The silence in her office was a living thing, heavy and suffocating.
Hours had passed since Ronan Kent had left, but the phantom heat of his accusations still hung in the air, clinging to the mahogany and leather like a shroud.
Nell stood before the vast window overlooking her shipyard, the skeletal frames of half-finished hulls stark against the bruised twilight sky.
The view, usually a source of fierce pride, offered no comfort tonight. It felt like an exposed flank, a vulnerability laid bare for the world to see.
He had known.
He had unearthed the one part of her she had buried under a mountain of ambition and steel, the girl named Cornelia who had clawed her way out of the gutter with bleeding fingernails.
He had held that ghost up to the light, not with the detached curiosity of a journalist, but with a wounded, almost personal intensity that had felt like the cruelest violation of all.
The tentative truce, the fragile bridge of understanding they had built over a chasm of mutual suspicion, lay in ruins.
He had torched it himself.
A wave of cold fury, pure and clean as ice, washed over the hurt.
The vulnerability she had allowed herself to feel, that brief, reckless glimpse of the woman beneath the magnate, was a weakness. A fatal error.
She had let him see past the armor, and he had immediately tested its chinks.
Never again.
The next morning, the shipyard hummed with a new, frantic energy, an anxious current that emanated directly from its mistress.
Nell strode through the yard, her boot heels striking the packed earth with the sharp report of a hammer on steel. Her face was a mask of cold command, her eyes missing nothing.
“Agnes,” she said, her voice clipped as she intercepted her secretary near the main office. “A new directive. Mr. Ronan Kent is no longer permitted on these grounds. His calls are not to be accepted. His correspondence is to be returned unopened. Is that understood?”
Agnes, a woman who had weathered Nell’s stormiest moods for years, blinked in surprise. “Completely, Mrs. Davies. Shall I give a reason if he inquires?”
“The only reason he requires is a locked gate,” Nell said, her gaze already moving past Agnes, scanning the yard, calculating, assessing. “He is a distraction we can no longer afford.”
She spent the day a whirlwind of relentless purpose.
She met with her foremen, her tone leaving no room for debate.
The production schedule, already aggressive, was tightened further. Shifts were to be extended.
Bonuses were offered for speed, but the unspoken threat of dismissal for delay hung heavier in the air.
“We are behind, gentlemen,” she announced to the assembled group, her voice ringing with authority. “The crane incident and the fire have cost us dearly. That time will be reclaimed. I want the hull of the Dauntless fully plated by week’s end.”
A murmur of protest rippled through the men.
It was her lead foreman, a burly man named McGregor with hands like leather mallets, who dared to voice it. “Ma’am, that’s… that’s a punishing pace. The men are already weary. Pushing them harder risks mistakes. More accidents.”
Nell’s eyes locked onto his.
The flicker of empathy she might have shown a week ago was gone, extinguished. “Fatigue is a luxury, Mr. McGregor. Mistakes are unacceptable. See that they do not happen. Our competitor, Mr. Vanderbilt, is not resting. Neither are we.”
She turned and walked away, the discussion summarily closed.
The irony was a bitter taste in her mouth.
She was becoming the very caricature Ronan had painted in his first article: the ruthless industrialist driving her workers into the ground.
But what choice did she have? This was not about profit anymore; it was about survival. Every delay was a victory for the saboteur, a nail in her company’s coffin.
She would not let some faceless enemy, or the ghost of a girl from Five Points, destroy the empire she had built.
If she had to be a monster to protect it, then a monster she would be.
Her work was a fortress, and she retreated deep within its walls, burying the sting of Ronan’s betrayal under shipping manifests and production quotas.
She didn’t allow herself to think of the look in his eyes when he’d presented her past to her—not of accusation, but of a confused, desperate need to understand.
That thought was a poison she couldn’t afford to drink. He was the enemy in plain sight, the one who had wounded her most deeply.
Late that afternoon, Silas Croft was announced. Nell had him shown into her office immediately.
