MasukWarren did not go home alone that day. For the first time, he accepted the guards. It wasn't that he disliked having them follow him. He simply found them too loud, too obvious, too much like an announcement of how much was riding on the person they were protecting.Marcus, meanwhile, was growing desperate. His plan to trap Warren, to bring Faith crashing down through him, had gone nowhere, and he hadn't slept properly in days. Dark circles had settled beneath his eyes like bruises."Why is it so hard to crush one little fly?" he muttered into the dark of his bedroom. "She's just as stubborn as her parents." He stared at the ceiling. "Fine. I'll plan something bigger. Something no one will see coming."~On Monday morning, Faith sat at her desk when Sarah came in carrying a thick envelope. It had been delivered by hand, not by email or fax, addressed to Faith personally and stamped with the ink of a law firm."What's this?" Fait
Everything was going as planned. Lydia kept feeding Cassius information, and Cassius kept believing he was getting the better end of the deal.It was the weekend, and Faith sat going through the weekly reports to make sure everything was in order, so that no mistake or delay could touch the partnership. She worked her way down the list of people she would be dealing with in the coming days, until Marcus's name appeared.His pending matter. The frozen assets hearing she had set a date for, then been too busy to follow up on.Something about it felt different. She read the entry once, then read it again. She put the page down, picked it up, and read the last line a third time. Then she reached for her phone and called her investigator."Hey, Maxwell.""Miss Sartini. I thought you'd forgotten about me.""Why would I do that? I have a job for you.""I'm all ears, miss.""Marcus Sartini.""Yes, Sar
The Devon Industries partnership was now official. Signed, stamped, and documented, which gave Cassius Devon a perfectly legitimate reason to walk into Sartini Industries twice a week for partnership meetings, document reviews, and progress updates. All of it was professional, and all of it was calculated.Faith had known this would happen the moment she agreed to the deal, and she had planned for it. Every visit was documented by Sarah, every interaction recorded, every move Cassius made inside her building quietly noted.What Faith had not fully planned for was Warren, who had somehow developed a very detailed awareness of Cassius's schedule. It was better, in fact, than his own assistant's awareness of Warren's.On Monday, Cassius arrived at ten. By three minutes past, Warren's name was flashing on Faith's phone.She looked at it, turned it face down, picked up her pen, and kept working. It rang again, and she turned it face down agai
Victoria had been quiet all this while, but not because she didn't know what to do. She knew exactly why she had come to this city. She kept her moves private. She never posted about them on social media, never shared her location, and she hadn't breathed a single word of it to her sister Lydia. She moved quietly and deliberately, like a woman who appeared to have no plan, while every step she took had already been calculated in her head.What she had gathered was enough to finish the man she had come for.She had been in the city for more than three months, building her case file by file, document by document, connection by connection. It was a case about the people who had killed her parents, about how the family's assets had been seized, and about how Lydia had been left to live the life she lived all these years.Her parents' deaths had never been an accident. Someone had orchestrated everything without leaving a trace. But Victoria had been
Three days after the dinner, Lydia had become a fixture at Sartini Industries. She came often, though not every day, and she never arrived empty-handed. Some mornings it was breakfast, other days it was snacks and drinks, and her cheerful presence made it easy to believe she had always belonged there.At home, things were softening too. She and Victoria were slowly mending what had broken between them, and Lydia now stayed under her sister's roof. But when she wasn't with Victoria, she was with Cassius. Victoria had warned her more than once, and each time Lydia gave the same answer: she couldn't give up on love. In the end, Victoria had no choice but to let her be.That day, Lydia stopped by Cassius first. They talked for a while before she left, and by noon she was walking into the Sartini building with lunch in her hands.She entered Faith's office without knocking. No one would stop her anymore. Faith was buried in paperwork, so Lydia settled into the chair across the desk as she
The door swung open and the doctor stepped in with a clipboard tucked under his arm. Lydia was already dressed to leave, sitting upright on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap."Miss Lydia, you look excited.""Why wouldn't I be? The smell of this hospital is killing me.""We're glad to discharge you today. Your health has improved a great deal." He smiled. "Just stick to the medication plan we'll give you, and you'll be fine.""Thank you, doctor."When he had gone, she let her eyes travel around the ward. She looked at the spot where she had shattered the glass, at the chair where Victoria had sat beside her through the long nights, at the drip stand and the place where Cassius used to sit. She took it all in slowly, as if memorizing a room she never wanted to see again. Then she picked up her phone and began scrolling for Cassius's number.Her thumb hovered over it. The door opened.Victoria walked in, immaculate as always. "No need for that, little sis."Lydia smile







