The Wife Auctioned For One Dollar Chapter 10
“Impossible!”
Vito shattered completely.
“This is impossible! There’s no way you’re Nightingale!”
He clutched his head with both hands. Hair that was always immaculately combed now fell in disheveled strands across his forehead.
Minutes ago, he’d been the CEO of Vitale Group, standing in the spotlight, soaking up applause.
Now he looked like a fugitive whose mask had been ripped off in front of the whole world.
“How could you possibly have a life like that!”
I regarded him coldly.
“So in your eyes, I was nothing but a pet you kept in a cage?”
“Vito Vitale, you never truly knew me. Not once.”
Special Agent Victor Hayes stepped forward.
Cold steel handcuffs snapped around Vito’s wrists.
“Take him.”
Victor raised his chin toward the agents behind him.
Two FBI agents immediately flanked Vito, one on each side.
At that moment, Lily—who’d been collapsed on the ground—scrambled to her feet as if electrified.
Her impeccable makeup had been destroyed by tears. The hem of her white gown dragged across the floor, stained with red wine and dust.
She didn’t bother with appearances. She spun and bolted for the ballroom’s side exit.
“Stop!”
Two agents intercepted her with practiced speed—one seized her arm, the other blocked the door.
“Miss Monroe, you’ll need to come with us as well.”
Every drop of color drained from Lily’s face.
“Why? I haven’t done anything! I’m just here for the gala!”
Victor looked at her, expressionless.
“In addition to suspected involvement in helping Vito Vitale divert marital and corporate assets, we’ve also received statements from individuals connected to a Brooklyn underground lending operation.”
“You are suspected of fraud, fabrication of medical documentation, and making false statements regarding a hospital incident two years ago.”
Lily’s body went rigid.
The giant screen at the back of the ballroom switched to a new image.
This time, it showed the hospital corridor surveillance footage from two years prior.
Lily stood at the top of a stairwell, visibly pregnant, blocked by two men with full sleeve tattoos.
They were clearly no ordinary debt collectors—cheap leather jackets, gang ink peeking out from their cuffs, rough hands, vicious expressions.
They shoved a stack of loan documents in Lily’s face.
Lily lost control, frantically backing away.
In the struggle, she missed a step on her own and tumbled down the entire flight of stairs.
The two men’s faces went white with panic. They fled the scene in a frenzy.
And throughout the entire footage—from beginning to end—I was nowhere to be seen.
A collective, strangled gasp swept through the ballroom.
The same people who’d been gazing at Lily with flirtatious admiration moments ago now wore expressions of undisguised revulsion and horror.
“No!”
Lily screamed.
“That’s not what happened! The video is fake! It was Evelyn! She did it to me! She’s the one who hurt me!”
She thrashed against the agents, lunging toward Vito, clawing at the hem of his jacket.
“Vito, save me! You believe me, don’t you? Didn’t you promise you’d protect me forever?”
Vito stood frozen.
He stared at the surveillance footage on screen, his entire being struck as if by lightning. The last trace of color vanished from his face.
He looked at Lily. His eyes shifted from shock to blankness, from blankness to a belated, pathetic collapse.
“You lied to me…”
His voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.
“You’ve been lying to me this whole time?”
Lily shook her head desperately, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
“No, Vito, no! I was just so scared! Those men were forcing me to pay them back—I had no choice…”
“I love you! Everything I did was because I love you!”
Vito suddenly laughed.
The sound was shrill and anguished.
He looked like a complete and utter fool.
For a woman whose every word had been a lie, he had personally dragged his own wife onto the auction block of an underground black market.
And in doing so, he’d buried his marriage, his company, his reputation, and his freedom—all of it sacrificed to a revenge that was as stupid as it was vicious.
The agents escorted Vito and Lily out of the ballroom.
Outside the hotel, police lights strobed in the dark.
The crowd inside gradually dispersed.
The same people who’d been whispering behind my back now looked at me with something close to awe.
They finally understood. The pregnant woman they’d dismissed as a trophy wife decoration had never been someone who could be trampled without consequence.
