Bought with Millions, Paid with Death Chapter 05

Bought with Millions, Paid with Death Chapter 05

I floated in mid–air, staring coldly at Noah as he slumped under the harsh glare of the spotlight. 

He still couldn’t fathom that I was dead. Like a drowning man grasping at straws, he frantically whipped out his phone, dialing my disconnected number over and over again. 

I hovered right beside him, watching his trembling fingers blindly snatch up one of the scattered ermination papers from the floor, crushing the document tight in his fist. 

“The number you have reached is no longer in service. 

Just as the automated voice echoed for the dozenth time, his phone vibrated. It was Riley, calling for help. 

A few days ago, he might have answered with infinite patience and tender affection. But at this moment, she was nothing but an agonizing irritant. Without a second glance, he hit decline and blocked her number ruthlessly severing ties with the pathetic mess he used to care about. 

His mind was consumed with only one thought: finding me. He sprang from the floor, possessed by the delusional conviction that everything Paige had just said was merely a manipulative sick joke—a “fake death” orchestrated by me to force him to his knees: 

Stripped of all his usual poise, he bolted from the dead–silent studio, sprinting frantically into the studio’s VIP parking lot. He cut Paige off just as her driver was opening the door to her sleek black town car. 

And there, resting securely in Paige’s arms, was a heavy, sealed archive box containing my final personal effects. Resting right on top of it was the unmistakable, officially stamped original death dertificate. 

The moment Noah’s eyes locked onto the document, he lunged forward like a madman, desperately trying to pry the box from her grasp and seize control of my affairs. 

Give her things to me!” he roared, his voice cracking. “I’m her boyfriend! We were together for five years! You have no right to handle her arrangements!” 

Raige didn’t even flinch. Moving with icy precision, she pulled out a legal injunction and slapped it hard against his chest, her merciless tone shattering his final delusion. In the eyes of the law, she informed him, he was nothing but an irrelevant, terminated employee with zero legal standing, 

Just as she had ruthlessly pointed out back at the studio, he didn’t even have the right to attend my funeral. 

Bloodshot eyes bulging, Noah shoved forward to snatch the box by force. But Paige’s security detail 

moved faster, easily wrestling him down and slamming him fiercely against the freezing concrete floor of the lot. 

Pinned down, his cheek scraping against the rough cement, he could do nothing but watch helplessly as 

Paige got into the car with my final belongings and drove off. 

It was only then, as the exhaust fumes dissipated into the suffocating silence of the parking lot, that the brutal reality finally sank in. I was really gone. And he had been utterly, permanently exiled from my world. 

After that day, Noah spiraled into an absolute breakdown. He barricaded himself inside his apartment, drinking himself into a senseless stupor. 

The binge only ended when his agent, Marcus, barged in and splashed a glass of ice–cold water mercilessly ver his face. 

Gone was the sycophantic praise Marcus used to shower him with. Instead, the agent ripped off his friendly mask, glaring down at Noah with naked mercenary disdain. 

He warned Noah that with my death, the protective umbrella shielding his career had been completely obliterated. If he dared to strike or breach his contract now, he would face a fifty–million–dollar lawsuit. He was backed into an inescapable corner. 

Drowning in an agonizing mix of grief and a severe hangover, Noah was forcibly shoved into a designer suit. Stripped of his dignity, he was hauled back to the 

studio set like a walking corpse, ordered to continue bleeding himself dry for the corporate machine. 

Meanwhile, social media was drowning in a tidal wave of tributes mourning the loss of a “fashion icon.” 

But what drove Noah to the brink of insanity was the media’s new darling. The internet had crowned Leo- the striking mixed–race model I had chosen to mentor final days–as my “one true soulmate and my in rightful successor.” 

Millions of fans were hysterically romanticizing the deep, sorrowful devotion Leo displayed in front of the cameras ras. 

Huddled in an isolated corner of the set during a break, Noah stared fixedly at his glowing phone screen, his knuckles turning a stark, trembling white from his death grip on the device. 

A toxic cocktail of raw jealousy and agonizing, impotent regret instantly shattered his last remaining psychological defense. 

With a sudden, violent jerk, he hurled the phone against the solid brick wall. The screen shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, mirroring his fractured sanity. 

Ignoring Marcus’s desperate attempts to hold him back, Noah viciously tore off his necktie. With his hair in wild disarray and eyes burning a bloody crimson, he charged out to the media encampment outside the studio like a cornered, desperate beast. 

Facing the blinding barrage of hundreds of flashing camera lenses, he roared, his voice hoarse and tearing with a desperate, self–destructive fury–a declaration of war against the entire world. 

“It’s all fake! I am Miranda’s real boyfriend! It was me for the last five years, always me! That Leo is just a pathetic stand–in! I’m the only one who truly loved her!”