She stared at the envelope in her hands. A flimsy paper shield. A declaration of war.
It was 4:51 p.m.
“The grant office closes at five,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I have to go.”
Kian was already moving, grabbing a set of keys from a hook by the door. “I’ll drive you.”
He led her to a battered-looking black Ford Bronco parked in a reserved spot behind the warehouse. It was old, scuffed, and looked like it had seen its share of fights. It suited him perfectly.
The inside, however, was spotless. The engine turned over with a low, powerful rumble that vibrated through the seat.
He navigated the industrial streets with an easy, focused silence. Audrey clutched the envelope in her lap like a prayer book. Her mind was a whirlwind. Cole’s frantic texts were a dull buzz in the back of her head. The real noise was Kian.
How did a freelance logistics consultant have access to private university databases? How did he know the obscure history of a Portuguese shipping line from two hundred years ago?
My family was in the business.
The explanation was too small. It didn’t fit the man sitting next to her, whose presence filled the entire truck.
He pulled up to the corner across from the museum’s administrative wing. He put the truck in park but left the engine running.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he said, his eyes on the clock on the dash.
She looked at him, really looked at him. The hard lines of his jaw, the intensity in his dark eyes. He wasn’t her savior. Cole wanted to be that. Kian was something else. An ally. A force of nature she’d somehow stumbled into.
“Kian,” she started, not even knowing what she was going to say. Thank you wasn’t enough. Who are you? was too much.
He just shook his head slightly, a gesture that cut her off before she could even begin. He reached into the console and pulled out a pen, then grabbed a stray receipt. He wrote down a number and handed it to her.
“My real number,” he said. “In case you need anything. In case he…”
He didn’t need to finish.
“Text me when it’s done,” he said. The command was soft, but it was still a command.
She nodded, her throat tight. She opened the door, the envelope clutched in her hand.
“Audrey.”
She turned back. His gaze held hers, serious and unwavering.
“You did this,” he said. “Not me. Remember that.”
She ran. Across the street, up the marble steps, and into the administrative building. The clock on the wall read 4:58. She burst into the grants office, startling a clerk who was packing up her desk.
“The Atherton Grant,” Audrey panted, holding out the envelope.
The clerk looked at the clock, then at Audrey’s flushed face. She sighed, took the envelope, and stamped it with a heavy, satisfying thud.
Received. 4:59 p.m.
It was done.
Audrey walked out into the late afternoon sun, feeling lightheaded. She’d done it. She’d beaten Cole at his own game, with the help of a man who was a complete mystery.
She looked to the corner where the Bronco had been parked.
It was gone.
The air in Beatrice Sterling’s penthouse was cold.
Not just the temperature, which was meticulously controlled, but the atmosphere itself. Everything was glass and steel and shades of white. It was less a home than a corporate headquarters that happened to have a billion-dollar view of the city skyline.
Beatrice stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, her back to the room. She was a silhouette of sharp angles and expensive tailoring. She didn’t turn when the door chimed softly and her assistant showed a man into the room.
“Mr. Jones,” she said, her voice as crisp as a freshly printed stock certificate. “You have something for me.”
“Mrs. Sterling.”
The private investigator was a grey man in a grey suit. He blended into the background, which was the source of his talent. He placed a slim, unmarked file on the massive glass desk.
“As you requested,” he said. “Everything we have on the woman your son has been meeting.”
Beatrice turned. Her face was a mask of aristocratic composure, her silver hair styled in a severe, elegant cut. She moved to the desk and opened the file.
She didn’t sit.
She preferred to loom.
Inside were a series of high-resolution photographs.
The first was taken at night, outside a dive bar called The Crow’s Nest. Her son, Kian, was laughing. Beatrice paused. She hadn’t seen a genuine smile on his face in years.
He was leaning toward a woman who was smiling back at him, her face animated.
Beatrice’s eyes narrowed, cataloging the woman with brutal efficiency.
Name: Audrey Wells. Age: 28. Vocation: Curator, Metropolitan Arts Museum.
The clothes were unremarkable. A simple coat, a scarf. Not designer. Not couture. Just… clothes. The woman wasn’t a classic beauty, not in the way the Sterling world defined it. But her face was intelligent. Expressive. There was a light in her eyes.
A dangerous light.
“She’s a nobody,” Beatrice stated, flipping to the next photo. It was from that morning, taken through the window of a cafe. Kian was leaning forward, his expression intense. The woman—Audrey—looked distressed. He was clearly helping her with something.
“She’s currently involved with a wealth manager named Cole Anderson,” Mr. Jones supplied. “They live together. From all accounts, it’s a serious relationship.”
Beatrice barely registered the information. This wasn’t about a simple affair.
This was about Kian’s expression. The focus.
The protective fire in his eyes as he looked at this museum girl. He had never looked at any of the suitable, pedigree-rich women she’d paraded before him with even a fraction of that intensity.
This was different. This was a threat.
“The museum,” Beatrice said, her voice dropping a degree. “What is her position?”
“She’s a curator. Head of the European Antiquities department. She’s organizing their fall gala. A major exhibit on maritime history.”
Beatrice’s lips thinned into a bloodless line. A curator.
A civil servant with a dusty degree and pretensions of culture. Kian, who could have any woman in the world, was wasting his time with this common little sparrow.
She saw it all in a flash.
The girl discovering who he was.
The dollar signs lighting up in her clever eyes.
The carefully orchestrated “accidental” pregnancy. The headlines. The dilution of the Sterling bloodline, the tarnishing of a name that had been built over a century of ruthless acquisition.
It was an infection. And it had to be excised before it could spread.
She closed the file. The soft click echoed in the silent room.
“Mr. Jones,” she said, her voice a sliver of ice.
“I want to know everything about her. Every job she’s ever had. Every friend. Every mistake she’s ever made. I want to know where she buys her coffee. I want to know if she has any debt. I want to know what she’s afraid of.”
“Of course, Mrs. Sterling.”
“And get me a full workup on this Cole Anderson. Relationships are leverage.”
“Consider it done.”
He turned to leave.
“One more thing,” she called after him.
He stopped, his hand on the door.
Beatrice walked back to the window, gazing down at the city below, a kingdom she and her family had built.
Kian was down there, forgetting who he was, forgetting what he owed his family, his name.
“The museum gala,” she said, her reflection a cold ghost in the glass. “Find out who sits on the board of directors. Find out who their largest private donors are.”
She paused, the strategy crystallizing in her mind. You don’t crush an insect with a hammer. You isolate it. You cut off its food supply. You make its world inhospitable.
“It’s a shame when a public institution loses its funding over the poor judgment of a single employee,” she mused aloud.
“It sends such a clear message.”