Chapter Five

Aveline Rousseau

The word hit the boardroom like a heavy iron weight dropping through thin glass.

Dead.

A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the fourteen directors seated around the dark mahogany table. The room, already stifling with corporate animosity, instantly turned to ice. Air left my lungs in a sharp, ragged snare as I stared at the speakerphone in the center of the polished wood, the motionless line buzzing like a swarm of dying wasps.

Esmond was dead.

The boy who had brought me rare orchids from his travels, who laughed too loud at formal galas, who had fled his own wedding only hours ago with a short, cryptic note gone.

At the head of the table, Henri-Pierre didn't scream. He didn't drop his ivory-handled cane. He simply froze, his sharp hazel eyes wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his thin lips parted in a silent, monstrous O. For the first time since I had met the formidable patriarch of the Delacroix empire, the terrifying mask of absolute control shattered, leaving behind a frail, hollow old man standing under the cold glare of recessed LED lights.

"Re-repeat that," Henri-Pierre rasped, his voice scraping out of his throat like dry paper. "Inspector... what did you say?"

"Your son Esmond is deceased, Mr. Delacroix," the inspector’s voice crackled back, completely devoid of warmth. "Preliminary sweeps suggest acute cardiac arrest, but the coroner is on his way to verify the presence of a foreign substance. Given the nature of the assets found in his carry-on- the unregistered bearer bonds and the bio-vessel, we are locking down the aircraft as an active crime scene. We need you and Mr. Zephyrin Delacroix at Trudeau International immediately."

The line went dead with a sharp, final click.

Silence, suffocating and vast, descended on the sixty-first floor. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the Montreal skyline was swallowed by a blinding whiteout as the blizzard raged on, casting long, bruised shadows across the carpet.

Beside me, Zephyrin hadn't moved a muscle.

I turned my head slowly, looking up at my new husband. His hand remained resting on the high back of my leather chair, his long fingers tight against the dark leather. His structured jaw was set so hard I could see a muscle pulsing rhythmically against his faint stubble. But,his eyes weren't fixed on the phone.

They were fixed on his father.

There was no grief in Zephyrin's expression. No tears, no shock, no sudden collapse of composure. There was only a terrifying, abyssal stillness a cold, calculating calm that chilled me far deeper than the winter air outside.

"Zephyrin..." I whispered, my voice trembling so hard I barely recognized it. I reached up, my silk-gloved fingers tentatively touching his forearm. His coat was cold from the snow, but beneath the heavy wool, his arm was as rigid as steel. "Zephyrin, your brother..."

He didn't look down at me. He didn't acknowledge my touch.

"The meeting is adjourned," Zephyrin announced. His deep, cognac-smooth voice was unnervingly steady, cutting through the heavy silence with absolute authority. "Clear the room. Now."

The board members didn't hesitate. They scrambled out of their leather chairs, gathering their tablets and leather folders in a flurry of hushed, panicked murmurs, keeping their eyes glued to the floor as they hurried past us toward the double doors. Within thirty seconds, the massive boardroom was empty, leaving only three people behind in the cavernous space.

Henri-Pierre. Zephyrin. And me, sitting trapped between them in a ruined white wedding gown.

Henri-Pierre slowly lowered himself into his chair, his hands shaking violently as he rested both palms on his ivory cane. He looked up at Zephyrin, his face gray, his eyes hollowed out by a sudden, brutal age.

"You..." Henri-Pierre whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying mixture of grief and venom. "You knew. You knew he wouldn't make it off that plane."

Zephyrin finally let go of my chair. He stepped forward slowly, his heavy dress shoes making no sound against the thick carpet. He stopped at the edge of the table, leaning forward slightly, bringing his imposing frame down to his father's eye level.

"I told you three years ago, Father," Zephyrin said softly, his voice dropping into a dark, razor-thin register that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "When you play games with wolves, you don't get to weep when the pack eats your favorite hound."

"He was your brother!" Henri-Pierre suddenly cried out, slamming his palm against the mahogany with a wet, desperate slap. "Your own blood!"

"He was your pawn," Zephyrin countered, his eyes narrowing into deadly slits. "You drove him into debt. You fed his paranoia. You handed him the Rousseau patents so he could run, setting up a legal trail that would let you destroy Aveline’s father and seize their timberlands. You killed him, old man. You just used a long wire to do it."

Henri-Pierre choked on his own breath, clutching his chest as he glared up at his eldest son with pure, unadulterated hatred.

My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The unsubstantial layer of toxicity between these two men was suffocating. I gripped the arms of my chair, my mind racing. Esmond hadn't just run away. He had been carrying three million dollars in bearer bonds and my family's most valuable biological research patents—the very patents my father had spent twenty years developing.

If those patents were on that plane, who gave them to Esmond? My father? Or someone else?

Zephyrin straightened his stance, unbuttoning the single button of his tailored charcoal suit jacket. He turned his head slowly, his piercing gray gaze finally landing on me.

"We're leaving," he said calmly, extending his broad, hand toward me. "The Maybach is waiting downstairs."

I stared at his outstretched hand. The hand that had signed our marriage license. The hand that held the power to save my father or destroy him. I felt an overwhelming urge to run, to pull off this suffocating dress and disappear into the Montreal blizzard. But there was nowhere to go. The police were looking for answers, my father was on the brink of ruin, and the man standing over me was the only thing keeping the legal wolves from ripping my life apart.

Slowly, reluctantly, I placed my cold hand in his. His grip closed around mine instantly warm, firm, and entirely unyielding.

"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice barely audible in the vast, empty room. "To the airport?"

"No," Zephyrin replied, pulling me gently to my feet and gathering the heavy silk train of my dress over his arm with practiced, quiet efficiency. "My legal team will handle the airport scene. You and I are going home."

He didn't mean his family's historic estate in Quebec City. He meant his private fortress in downtown Montreal.

We walked out of the boardroom, leaving Henri-Pierre sitting alone in the dark, staring blankly at the snow battered against the high glass windows.

We rode the private elevator down in complete silence. As the floor numbers ticked down in glowing red digits, the physical proximity between us grew unbearable. The scent of his expensive cologne sandalwood, rain, and a faint hint of tobacco filled the enclosed space, wrapping around me like a physical chain. I looked at his profile in the polished metal wall: sharp, stoic, completely unreadable.

"Zephyrin," I murmured, breaking the heavy quiet. "Why did you really marry me today? Don't give me the corporate line about merger stability. Esmond is dead. You don't need to protect my father's firm anymore."

The elevator dinged softly, arriving at the private subterranean garage. The doors glide open, revealing the armored black Maybach waiting in the dim concrete light.

Zephyrin didn't step out immediately. He turned to face me in the small space of the elevator, stepping closer until his broad chest was inches from mine. He looked down at me, his eyes darkening with an emotion so intense, so primal, that it stole the oxygen right out of my lungs.

"I didn't marry you to save your father's firm, Aveline," he whispered, his deep voice vibrating through my skin, sending a sudden, terrifying shiver straight down my spine.

"Then why?" I breathed, my pulse racing wild.

Zephyrin reached out, his long fingers gently tucking a stray lock of sable hair behind my ear, his knuckles lightly grazing the hot skin of my cheek.

"Because Esmond didn't steal those patents alone," Zephyrin murmured against my ear, his breath hot against my cold skin. "And the person who killed him... is currently waiting inside my penthouse."