Chapter 5 — THE GHOST

ELLIE'S POV

The television was a black mirror now, reflecting a woman frozen in a nightmare. For hours, I didn’t move from the edge of my bed. The plush carpet under my bare feet, the silk of my rumpled dress from last night, the stale air of my sealed bedroom—it was all a distant reality. The only reality was the loop playing behind my eyes: the grainy video, the smug reporter, the words intellectual property theft superimposed over my face.

I was a thief. I was a bad mother. The narrative was set, the cement already drying. Tulsa had its morning coffee with a side of my disgrace.

And beneath the cold shock, a hotter, more violent feeling churned: a fury so pure it was almost clean. Leo. He had the money. He had the proof. And he had sold me out. Again. The video had to be from him. Who else had that footage? Who else stood to gain by destroying me completely after getting what he wanted? He’d taken my cash, my fragile, stupid moment of mercy, and he’d handed a knife to my enemies. The betrayal was a physical taste, metallic and sour, at the back of my throat. I had saved a stranger, and in return, he had obliterated me.

A sharp, precise knock shattered the silence. It wasn’t the frantic pounding of family. It was a report. Three raps.

“Come in,” I said, my voice a rasp.

The door opened and Gideon filled the frame. My head of security, a man of granite steadiness. His face was tight with controlled anger.

“Ms. James.”

“I suppose you’ve seen the news, Gideon.”

“I have.” He stepped inside but didn’t fully enter the personal space of the room. “I’ve traced the source of the video leak. The file was uploaded through a series of proxies, but the original metadata points to a device registered to Silhouette’s PR department. It was sent to the news station anonymously at 4:17 AM.”

I blinked, the gears in my battered mind grinding. “Silhouette? But… they hired Leo to steal designs. Why leak this? Why the personal attack?”

“To cripple you before the main blow,” Gideon said, his tone flat. “Destroy your character, and no one will believe your defense against their business claims. It makes you vulnerable. It makes you look guilty of everything.”

It was a brilliant, brutal strategy. And it had Giselle’s fingerprints all over it. She had always understood that the deepest cuts were personal.

“The source who warned us about their press conference confirmed it,” Gideon continued. “The order to leak the video came from the top. From Giselle herself.”

The air left my lungs. So it wasn’t Leo. Not directly. It was her. She had been a ghost in my life for fifteen years, and yet her hand was still reaching from the past, twisting the knife she’d left in my back long ago. She had used the boy spying on my business to orchestrate my personal ruin. He was a pawn. I was the target.

“Thank you, Gideon,” I managed. “Please… keep monitoring.”

He gave a single nod. “There are three news vans on the street. I’ve doubled the patrol.”

He left, closing the door with a soft click.

The new information shifted the storm inside me, but didn’t calm it. It wasn’t just Leo’s betrayal. It was a two-front war, masterminded by my oldest enemy. My personal phone buzzed again on the nightstand. JUDITH. My assistant. I had ignored twelve calls. This time, some primal instinct for survival made me reach for it.

“Ellie.” Judith’s voice was a wire pulled tight. “Thank God. We have ninety minutes before Silhouette’s press conference goes live. We have to issue a statement. The board is panicking. Our retail partners are calling.”

I shut my eyes. A statement. What could I possibly say? I was set up by my ex-husband’s wife, my former best friend? It sounded unhinged.

“We need a strategy, Ellie. We need the truth. Do we have anything? Any counter-evidence at all?”

Leo’s face flashed in my mind. His terrified eyes last night, the emails on his phone. I have proof. Their whole plan. He had offered it as collateral for the money. The proof was real, I’d seen it. But to use it meant dragging him into the center of this hurricane. I would have to stand before the world and say, “The man in that scandalous video was a corporate spy planted by my rival.” They wouldn’t see a victim of conspiracy. They’d see a desperate woman telling a wild story to cover up an affair with her daughter’s ex. It would make the personal scandal infinitely worse. It would validate every ugly assumption. Maya would never recover. The business would be a joke.

“Judith,” I said, my voice hollow. “I need… I need an hour. Tell the board I’m preparing a response. Stall.”

“Ellie, an hour is all we have—”

“Stall.”

I ended the call and let the phone drop. I was trapped. My weapon against the business attack was poisoned by the personal one. Using it meant sacrificing the last shred of my daughter’s respect and my own public dignity. Not using it meant losing my company.

I walked to the window, keeping to the side. I could see the top of a news van, a satellite dish pointed skyward like a weapon. My home was a fortress under siege.

A soft chime came from the phone on the bed. A text message. A foolish, fleeting hope that it might be Maya.

I walked back and picked it up.

The number was not saved, but I recognized the sequence. I had carved it into my memory fifteen years ago, then tried with all my might to forget it. A Los Angeles area code.

The message was brief. It contained no greeting, no name. Just eleven words from a ghost:

I can call all this off if you are ready for a deal.

It was from Giselle.