Chapter 49 - No Me Without You

Sinclair Tower’s executive floor was unnervingly quiet the next morning, the kind of silence that came before a storm.

Damien Sinclair stood in his office, the city skyline stretched out behind him, but his gaze was on the letter now locked inside his desk drawer. The ink felt heavier today, as if Vincent Mercer’s threat was already staining the walls of his empire.

Celeste entered without knocking, her presence no longer needing an invitation. She handed him a dossier, her eyes sharper than the diamond earrings glinting from her lobes.

“I had my team dig into Mercer-Calloway’s last quarter filings,” she announced, not waiting for Damien to ask. “They’re bleeding, Damien. The only reason they want Sinclair so badly is because they’re desperate. They need us to survive.”

Damien took the file, flipping through the numbers. Celeste’s analysis was ruthless, pinpointing the cracks even his legal team missed. She had always been more than a beautiful face on a screen. She was a strategist now. His partner in every war, every boardroom, every battlefield.

“They’re masking the losses by leveraging new foreign investments,” Celeste continued. “But if those investors catch wind that their leadership is unstable, their entire house of cards collapses.”

Damien gave a grim smile. “We can make that happen.”

Her lips curled into a fierce grin. “We will make that happen.”

Their phones buzzed simultaneously. A single name flashing on both screens. Vincent Mercer.

Damien answered first, his voice a blade. “You have five seconds to explain why you sent that threat, Mercer.”

A slow, oily chuckle oozed through the speaker. “Is that how you greet old family friends, Damien? Or have you forgotten your place?”

Celeste’s expression darkened as she listened in. The name Mercer was not just corporate history, it was personal. She remembered vividly how they had dismantled Julian Mercer’s schemes months ago when Damien announced their engagement.

“Julian was sloppy,” Damien said coldly. “You’ll fare no better.”

“Oh, I’m not Julian, boy,” Vincent hissed, his charm giving way to something uglier. “I’m the man who taught Julian everything he knew. And you’ve just walked into a game you don’t even know the rules to.”

Damien glanced at Celeste. “I make my own rules. I took you down once before. Vincent. I'll end you again.”

“You make enemies,” Vincent snarled. “Enjoy your little empire while it lasts.”

The line went dead. There was a deadly silence, but Damien’s blood boiled, the old wounds of Mercer betrayal pulsing beneath the surface.

Celeste placed a hand on his wrist, grounding him once more. “He’s trying to get under your skin, Damien. But we don’t play his game. We rewrite it.”

For a heartbeat, Damien let himself lean into her touch.

“You’ve already done your damage, Mercer,” Damien murmured to the empty room, almost to himself. “You tried once to break me and failed. Sent your nephew Julian to break us, but you failed. Now you’ll learn that I don’t bend and I won't break.”

Celeste’s gaze softened. “We fight them together, Damien. And this time, we don’t just win. We burn their legacy to the ground.”

He pulled her close, pressing his lips to her forehead. “You are my sanity in all this love."

“As you are mine,” she breathed.

They emerged from Damien’s office hours later with a new strategy. Celeste worked directly with his global PR team, overseeing a campaign that painted Sinclair Studios as the last bastion of independent, visionary art, countering Mercer-Calloway’s ruthless, outdated corporate greed.

Damien took private meetings with key foreign investors, exposing Mercer’s falsified earnings, undermining their trust in the Mercer-Calloway merger. Together, they worked like a well-oiled machine.

Enemies whispered about them now, but not as separate players, as a unit.

Sinclair and Laurent - a force no one could predict.

But Vincent Mercer watched from the shadows, amused. Because he knew the game wasn’t about stocks and PR battles. It was about patience. And he had waited for this reckoning for ten long years.

The following week brought a surge of calculated chaos. Damien and Celeste were no longer playing behind closed doors. Every move they made was now deliberately public, designed to expose the cracks in Mercer-Calloway’s empire and to remind the industry that this wasn’t a hostile takeover. It was a reckoning.

Sinclair’s annual investors’ summit was traditionally a formal, conservative event hosted inside their luxury Beverly Hills estate. This year, Damien changed the venue. Downtown Los Angeles. Open to the press. A symbolic choice. A declaration that the old guard had lost control of the narrative.

As Damien walked onto the stage, the lights flashed, cameras snapping every movement. Celeste walked beside him, stunning in a sharp white suit that screamed power and control. No one could ignore her anymore. She wasn’t just his partner behind the scenes. She was the face of their new era.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Damien began, his voice steady but laced with defiance. “You’ve all heard the rumors. The whispered threats from Mercer-Calloway. The attempted blackmail. Today, we end the whispers.”

He nodded toward Celeste, who stepped forward, unapologetically taking the lead.

“Our industry has been ruled by fear long enough,” she said, her voice calm but slicing through the room like a razor. “Sinclair Studios has survived every attack because we don’t just create art. We create movements. And we will not allow Mercer-Calloway to hijack that legacy through deceit, intimidation, or boardroom politics.”

The crowd erupted in murmurs. Damien let the weight of her words settle. Then he delivered the kill shot.

“To that end,” Damien announced, holding up a set of documents, “we have partnered with key international investors to form the Sinclair-Laurent Foundation. An entity that will buy out our public shares, securing our independence and cutting off any potential leverage Mercer-Calloway hoped to gain.”

Gasps filled the room. This wasn’t just a press conference. It was an ambush. Celeste smiled, the move bold and dangerous.

“Effective immediately, Sinclair Studios is off the market. And any company attempting a hostile approach will face legal consequences and public exposure.”

A ripple of shock ran through the board members present. Reporters shot up from their seats, bombarding them with questions.

“Mr. Sinclair, Ms. Laurent—are you declaring war on Vincent Mercer?”

“Ms. Laurent, isn’t this personal, given your history with the Mercer family?”

Celeste met their gazes coolly. “This is business. But if Mercer wants to make it personal he’s welcome to try.”

From the wings, Vincent Mercer watched the broadcast on his phone, his expression tightening. Julian Mercer had failed to break them. And now Damien and Celeste were rewriting the rules, together.

He crushed the wine glass in his hand, blood mixing with vintage red as he hissed, “You’ve made this war, Sinclair. And now I’ll make you bleed.”

Back at Sinclair Tower, Damien poured himself a drink, his hand brushing Celeste’s as they stood side by side on the rooftop balcony. The city lights below looked less daunting tonight.

“Did we just paint a giant target on our backs?” Celeste asked softly.

Damien turned to her, his expression both fierce and tender. “Let them come. We’re not running.”

She leaned into him. “I like this version of us. The one that fights together.”

“Then get used to it,” Damien whispered against her lips. “Because from now on there’s no ‘me’ without ‘you,’ Celeste.”

Her eyes shimmered. “You finally get it.”

He kissed her deeply, claiming her under the stars. Behind them, the world shifted.

The war was just beginning and Damien Sinclair would show Mercer-Calloway—and the entire world—that no empire could take them down. Not when they stood together.