Love,Written In Ruins-Chapter 56: Blackmail Scheme

The Starling estate was a fortress of silent, high-end hostility. While the Davises were toasting to a victory they had not yet earned, the Starlings were vibrating with a rage that threatened to shake the very foundations of their mansion.

​Daniel Starling sat behind his monolithic mahogany desk, his face illuminated by the cold, blue light of his smartphone. It was a relentless rhythm of notifications—ping, ping, ping. Each one was a serrated blade across his pride.

​Transaction: $14,200 - Cartier.

Transaction: $8,500 - Hermès.

Transaction: $22,000 - Vintage Wine Cellar.

Luxury boutiques. Private ateliers. Jewelers whose names were whispered, not advertised.

The amounts were obscene.

​The amounts weren’t the issue; to a man of Daniel’s wealth, sixty thousand dollars was the equivalent of loose change found in a sofa. But it was the intent behind the spending that was suffocating him. It was a parasitic feast. The Davises weren’t just spending money; they were eating his dignity, one luxury purchase at a time.

They were getting careless. Or worse—comfortable.

​Daniel threw the phone onto the desk with a snarl. It skated across the polished surface and hit a crystal paperweight. For years, he had been the apex predator of Los Angeles. No one threatened Daniel Starling and walked away with their pulse intact.

​Yet, George Davis—a man whose intellect Daniel had always considered mediocre—had managed to place a noose around the Starling neck.

And he is still breathing.

Still smiling.

Still shopping.

​Daniel’s best hackers, men who could infiltrate government servers without leaving a footprint, had spent months scouring the digital ether. They had found nothing. No encrypted files, no hidden cloud links. The "Secret"—that devastating twenty-minute video from a night two decades ago—was a ghost. And the "Third Party," the insurance policy George claimed to have placed in the hands of an anonymous associate, was even more elusive. It was the perfect blackmail: a gun held to the head of the family, with a trigger Daniel couldn’t see to disarm.

The heavy oak doors to the study burst open, the sound echoing like a gunshot. Eleanor Starling stormed in, her silk dress rustling with the sheer force of her fury.

​"I can’t take it anymore!"

Her voice was sharp, brittle at the edges. She didn’t wait for permission to speak—didn’t care. Her heels struck the floor with purpose as she crossed the room, fury radiating off her in waves.

"The humiliation, the shame," she shrieked, slamming her designer clutch onto the desk." The sickening feeling of being completely powerless—I am finished, Daniel! I am done! Juliet sat across from me at L’Ambroisie today, ordering thousand-dollar orchids like they were napkins, while I paid for every last one. She smiled at me like I was her personal ATM. And I smiled back. I smiled back because if I didn’t, she’d make one phone call and we’d be finished."

Daniel tapped the desk once. "You think I don’t know that? You think I enjoy watching our accounts bleed while Juliet buys another Birkin?"

"Then do something!" Eleanor’s voice cracked on the last word. "I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe. Every time the phone buzzes I think it’s George saying he’s done waiting."

Daniel didn’t look up immediately. When he finally did, his expression was flat, almost bored, which only infuriated her further.

"Why," he asked coolly, "do you always choose the worst possible moment to unravel?"

She stared at him, incredulous. "Unravel?"

"Yes," he said, gesturing around the room. "You see me in my study, and somehow that translates in your mind to ’perfect time for a tantrum.’" He stared at her with eyes that looked like cold glass. "My presence in this study is a universal signal for ’leave me the hell alone.’"

Eleanor’s laugh was sharp and hysterical. "You think I want to be here? In this tomb? I should be at the country club! I should be with my friends, sharing the gossip of the century and lording our status over everyone! Letting them envy us. Letting them whisper. But instead, I’m being haunted by a past that refuses to stay buried. I should be happy, Daniel! We are the Starlings! We don’t live like this!"

​"Oh, please stop with the drama," Daniel snapped, standing up. He paced the length of the room, his shadow stretching long and distorted against the shelves of leather-bound books. "We aren’t in a Greek tragedy; we’re in a blackmail scheme. If you want to be useful, stop crying and start thinking."

​"And what are we supposed to think about?" she hissed, her eyes wild. "George has us. He has that video of you. If that goes viral, we don’t just lose our reputation; we lose our freedom. And we lose everything."

Daniel stopped pacing and looked at her, his expression shifting from irritation to a dark, calculating focus. "We focus on the only thing that matters: the counter-offensive. We stop looking for the video for five minutes and start looking for the Davises’ own rot."

​Eleanor frowned, her chest still heaving from her outburst. "What do you mean? How?"

