Chapter Four

Aveline Rousseau

The wax-sealed envelope felt heavier than lead in my hands.

Outside the Maybach’s reinforced glass, snow swirled like gray ash across the highway, blurring the frozen pine trees lining the route to Montreal. Inside, the quiet was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic purr of the engine and the sound of my own erratic breathing.

The person who signed off on those fake Cayman transfers... was the man sitting right beside you in your dressing room.

"No," I whispered, the word barely a breath against the cold leather interior. My thumb pressed into the hard red wax, my heart hammering a frantic, agonizing rhythm against my ribs. "No, Zephyrin. My father would never do that to me. He loves me. He... he sacrificed everything to keep our family afloat."

"Desperate men do not act out of love, Aveline," Zephyrin said. He didn't offer a shoulder to cry on. He didn't reach out to comfort me. He simply sat there, a silent titan carved from shadow and stone, watching me face the ruin of my world with those unblinking, eyes. "They act out of survival. And when your father saw the ship sinking, he looked for a life raft,even if it meant pushing his own daughter overboard to buy time."

"Shut up," I choked out, a sob tearing through my throat. "Just... shut up."

I broke the wax. The tear in the heavy paper sounded like a bone snapping.

My hands shook so violently I could barely unfold the letter. Written in my father’s familiar, elegant copperplate script was a confession not to me, but to Henri-Pierre Delacroix. It detailed a secret agreement made three weeks prior: a transfer of corporate debt shifted into an offshore account opened in my name, structured so that if the merger collapsed, the legal liability would fall entirely on the trustee of the Rousseau estate.

Me.

I was the shield. I was the fall guy. My own father had built a cage for me and painted it gold, convincing me it was a wedding dress.

"He promised me..." I stared at the dark ink, tears hot and bitter spilling over my lashes, scalding my cheeks. "He looked me in the eye an hour ago. He told me my mother would be proud of me."

A soft, subtle shift in the air signaled Zephyrin moving closer. He reached across the leather seat, his large, warm hand settling over mine. He didn't squeeze, but the heavy, grounded weight of his touch anchored me before I could completely shatter.

"Your father was backed into a corner by a predator who has spent forty years mastering the art of bloodless execution," Zephyrin murmured, his low voice vibrating in the dark space between us. "Do not waste your tears on the proxy. Look at the man pulling the strings."

"Henri-Pierre," I spat out, the patriarch's name tasting like copper and ash in my mouth.

"My father does not view people as human beings," Zephyrin said softly, his jaw tightening until the faint stubble along his skin stiffened. "He views them as assets to be acquired, used, and liquidated. He knew Esmond would break. He counted on it. He fed Esmond's gambling debts, nudged him toward the edge, and then used your father's panic to build a trap that would absorb your family's timber reserves for zero dollars on the dollar."

"And you?" I pulled my hand out from under his, wiping my wet cheeks with the back of my silk-gloved hand, staring at him with raw suspicion. "Where do you fit into his grand design, Zephyrin? You stepped up to the altar. You put this ring on my finger. Are you the savior, or are you just the clean-up crew?"

A quiet, dangerous stillness settled over Zephyrin. He leaned back against his headrest, his profile sharp against the passing blur of streetlights.

"I am the malfunction in his system," he answered simply.

The Maybach didn't take us to a police precinct.

Instead, it pulled off the highway and snaked through the high-security gates of the Delacroix Corporate Headquarters in downtown Montreal a staggering tower of black glass piercing the frozen night sky.

"Why are we here?" I asked, watching the heavy steel garage door lower behind us, sealing us in the subterranean concrete depths of the building. "The detective said"

"The detective answers to a precinct commander whose campaign was funded by Delacroix Holdings," Zephyrin interrupted, opening his door and stepping out into the cold air. He held out a hand for me. "My legal team intercepted the warrant five minutes ago. You are not going to a cell, Aveline. You are going to the board meeting."

My stomach flipped. "The board meeting?"

"My father convened an emergency executive session the moment we left Quebec City," Zephyrin said, pulling me gently out of the car. He reached down, gathering the long, heavy train of my wedding gown over his arm so it wouldn't drag on the grease-stained concrete. The contrast was absurd this terrifying, powerful billionaire holding the pristine silk of my ruined wedding dress with quiet, meticulous care. "He believes he is about to announce the emergency seizure of your father's firm to 'protect shareholder value' following your arrest."

"He thinks I'm in handcuffs," I realized, the blood in my veins turning to ice.

"Let's go show him the marriage certificate instead," Zephyrin murmured.

We rode the private glass elevator up sixty stories in complete silence. My reflection in the glass was a ghost: smudged mascara, dark hair coming unpinned, a pale face set against a magnificent white gown. But behind the shock, something new was taking root inside me. A cold, fierce ember of rage. They had treated me like a pawn. My father, Esmond, Henri-Pierre they had all looked at me and seen something fragile to be traded.

They were about to find out how sharp glass could be when it shattered.

