walked straight toward the closet. Her hand reached out. Her fingers wrapped around the brass handle of the louvered door.

Jeannette stopped breathing. Her thumb hovered over the trigger of the pepper spray.

Suddenly, Jeannette remembered the secondary phone Devyn kept for his "consulting" work. Her thumb flew across her own screen, quickly dialing his secret number. A second later, a loud, obnoxious ringtone blared from the pocket of a blazer tossed carelessly over a nearby armchair.

The housekeeper groaned, releasing the closet handle. "These rich kids and their alarms," she muttered, turning away to find the source of the noise. She located the blazer, turned off the ringing phone, and shook her head.

She turned off the bedroom light and hurried out. The heavy front door slammed shut. The lock engaged.

Jeannette collapsed onto the floor of the closet. Cold sweat soaked through her black hoodie, sticking to her spine. She gasped for air, her chest heaving violently as she waited for her heart to slow down.

She forced herself to stand. She wiped down the door handle, checked the camera feeds one last time, and slipped out of the apartment.

When she walked out of the building and onto Fifth Avenue, the first light of dawn was bleeding into the New York sky. The freezing morning wind dried the sweat on her face. She got into a cab heading back to JFK airport.

She looked back at the towering luxury building, pulled out her phone, and pressed the activation button on the surveillance app.