Chapter 5 - The Salazar Bloodline
Marcus stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes bulging as if he had been struck by lightning. The breath completely left his lungs.
"D-Dad?" Marcus stammered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched squeak. "Valeria... what did you just call him?"
Alexander Salazar didn't answer Marcus. His fierce grey eyes locked onto the rising vice president with an intensity that could melt steel. The billionaire pulled a white linen napkin from his pocket and gently dabbed at the red wine on his daughter’s cheek.
"Who did this to you, Valeria?" Alexander asked, his voice low, gravelly, and brimming with suppressed fury.
"His assistant poured her wine on me," Valeria replied, pointing back toward the floor where Renata stood holding her cheek. "And Marcus told me to apologize for existing."
The entire ballroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The senior vice presidents at Table 1 stood up in unison, their faces dark and rigid.
Three years ago, when Marcus met Valeria at a modest public accounting firm, she had used her mother’s maiden name—Reed—to build a career on her own merit without relying on her family's astronomical wealth. She had wanted to find a man who loved her for who she was, not for her father's fortune.
When they married in a quiet civil ceremony, Valeria had kept her identity a secret, waiting for the right moment to trust Marcus with her family's legacy.
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Instead, Marcus had treated her like a burden, hiding her in the background while parading his ambition—and his assistant—in front of the world.
👉 Read PART 6 to see how Alexander Salazar responded to Marcus's desperate excuses!