The Pinkerton agent entered with his usual quiet discretion, his face as unreadable as a closed book. He placed his bowler hat on the edge of her desk and took the seat she offered without a word.
“Report,” Nell commanded, forgoing any pleasantries.
Silas met her gaze, his own cool and professional. “The investigation is progressing. I can state with certainty what we are not dealing with.”
Nell leaned forward, her hands clasped on the polished surface of her desk. “And what is that?”
“This is not the work of disgruntled laborers or union agitators,” he said, his voice low and even. “I’ve spoken with a dozen men, including some of the most vocal union organizers. They’re angry about the pace, yes. They feel unheard. But they are not saboteurs. The acts committed here require a level of skill, planning, and resources far beyond their means.”
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “The fire in the warehouse was started with a chemical accelerant, difficult to procure. The crane cable was not frayed; it was severed with a specialized, high-tension shear. Both incidents were timed for maximum disruption with minimal chance of being witnessed. This isn’t a worker with a grievance, Mrs. Davies. This is a professional operation.”
A cold knot tightened in Nell’s stomach.
She had suspected as much, but hearing it confirmed by the dispassionate agent made it chillingly real. “An operation funded by whom?”
“Someone with deep pockets,” Silas continued. “Someone who knows your operations intimately—the schedules, the weak points in security. Someone who stands to gain everything if you fail to secure the naval contract.”
Nell’s blood ran cold. There was only one name. “Say it.”
“All evidence is circumstantial at this stage,” Silas warned, his gaze steady. “There is no direct proof. But motive, means, and opportunity all point to one man: August Vanderbilt.”
The name landed in the silent office like a stone. It was not a shock, but a grim confirmation of a suspicion that had been growing in the back of her mind.
Vanderbilt, with his predatory smile and thinly veiled contempt.
Vanderbilt, who saw her not as a rival but as an upstart to be crushed.
“He’s been too quiet,” Nell mused, her voice a low murmur. “His attacks in the press have been minimal. He’s been letting Kent do his work for him while he wages a different kind of war in the shadows.”
“Precisely,” Silas affirmed. “He is a patient man. He’s creating the conditions for your failure, letting public opinion and production delays do the work. By the time the naval committee makes its decision, your company will look unstable, your leadership questionable, and your workforce rebellious. He wins without ever showing his hand.”
“Proof, Mr. Croft,” Nell said, her voice hard as iron. “I need proof. Suspicion will not win me a contract or put a criminal in jail.”
“I’m aware. Vanderbilt is cautious. The men he hires will be insulated by layers of intermediaries. Finding a solid link will be difficult, perhaps impossible.”
Nell stood and walked back to the window.
The yard below was now illuminated by the harsh glare of work lamps as the evening shift began, the clang of metal and the shouts of men a testament to the brutal pace she had set.
She was fighting a two-front war: one against the clock in her own shipyard, and another against a phantom enemy who wore the face of her most powerful rival.
And Ronan… Ronan was a third front, one she hadn’t even known existed until he’d breached her innermost defenses.
“Find the link, Mr. Croft,” she said, her back to him, her reflection a pale, determined ghost in the dark glass. “Whatever it takes. Whoever you have to persuade. I want the proof that connects August Vanderbilt to the sabotage on my property.”
“It will be dangerous,” Silas said, his tone unchanged. “And expensive.”
“I am not concerned with danger,” Nell replied, turning to face him, her eyes glittering with cold resolve. “And you will find my resources are more than adequate. Vanderbilt wants a war? He will have one.”
After Silas left, Nell remained by the window, watching the ceaseless, frantic activity below.
The hurt from Ronan’s betrayal had not vanished, but it had changed, transmuted by the heat of her anger into something harder, something useful.
It was fuel.
He had wanted to see the ruthless robber baroness? Fine. She would give him—and August Vanderbilt, and the entire city—a spectacle they would not soon forget.
The walls she had rebuilt around her heart were no longer just defensive.
They were the ramparts of a fortress preparing for a siege, and from within, Cornelia Davies was preparing to command the battle of her life.