Damien walked over to me.
He lifted a glass of warm water from a passing waiter’s tray and placed it in my hand.
“Well played, Miss Nightingale.”
I took the glass.
The warmth of it seeped through my fingertips, and at last, the nerves I’d held taut to the point of numbness began to loosen, one by one.
I lowered my head and took a sip.
Drew a long, slow breath.
The cold, the humiliation, the fury that had been pressing down on my chest for days—all of it finally scattered with that single exhale.
…
One month later.
Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn.
The visiting room was bathed in harsh white light. The air carried the smell of disinfectant and the cold, metallic tang of doors that rarely opened.
I sat on my side of the glass partition, looking at Vito on the other side.
He’d lost a shocking amount of weight.
Sunken eye sockets, unkempt stubble, gray prison uniform hanging off his frame.
The polished businessman in bespoke suits was gone. All that remained was a hollow shell.
He picked up the phone.
Through the thick bulletproof glass, he looked at me. His lips trembled.
“Evelyn…”
His voice was wrecked—barely recognizable.
“I was wrong.”
“I know I was wrong.”
Tears and mucus streamed down his face as he spoke, a picture of abject wretchedness with not a shred of his former dignity.
“I was tricked by that bitch Lily! The only person I’ve ever loved is you!”
“Evelyn, I never actually wanted you dead…”
I listened to his belated confession with perfect calm.
Not a flicker of sympathy stirred in me.
What he called love wasn’t love at all.
He was simply terrified.
I didn’t let him go on.
“Sign.”
I slid the divorce papers and a pen through the document slot.
“Full relinquishment of all marital assets. You walk away with nothing.”
“This is what you deserve.”
Vito’s head snapped up.
“No!”
“Evelyn, please—give me one more chance!”
He gripped the phone, his voice tearing apart with desperate pleading.
“You’re carrying our baby! The child can’t grow up without a father! I’m the baby’s dad! You can’t be this heartless!”
“My child does not need a man who tried to sell his own wife as a father.”
I rose to my feet and slid the wedding ring off my left hand.
That ring—the one he’d placed on my finger with his own hands.
He’d stood in a church and vowed that in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, he would love me, protect me, be faithful to me.
Looking back now, every single vow was a joke.
I dropped the ring into the trash can beside me.
I didn’t look at him again. I turned and walked out of the visiting room.
Behind me, through the glass, came the sound of Vito’s breakdown.
“Evelyn!”
“Evelyn, come back!”
“I know I was wrong!”
The heavy iron door closed slowly behind me.
His voice faded bit by bit until it vanished completely.
When I stepped through the detention center’s front doors, early autumn sunlight fell across my shoulders.
The New York breeze carried a hint of coolness, but it was clean—the kind that made you want to breathe deep.
I stood on the steps and lifted my face to the clear blue sky.
Then I filled my lungs with a breath of freedom.
Across the street, a black Maybach sat waiting.
The window lowered.
Damien sat in a dark gray casual blazer, one hand resting on the steering wheel, his head tilted toward me.
He didn’t ask how the visit went.
He didn’t offer any unnecessary words of comfort.
He simply waited there in silence, as if he’d always known I would bury the past with my own hands.
I walked over and pulled open the passenger door.
“Don Hawthorne.”
I looked at him, and a smile rose to my lips—the first one in a long time that came from somewhere real.
“I hear you’re putting together a new cross-border venture capital fund.”
“Still looking for a partner who’s ruthless enough—and cold-blooded enough?”
Damien raised an eyebrow.
A faint trace of amusement surfaced in his eyes.
“The vice president’s chair has been waiting for you.”
I got in and closed the door.
The car pulled away, merging into the flow of Manhattan’s afternoon traffic.
Beyond the glass, skyscrapers, sunlight, streets, and crowds streaked past in a blur.
All that rotting past—left far, far behind.
From this day forward, I was no longer Mrs. Vitale.
I was Evelyn Hart.
And I was Nightingale.
My life was only just beginning.