2025-01-13 00:17:02
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The Breaking Point
AriaThe envelope sat on my coffee table like a heavy burden I couldn’t carry anymore. I had stared at it for hours, mentally trying to prepare myself for whatever I would find in there before finally tearing it open, telling myself I was ready. But I wasn’t.My hands trembled as I spread the papers across the glass. Line after line of names filled the page. Half of my executive board. Half! These weren’t strangers or rivals. These were people I had built with, defended in board meetings, and fought for when others wanted them gone. And here they were, exposed in black and white, tied to the betrayal that had been choking me for months.For a long moment, I just sat there staring at the names, not sure what to do. The weight of it was crushing, and it got me wondering. If so many of them had turned, maybe Ellen was right. Maybe the problem wasn’t them. Maybe it was me.And so I curled myself on the couch, replaying every argument, every rushed decision, every time I’d snapped at some
Strings in the Dark
EllenThe skyline glittered outside my penthouse, like it knew what I was about to do. I cradled a glass of wine in my hand, swirling the deep red liquid while Lucian’s demand replayed in my head:Get me out, and I’ll keep your secret.The audacity. No one dared to corner me. Not board members, not investors, not family, and certainly not a man in chains. Yet his words had burrowed into me, and no matter how many times I tried to dismiss them, they echoed like a threat I couldn’t mute.I tapped the stem of the glass against my knee and opened my laptop. His freedom… that would be my leverage. If Lucian walked out of prison owing me, he wouldn’t just be an ally, he’d be my insurance policy against Aria.And so I scanned through the group of names on my screen, from lawyers who had hidden scandals to bird members whose careers I’d rescued. Even a government official who’d conveniently “forgotten” to file paperwork after I made it worth his while. One by one, I composed careful messages
A Deal in Chains
EllenAfter that night at the charity ball, I couldn’t sleep a wink. I paced my penthouse more and more, the lights of the city glowing outside my window while my own mind replayed Aria’s face over and over. The way she looked at me, with that obvious suspicion in her eyes, like she was seconds away from ripping the truth out of me with her bare hands, made me realize she was too close.I’d been careful for so long. Subtle and precise. But maybe I had underestimated her. She wasn’t as clueless as I had hoped. I thought I could keep her in the dark, circle Zion, and take my time. But now she was digging, and if she kept digging, she’d find me. My slip-ups weren’t little anymore. They were cracks, and I had to be careful of that.I pressed my hand to the back of a chair and forced myself to breathe. No, I couldn’t let her get there first. Not now, not ever. I needed to tilt the game back in my favor, and that meant pulling in someone who could do what I couldn’t: scare her, shake her, d
The Unwanted Ally
AriaI thought it would be Pete. When I first saw the car, every part of me was sure it was him even when I walked toward that parked car. The way it sat there in the dark, with its engine humming, and its headlights off, it reeked of Pete’s kind of cowardly theatrics. My pulse was hammering, my palms were damp, but I told myself I could handle him. Whatever this was about. But when the window rolled down, all that bravado died. It wasn’t Pete. It was a face I hadn’t seen in four years. A face I hoped I would never see again.The man leaned into the glow of the dashboard, with a smug half-smile cutting across his face like he’d been waiting for this exact moment. And just like that, my chest felt tight. I was slammed back into memories of alarms screaming, shadows running, the deafening crack of gunfire. These were memories from the Fabergé Egg job. The one that went sideways. The night we barely escaped.I recognize this man because he was the one whose wrath we escaped from that da
Fractured
AriaThose words burned like an itch in my throat that I couldn’t reach. I could feel the pride Ellen felt when Zion turned and walked away with her, never looking at me again. The door closed behind me with a dull thud that echoed in my chest louder than it did in the hallway.I stood there, frozen, staring at the polished wooden frame as if it would open again and Zion would come after me, call my name, tell me he hadn’t meant it. But with each second that passed, the silence pressed in heavier, and the truth cut deeper with every breath I took.“Some distance.”His words replayed in my head like a broken record, cruel and steady. He didn’t say it like a demand. No, he didn’t mean it like a punishment, but why did it still feel that way.I pressed a hand against the wall, trying to steady myself as the rush of humiliation hit me. I hadn’t just lost my argument. I hadn’t just been dismissed. She walked away with it. For a moment it almost seemed as if she won. I had walked right into
Slinters in the Room
AriaThe second Zion stepped into that room, I felt the ground shift under me. He wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t angry. That was the worst part. He just stood there in his charcoal suit, hands in his pockets, calm as if he had walked into a business meeting instead of a trap. His eyes flicked from Ellen to me, steady but unreadable.“What’s going on here?” he asked again, voice even.I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak before Ellen could twist anything. “I came here because I needed to see you. To talk to you. But then I see her—” I jabbed a finger toward Ellen, “—parading around like she’s your date, like she suddenly owns this company’s reputation. And then she drags me back here like I’m some uninvited guest trying to ruin your night.”Ellen didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. She just crossed her arms and tilted her head, calm as a saint.“Zion,” I pressed, taking a step closer, “she’s playing a game. Can’t you see that? She’s been inserting herself everywhere around you, around t
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