CHAPTER 5

Orion’s POV

I walked out of the boardroom with a smile that felt cold in my face. It was small, not for show—just the kind of smile someone gets when a plan is working. I was closer now. Closer to the company, closer to the power I wanted, and closer to the woman who had broken me. That thought made the smile sharper.

The lobby smelled like leather and lemon polish. My steps sounded loud on the marble. People looked up, then looked away. I didn’t hurry. I liked the slow walk, the way time stretched between the table and the car. Kennedy’s voice still rang in the room somewhere, thin and nervous. He’d given them a speech about troubles and hope. He didn’t know how small he looked.

Outside, the city air hit me—cool and a little sweet from the last of the evening sun. I opened the car and slid into the back seat. The leather was warm from the sun and the driver’s jacket left a faint smell of cigarette that I didn’t like, but I didn’t say anything. I needed a minute.

I watched the building through the glass. For a moment the room with the long table and the bright lights flashed through my mind again—Anya there, folding and unfolding her hands, the way her lips moved when she chewed at a thought. She sat close to Kennedy, like sun around a small plant. Kennedy looked loud and confident, but he was empty inside, a man filled with noise and bad habits. He had ruined the company with his bets and his fingers in too many places. They needed me now. That thought felt like a kind of victory.

But I pushed all those thoughts down deep. This wasn’t just business, not really. I reminded myself why I was here. It wasn’t about the money, at least not entirely. It was about her. About a small piece of paper that had burned through me and never let go. My fingers found the fold of it in my pocket without me even thinking. The letter was tiny, edges worn and soft, the ink a little faded from being read too many times. Her handwriting—curved, careful, the kind that made it feel like she was speaking to me through each letter—hit me in my chest every time I looked at it.

I remembered the night I had read it, the night of her graduation party. The words were cruel, clear, and final. She told me she didn’t love me, that she was moving on to someone worthy of her life—someone richer, smarter, someone better than me. She told me I was to stay away, never contact her again. Her words confirmed what her father had told me all along: we didn’t belong together.

I pressed the letter against my chest, feeling the weight of it like a stone. It had changed me, shaped me, hardened me. Every time I touched it, I could feel that old wound opening and closing again. I told myself over and over, love would never touch me like that again. Not for anyone.

My grandmother told me once that pain can be used. “Turn it into shape,” she said, and I had. I had turned the hurt into a ladder. Every rung was a deal, a name, a number. I climbed it barefoot at times, and it cut, but it worked. Chase was gone. Orion was what came after. The name sounded good in my mouth. It sounded safe.

The letter stayed folded in my pocket like a promise. Whenever I felt something that could be called weakness, I pressed my thumb against that fold. It steadied me. It reminded me not to trust the warm voice in my head that whispered for second chances.

The driver cleared his throat. “Shall we go, sir?”

I buttoned my jacket slowly, feeling the fabric beneath my fingers. I fixed my tie in the window’s reflection the way I always did—quick, exact—like checking armor before a fight. The suit sat on me right, heavy in a good way. It made me feel steady. I put the letter back in my breast pocket and pressed my hand over it. The paper was warm from my skin. Holding it felt like holding a map to something I shouldn’t forget.

“Drive,” I said.

The car pushed off and the city rolled by in long, quiet strips of light. Buildings slid past, windows blinking like eyes in the dark. I watched them and thought about small things—the smell of the boardroom coffee, the quiet way Anya tucked her hair behind her ear, the sound she made when she laughed at something she thought was only hers. Those memories were quick and sharp. They were the parts of me that ached.

Tomorrow Anya would come to my office. She would be in my space, wearing the company name like a new skin. I thought about how small she looked in the big room. That image sat in my head and warmed the cold part of me.

I imagined the first day—how she would arrive early, how I would test her with work that would push her, how I would make sure she knew I had the upper hand. I told myself it wasn’t cruelty for its own sake. It was balance. She’d taken something from me, and I would make her understand that loss in the only way I knew—by making her need me and fear me at the same time.

The plan was tidy in my mind. I would be professional, exact. I would sign the papers, give the money, and outline the rules. Then I would watch as she learned the new order. I would keep my distance when I needed to and close in when it mattered. I would watch her until she could not pretend the past was dead.

Still, when the city lights blurred past, a small, traitor thought kept pushing through: what if I wanted more than revenge? The thought frightened me. I shoved it back like a thorn. I had rules. I had the letter. I had the taste of the hurt, and that would be enough to keep me sharp.

The driver turned a corner and the building lights grew taller. I smoothed my jacket one more time and set my jaw. Tomorrow would start something. I pulled my hand from my pocket and left the letter folded there, close to my heart. The heart she had shattered.