Chapter Sixteen: The Fallout

CADE ESTATE

Night draped the Cade estate in a velvet hush, the kind that made whispers sound like thunder. The Los Angeles hillside mansion—white stone, black glass—glimmered under a skein of moonlight. Inside, the air smelled of polished oak and power.

Sienna Cade stood in the library—the only place the chef couldn't gain access to plant the device—phone still warm in her hand. She had told Ethan she’d meet him here after dinner. She’d also told herself she wouldn’t think about the two messages still glowing in her own private thread, the ones she hadn’t dared to open while walking the coast with Amara.

She’d deleted the Nevada number from her logs, but the phantom buzz lingered like static under her skin.

Footsteps: measured and deliberate. Ethan appeared in the doorway, jacket off, sleeves rolled to the forearms. A storm bottled inside a man.

“Well?” he said, voice a blade.

Sienna forced a smile, the one she’d perfected over years of their relationship and mergers. “I met her. Brunch, a walk along the cliffs. She’s… poised. Confident. Exactly what you expected.”

Ethan moved closer, dark eyes fixed on hers. “Did she mention the bid?”

“She was gracious. Not gloating.”

“Everyone gloat s when they steal half a billion from you.” The muscles in his jaw jumped. “What else?”

Sienna kept her tone even. “Nothing. We spoke of California. Her plans for the property. Small talk.”

She did not mention the sharp intuition in Amara’s gaze, the way silence had stretched until it cut. Nor the texts that still burned at the edge of her thoughts.

Ethan Cade was cunning, cruel and calculating.

He could sniff out and smell a lie miles away and could predict his opponent's next move. That alone, made him a formidable enemy.

But Sienna? She was vicious in her own way and they made the perfect pair. Only one thing, Sienna was hiding something—for years now. And if Ethan ever found out, he'd destroy her.

Ethan studied her, as if he could read the omissions. His phone vibrated, breaking the spell.

He glanced at the screen. A number he knew. Roderick Vale.

A muscle in Ethan’s neck tightened. He answered. “Vale. Make it quick.”

The lawyer’s voice came jagged with panic. “Ethan—someone’s coming after me. I’ve had encrypted texts all day—no signature, just threats. They know about the Caymans. About Geneva. About… the trust.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “And this concerns me because?”

“Because if I go down, you go with me,” Vale snapped. “Don’t play dumb. I buried the Monroe amendment for you. I laundered funds so you could move on that estate before the girl even knew it existed. You needed her vulnerable, and I—”

“Shut the hell up,” Ethan cut in, voice low and lethal. He caught Sienna’s startled glance and turned away, pacing toward the window. “Lower your voice and listen to me. You’re supposed to be a professional. Panicking makes you sloppy.”

“They know, Ethan,” Vale hissed. “If I fall, I drag you—and your wife—down with me. Cade Development won’t survive the hearings.”

For a heartbeat, silence pressed against the room like a held breath.

Finally Ethan said, “Where are you?”

“Whitmore Hotel. Manhattan.”

“I’ll charter a jet tonight. Sit tight. Don’t talk to anyone. Not a word. I’ll handle it.”

The line clicked dead.

Sienna stepped forward. “What was that about?”

“Business,” he said, sliding the phone into his pocket.

“That didn’t sound like business.”

Ethan’s gaze sliced through her, all steel and warning. “Then you heard wrong.”

She opened her mouth, thought better of it. He poured himself a drink instead, amber liquid catching the light like captured fire, and stared through the glass at the sprawl of city night.

Sienna remained silent, her mind replaying Vale’s words—your wife—like a slow, unraveling thread.

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VOSS ESTATE— Messages and Ghosts

While the Cade estate steeped in quiet menace, the Voss estate hummed with a different kind of electricity.

Amara sat at the long mahogany desk in her study, the glow of a single lamp gilding the edges of her profile. A leather-bound journal lay open before her, page half-filled with her neat, slanted handwriting.

> My Angel, Milo.

Tonight the ocean sounds like an argument I can almost win. Sienna’s mask slipped for a heartbeat; she’s hiding something. Vale is trembling. Ethan is cornered, even if he doesn’t know it yet. The game smells like ozone before a storm.

She paused, pen hovering. For a moment the quiet wrapped around her like a cloak. These letters to her son were the one indulgence she allowed herself.

The phone on the desk vibrated.

Damien Rhys.

Amara’s breath stilled. She set the pen down, closed the journal, and slid it into a drawer.

She rose and stepped onto the balcony. The night air came sharp with salt and the faint metallic scent of approaching rain. The Pacific stretched endless and black, a mirror to her own stillness.

She answered. “Damien.”

“Amara.” His voice was low, a dark warmth through the line. “I trust California is treating you well.”

“As well as expected.” She leaned against the railing, the cold iron grounding her. “The auction made the noise you wanted.”

“I read the headlines. Ethan Cade is predictable when wounded. Vale?”

“Cracking,” she said simply.

A soft chuckle. “Good. But don’t underestimate them. A cornered opponent is the most dangerous.”

“I know,” she replied. “I’ve learned a few things since Amalfi.”

She pushed the image of Ethan pushing her off the cliff out of her head.

Silence for a beat, the kind that carried too much history. “And you?” he asked. “Are you sleeping?”

Amara let the question drift out over the water. “Sleep is for people without plans.”

“Careful, little star,” Damien murmured. “Even the sharpest blade dulls without rest.”

Damien Rhys.

The enigma of a man who she still didn't trust.

She wondered if Kaylee told him already about the man at the bid. She doubted and she wanted it kept that way.

Before she could answer, another vibration: a message alert from an unknown number—different from the midnight suit note, different from anything in her network.

She glanced at the screen: Still think you can win alone?

No signature. Just the echo of a threat.

Amara smiled faintly, a flash of ice. “Someone thinks they can frighten me,” she said into the phone.

She figured she'd let him in on a bit.

He did help her become who she was presently.

“Let them try,” Damien replied, the hint of a challenge in his tone.

The call ended, leaving only the crash of waves and the quickening beat of the unseen game.

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Back across the city, Ethan Cade stood at the window long after Sienna left the library. He replayed Vale’s panicked words, the Monroe trust, the anonymous texts. He hated blind spots; someone was playing a game and he wasn’t holding the board.

At the Voss estate, Amara closed her phone and watched the surf explode against the rocks.

PTSD? Trauma? They were weaknesses she couldn't afford to show. Not as Amara Voss. Here she was stronger and has no weakness.

The pieces were moving—Vale trembling in Manhattan, Ethan pacing his glass castle, Sienna clutching her secrets like contraband.

The night stretched between them, taut as a drawn wire.

And in that quiet, the next move waited—unseen and inevitable.