---- Chapter 7 Brogan stared at her, the name finally registering through the fog of his shock. "Hutchinson? What are you talking about? You're Grace Moore." He tried to wrench his arms from the security guards' grip, his desperation giving him a surge of strength. "This is insane! You're my wife!" Aman who had been standing silently by the door, a man with the calm, dangerous demeanor of a seasoned protector, stepped forward. It was Hampton's chief of security. "Mr. Edwards," the man said, his voice polite but edged with steel. "You are addressing the daughter and sole heir of Hampton Hutchinson." The name hit the room like a thunderclap. Hampton Hutchinson. The legendary, near-mythical billionaire. Aman so powerful and reclusive he was more of a ghost than a person. A man whose wealth dwarfed the Edwards family fortune a hundred times over. The board members gasped. One of them actually dropped his pen, which clattered loudly in the stunned silence. Brogan just laughed. It was a broken, incredulous sound. ---- "Hampton Hutchinson?" he scoffed, looking at Grace. "You? Don't be ridiculous. You were an orphan. You grew up in the system. You had nothing." That was the story she had told him. A story to protect herself, to see if he could love her for who she was, not for her father's name. A test he had spectacularly failed. "You believed what you wanted to believe," Grace said, her voice flat. "It was more convenient for you and your family to see me as a penniless nobody you could control." The truth of her words was a gut punch. He had loved the idea of her needing him, of him elevating her from her modest life. It had fed his ego. "No," he said, shaking his head, still refusing to accept the new reality. He lunged forward again, breaking free from the guards for a second. He grabbed her, pulling her against him, his grip bruising "| don't care about any of this," he said, his voice a raw, desperate plea in her ear. "| don't care about your father or your money. | love you, Grace. | can't live without you. Come home. We'll mourn our son together. We'll get through this." He was trying to pull her toward the door, as if he could physically drag her back into the life they once shared. Grace felt a wave of nausea. His touch was repulsive. His words were empty. Mourn together? He had no right to mourn ---- a child he had condemned to death. "Let go of me," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "I'm never letting you go again," he vowed, his desperation making him reckless. "You're coming with me." "My father," she said through clenched teeth, struggling against his grip, "will destroy you." "| don't care about your imaginary father!" he yelled, now fully consumed by his delusion. "I'm your husband!" Grace gave up struggling. She went limp in his arms, her head lolling to the side. She closed her eyes and let out a single, desperate word. "Dad." As if summoned by the word itself, the boardroom doors burst open with such force that they slammed against the walls. Hampton Hutchinson stood in the doorway. He was not a tall man, but he radiated an aura of such absolute power and menace that everyone in the room, Brogan included, flinched. His eyes, the same sharp eyes as his daughter's, were locked on Brogan's hands, which were still wrapped around Grace. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. "Get your hands off my daughter," Hampton said. His voice was quiet, but it carried the chilling weight of a death ---- sentence. Brogan froze. He stared at the man in the doorway, then back at Grace's face. The resemblance was undeniable. The same aristocratic bone structure. The same intelligent, unyielding eyes. The impossible truth crashed down on him. It was real. She was Grace Hutchinson. And he was holding her against her will in front of the most powerful and ruthless man in the world. His hands fell away from her as if he had been burned. He stumbled backward, his face a mask of pure terror. Grace immediately went to her father's side. Hampton wrapped a protective arm around her, his eyes never leaving Brogan. The rage coming off him was a palpable force. It was the primal fury of a predator whose only child had been harmed. "You," Hampton snarled, taking a step into the room. "You dared to touch her." He didn't wait for an answer. In a movement too fast to track, he closed the distance between them and drove his fist into Brogan's stomach. Brogan doubled over, gasping for air. Before he could recover, Hampton grabbed him by the collar of his expensive suit and slammed him against the boardroom table. Papers and ---- glasses went flying "You locked her in a box," Hampton growled, his face inches from Brogan's. "You let her bleed. You let my grandson die." He punctuated each sentence with another blow, a punch to the jaw, a knee to the gut. It wasn't a fight. It was a punishment. Brogan was powerless to defend himself. "Dad, stop," Grace said, her voice calm. "You'll kill him." Hampton paused, breathing heavily, his knuckles white as he gripped Brogan's shirt. He shoved Brogan away, and he collapsed onto the floor in a heap. "Death is too good for him," Hampton spat. He looked at Brogan, crumpled and terrified on the floor. "I'm not going to kill you, Edwards. I'm going to erase you. By the time I'm done, your family name will be a synonym for failure and disgrace. You will have nothing. You will be nothing." He turned to his chief of security. "Activate the plan. All sectors. Burn it all to the ground." "Yes, sir," the man said, already speaking quietly into his wrist communicator. Brogan, bruised and bleeding on the floor, looked up at Hampton, then at Grace. The full, horrifying scope of his mistake was laid bare. He hadn't just betrayed his wife; he had declared war on an empire he didn't even know existed. ---- "Please," he whimpered, crawling a few inches forward. "I didn't know. I'm sorry. Please, don't." Hampton just looked at him with utter contempt. Brogan turned his desperate, pleading eyes to Grace. "Grace... tell him. Please. | love you. Forgive me." Grace looked down at the broken man on the floor. The man she had once loved more than life itself. The man who was now begging for mercy at her feet. She felt a flicker of something. Not pity. Not love. Just a vast, empty coldness. She turned and walked away, her father's arm securely around her shoulders. She didn't look back. Title: A Princess? No! I'm the Female General! In "A Princess? No! I'm the Female General!" by CrushReel, Adela Taylor, a noble family's daughter, disguises herself as her brother to secure their Duke title by joining the army. Despite facing obstacles, she achieves remarkable success. 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