Chapter Twenty: The Affair

CADE ESTATE

Rain glazed the glass walls of the Cade estate in a steady rhythm — soft, deliberate and almost hypnotic. The house itself sat on the ridge like a god watching over Los Angeles, its marble veins catching every strike of lightning and holding it prisoner.

Ethan Cade stood at the far end of the room, a dark silhouette against the city’s fractured light. His reflection looked back at him from the window — the same sharp jaw, the same calm menace. His tie was loosened, his shirt sleeves rolled, his drink untouched.

Behind him, Sienna entered quietly, barefoot, her cream silk robe whispering as she moved. She paused when she saw him — the stillness, the restraint — and for a moment, she didn’t dare break it.

Then, in that smooth, familiar voice, he spoke.

“Tell me,” Ethan said without turning, “how’s our charming Ms. Voss?”

Sienna stopped mid-step. “She’s… careful,” she said slowly. “Elusive.”

“Careful,” Ethan repeated, tasting the word. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

He finally turned, his gaze slicing through her like a blade drawn too quickly. The low light made his eyes impossible to read — dark, depthless, and quietly furious.

Sienna lifted her chin. “You said to keep it friendly. I’m keeping it friendly.”

“Friendly,” Ethan said again, almost a whisper this time. “Sienna, I asked you to build trust — not play afternoon tea. Amara Voss has already outmaneuvered two of my investors this week. She’s making noise in the city, and if she cements her position before we act, it’ll be harder to remove her cleanly.”

He crossed the space between them in three measured steps, stopping just close enough for her to feel the current rolling off him.

“You understand what’s at stake.”

Her heart kicked against her ribs, but her tone stayed steady. “I do.”

“Then act like it,” he said, voice low, almost intimate. “Because the longer you hesitate, the stronger she becomes. I won’t wait for the empire I built to start orbiting around her.”

Sienna tried to match his coldness with calm. “You think I don’t see what she’s doing? I see her. Every move. Every headline. But Ethan, she’s not someone you can push. She’s too controlled — too deliberate. The wrong kind of pressure and she’ll bolt.”

“She won’t bolt,” Ethan said simply. “She’ll fight. And that’s when we win.”

He set his drink down without drinking it. The crystal clinked softly, punctuating the silence between them.

Sienna exhaled, long and slow. “You’re turning this into a war before you even understand the battlefield.”

“It’s already a war,” he said. “You just haven’t realized who started it.”

She turned away from him, eyes on the rain-slick city below. “You think Amara’s the threat. But sometimes the ghosts you bury don’t stay buried.”

That caught his attention. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sienna didn’t answer right away. Her fingers trembled slightly as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Nothing,” she said at last. “Just an observation.”

He studied her — too long, too intently — before finally straightening.

“I trust you, Sienna,” he said. “Don’t make me regret it.”

She looked back at him, her smile perfectly composed. “You won’t. I’ve got it all handled.”

Ethan held her gaze another second , then nodded once. “You’d better.”

When he finally left the room, the silence he left behind felt heavier than his presence.

Sienna stood there for a long time, her reflection fractured in the glass. She reached for her wine, but her hand trembled too much to lift it.

The truth was simple — she didn’t have it handled.

Not anymore.

Not since the calls started.

Not since Daniel’s name came crawling back from the dead.

Her eyes flicked toward the hidden drawer behind the bar. The phone — that phone — sat there, still powered off. For now.

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VOSS ESTATE

Morning broke slow and bruised across the coast. The storm had passed, but the air still tasted of salt and electricity.

Kaylee hadn’t slept. She sat cross-legged on the floor of Amara’s study, eyes bloodshot, fingers flying over her keyboard. Lines of data scrolled past the screen — names, timestamps, hidden folders, things that didn’t belong in public hands.

Damien Rhys’s team had been feeding her information all night. Now it was all here, piecing itself into something sharp.

Amara entered without a sound, dressed in a fitted black dress, hair pinned loosely, her calm somehow louder than the storm had been.

“Well?” she asked.

Kaylee looked up — a strange mix of excitement and unease flickering in her expression. “We found him.”

“Daniel?”

Kaylee nodded. “And Sienna.”

Amara stopped mid-step. “What about her?”

Kaylee hesitated, then turned the laptop so she could see.

Two faces. Sienna Cade. Daniel Hughes.

Images, timestamped. Hotel corridors. Private docks. A suite under a false name.

Amara’s expression didn’t change at first, but her eyes sharpened, a slow focus like glass under a flame.

“When?” she asked quietly.

“Years ago,” Kaylee said. “Before you married Ethan. Before you became Elara Cade.”

A slow breath escaped Amara’s lips. “So it’s true.”

“More than true,” Kaylee said. “Damien’s team confirmed it through Cade Holdings security archives. Ethan found out — or at least suspected. The same week Daniel vanished. Cade records scrubbed his existence completely. No contracts. No employment trace. Nothing. Ethan made him disappear.”

Amara moved toward the window, her silhouette a dark outline against the gray light.

“An affair,” she said softly. “Of course it was an affair.”

Her voice wasn’t jealous — it was clinical. As if she were disassembling a puzzle piece by piece.

“Ethan’s pride couldn’t stomach betrayal from inside his own circle,” she murmured. “So he erased Daniel. And Sienna… covered her tracks with charm.”

Kaylee closed the laptop, unsure whether to speak. “So what now?”

Amara turned, her eyes glinting like cut obsidian. “Now?” she said. “Now, we have leverage.”

For the first time in weeks, she smiled — not the polite curve she gave reporters or investors, but a real one. Cold. Beautiful. Dangerous.

“This,” she said, tapping the desk lightly, “is our first weapon.”

Kaylee’s brow furrowed. “You plan to use Sienna’s secret?”

“I plan to let Ethan find it,” Amara said. “Men like him never believe the truth until it crawls into their bed and bleeds on their sheets.”

Kaylee swallowed. “That’s cruel.”

“That’s justice,” Amara corrected softly. “And justice wears many masks.”

She turned back to the glass, her reflection split by the sunlight beginning to rise. The ocean below shimmered with that deceptive calm — the kind that came right before another storm.

Behind her, Kaylee gathered her things quietly, but her mind was still spinning.

Damien had been right — whoever Daniel was, whatever he was hiding, it was only the beginning.

Amara stood alone now, the hum of the house folding around her.

She looked down at her phone — a single unread message blinking in the corner of the screen. No name. No trace. Just one sentence:

“The past isn’t done with you yet.”

Amara’s lips curved, slow and knowing.

“Neither am I,” she whispered.

And for the first time, the war she’d been waiting for no longer felt like something to fear.

It felt inevitable.