The double doors of the executive boardroom were guarded by two firm representatives in sharp gray suits. They bowed their heads instantly as Zephyrin approached, swinging the massive doors open without a word.

Inside, the room was an amphitheater of polished dark wood, leather, and glass, overlooking the glowing, snowy expanse of Montreal. Around the oval table sat fourteen of the most powerful corporate directors in the country.

At the head of the table stood Henri-Pierre Delacroix.

He was in the middle of a tirade, his ivory-handled cane slamming against the floorboards with a deafening CRACK.

"A weak-willed boy who ran like a beaten dog!" Henri-Pierre roared, his thin, aristocratic face flushed with a dark, ugly crimson, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the light. "Esmond is dead to this family! He has disgraced the Delacroix name, ruined a historical merger, and left us exposed to a market panic! I will not have this company dragged into the gutter by a cowardly child and a thieving Rousseau girl!"

"Then it's a good thing the girl didn't steal anything," Zephyrin's voice cut through the room like a broadsword.

The room went dead silent. Fourteen heads snapped toward the entrance.

Henri-Pierre froze, his cane hovering inches above the carpet, his sharp hazel eyes widening in pure shock as Zephyrin walked into the room, leading me by the hand. My heavy silk dress rustled softly in the silence, a quiet defiance echoing off the glass walls.

"Zephyrin?" Henri-Pierre snarled, his shock instantly turning into raw, venomous fury. "What is the meaning of this insolence? Why isn't she in a holding cell?"

"Because her legal representation happens to own the firm that holds your personal indemnification bonds, Father," Zephyrin said smoothly, pulling out the grand leather chair at the foot of the table and guiding me to sit. He stood behind me, placing his large hands firmly on the back of my chair, a dominant, terrifying presence protecting my back.

"She is a criminal!" Henri-Pierre bellowed, slamming his fist onto the table. "The RCMP has the ledgers! The merger is void! Rousseau Enterprise is in default, and under Clause 9, Delacroix Holdings hereby initiates an immediate hostile takeover of"

"The merger is not void," I said.

My voice didn't shake. It echoed through the room, cool, clear, and dripping with venom. I looked straight at the old man who had tried to destroy my life, lifting my chin high.

Henri-Pierre glared at me like I was a cockroach that had dared to speak. "Silence yourself, girl! You have no standing in this room!"

"She has all the standing in the world," Zephyrin countered coldly. He reached into his inner pocket, pulled out the gold-embossed marriage certificate signed at the altar in Quebec City, and tossed it onto the center of the polished mahogany table. It slid across the wood, stopping right in front of Henri-Pierre’s trembling hands.

Henri-Pierre looked down at the gold seal. His eyes read the names, and the blood drained from his face until he looked like a corpse.

"You..." Henri-Pierre whispered, his voice cracking with a sudden, terrified realization. "You married her?"

"Twenty minutes ago," Zephyrin replied, a slow, lethal smile touching his lips. "Which means under Canadian corporate law, my personal portfolio automatically guarantees the Rousseau debt. Their assets are shielded. Their stock is absorbed into my private firm not yours. You don't own them, Father. I do."

A chorus of shocked gasps broke out from the board members. Henri-Pierre staggered back, gripping his cane so hard his knuckles turned blue.

"You traitorous bastard!" Henri-Pierre screamed, his composure completely shattering as he pointed a shaking finger at his eldest son. "You planned this! You engineered Esmond's debt! You drove him away so you could steal the merger out from under me!"

"I didn't have to engineer anything," Zephyrin said softly, stepping around my chair, his eyes locking onto his father’s with absolute triumph. "You built a house of cards, old man. I just waited for the wind to blow."

Henri-Pierre’s chest heaved. He opened his mouth to spit out another curse, but before he could speak, the private phone in the center of the boardroom table began to ring.

It was a sharp, shrill sound that cut through the tension like a razor.

Henri-Pierre stared at it, his face pale. No one moved.

"Answer it, Father," Zephyrin murmured, leaning over the table. "I believe that's the authority from the airport."

With a trembling hand, Henri-Pierre hit the speaker button.

"Mr. Delacroix?" a frantic voice echoed through the boardroom speakers. "This is Chief Inspector Vance at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International. We've intercepted your son Esmond’s flight before departure."

Henri-Pierre swallowed hard, trying to regain his dominant posture. "Good. Arrest him for breach of corporate contract"

"We didn't arrest him for corporate breach, sir," the inspector interrupted, his voice heavy with grim urgency. "We stopped the aircraft because of what we found in his checked luggage. And... sir, you need to come down here immediately."

A terrible, suffocating dread filled the boardroom.

"What did you find?" Henri-Pierre demanded, his voice barely a whisper.

The inspector cleared his throat, the sound static-heavy through the speaker. "Three million dollars in unregistered bearer bonds... and the cold-storage biological vessel containing the missing Rousseau forestry research patents. But Mr. Delacroix... Esmond isn't talking. Because when my officers boarded the plane... your son was already dead."