​"They are desperate, Eleanor," Daniel said, his voice dropping to a low, predatory hum. "Desperation leaves a scent. They wouldn’t be clinging to us like leeches if they weren’t drowning in something far worse than a scandal. We find their secret—the debt, the gambling, the mistress, the illegal movements of funds—and we wait."

She scoffed. "George Davis has made a career out of looking clean."

"And yet," Daniel said, turning back to her with a thin smile, "here we are."

Eleanor hesitated, the wheels turning. "You think they have something to hide."

"I know they do."

He moved toward the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the immaculate gardens below. Everything was trimmed. Ordered. Perfect. Unlike the mess clawing its way into his life.

He returned to his desk, leaned over his hands splayed on the wood. "We wait until the engagement with Luciano is set in stone. Once he is officially tied to them, we leak the Davis rot to him. Not to the public, not to the press. To Luciano."

​Eleanor’s eyes widened as the brilliance of the cruelty settled in. "Knowing Luciano... he wouldn’t stay still. Even if the engagement were forced on him. He despises deception. He would dismantle them with a precision so surgical, it’s a luxury we aren’t permitted."

​"Exactly," Daniel smiled, a jagged, mirthless expression. "Since we aren’t the ones to destroy them directly, they can’t turn on us. They can’t press the button on the ’Secret’ if they’re too busy being shredded by the De La Vega machine. Luciano will be our executioner, and our hands will stay clean."

Eleanor moved to the chair opposite his desk and finally sat, exhaustion creeping into her posture. "He’s bringing Marcia to the mansion next weekend."

"I know."

Eleanor studied him. "You don’t seem surprised."

"I’m not," Daniel replied. "Juliet Davis is many things—but patient is not one of them. She’s pushing Marcia forward because she’s afraid. Afraid that if Luciano hesitates, the illusion collapses."

"And if Luciano sees through it?" Eleanor asked.

Daniel paused, then said quietly, "Then the Davises won’t survive the fallout."

A chill ran through her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Outside, the wind stirred the trees, carrying the faint illusion of peace.

Eleanor finally broke the silence. "We can’t let them turn Steve into collateral." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Daniel’s eyes hardened. "They won’t."

Eleanor paused, the heat of her rage cooling into a cold, sharp skepticism. "And what if they don’t have any dirt? What if they’re just... lucky?"

Daniel let out a short, harsh bark of a laugh. "Oh, Eleanor. You of all people should know better. In this city, nobody plays a game this dangerous if they have nothing to hide. They are doing this because they have a hole in their hull the size of a torpedo. We just need to find the leak."

"And Luciano?" she asked, almost reluctantly. "What if he becomes... inconvenient?"

Daniel’s voice dropped. "Luciano is not disposable."

Eleanor frowned. "Then why did you agree to use him?"

"Because," Daniel said, "he is powerful enough to absorb the damage—and ruthless enough to redirect it."

She absorbed that, then nodded slowly.

"So we wait," she said.

"We wait," Daniel confirmed. "We smile. We pay. We play our part."

"And when the time comes?"

Daniel leaned forward, his gaze unwavering. "We remind the Davises that no one holds a Starling hostage forever."

He picked up his phone, scrolling back through the earlier notifications.

Daniel’s grip tightened on the device. "Let them enjoy themselves today. Let them feel pampered and safe. Because the moment Marcia walks into this house on Sunday, the clock starts ticking. I’m going to find the crack in the Davis foundation, and I’m going to let Luciano pour the gasoline."

Eleanor took a deep breath, her composure returning. She straightened her pearls, her mind already moving toward the dinner arrangements. "Fine. But Daniel? Make sure your men are fast. I want that information before the appetizers are served. I want to see Juliet Davis’s face when she realizes she brought a knife to a gunfight." She rose to her feet, her spine straightening as resolve replaced rage.

Daniel watched her leave the study, the door closing softly behind her.

Alone again, he opened the drawer slowly, as if whatever lay inside might recoil from the light.

It smelled faintly of old paper and dust—things forgotten on purpose.

His fingers brushed past files, envelopes, the neat debris of a life meticulously curated, until they closed around a single photograph.

Old. Creased down the middle. The edges soft from being handled too many times, then abandoned.

Him—years younger. The sharpness in his face still forming, ambition not yet fully weaponized.

Eleanor beside him, smiling in a way she no longer did. Not calculated. Not rehearsed. Real.

Behind them, half-caught in motion, were two small boys—Steve and Liam—laughing, unaware of cameras, unaware of futures that would demand blood instead of innocence.

He stared at the photograph for a long time, then picked up his phone.

He opened a secure app and typed a single message to his lead hacker:

Deeper. No limits. Find the crack.

He hit send.