Disruption

CHAPTER 11

Brandon's POV

The phone buzzed once.

I was already annoyed. I had a strict rule: no personal calls during business hours, mostly because I didn’t have a personal life worth disrupting.

But this number… I recognized it. I had specifically saved it the day the private investigator found it: Alexis Torres.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the screen as it lit up in my hand. She’d called. She actually called. Although it took a while, she still did.

A normal person would have taken the deal the moment I named the price. Hell, most people would have married me for a tenth of what I offered. But not her. She’d walked away, called me names, and tossed my card in her pocket as if it were dipped in poison.

And yet—here we were.

The call was short and measured. She didn’t say yes, not outright. But she wanted to meet, negotiate, talk.

Which, in business, was just a long-winded prelude to “yes.”

Still… something about her unsettled me.

I set the phone down and stared out the window of my office, the skyline blurred by the early morning fog.

She wasn’t normal, that was for sure.

I didn’t like unpredictability. It left too much room for error, and I didn’t have the luxury of error—not now, not when I was so close.

I reached over and pressed the intercom.

“Stacy,” I said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Cancel all my meetings for the day. Reschedule or shift what you can. And call Alfredo; I want those acquisition files on my desk by tomorrow morning. If I don’t get them, he can forget the funding.”

There was a beat of silence. Then:

“Cancel all of them?” she repeated, a little too slowly.

“Yes.”

“Of course, sir. But you have that meeting with the representative of Thawte Industries. May I ask where you’re—?”

“No,” I said flatly, ending the call.

That was the thing about Stacy—efficient, overly curious, and nosy when bored. She wouldn’t push, but I could practically hear her typing a thousand assumptions into her mental notes: a woman? A deal? Something to do with Wilson Holdings?

Let her wonder.

She was right, though. Canceling the meeting with Thawte Industries was risky, but it was a risk I had to take. They would be back, but Alexis might not. Even though I waited all day after I went to her work for her to call and she didn’t.

I sat back down and opened the file folder I had left untouched earlier that morning. The private investigator had delivered everything I’d asked for, and more.

Alexis Torres. Preferred to be known by everyone as Lexi.

Twenty-five, Latina. Works part-time as a waitress at a mid-tier café, also works at a small restaurant as a chef part-time, and does freelance gigs on weekends. No college degree. Raised by her grandmother after her parents died in a car crash. Grandmother, María Elena Torres, passed away when Lexi was eighteen. Aria, fifteen at the time, had no other living relatives.

Lexi didn’t ask anyone for help. She just took on everything.

I skimmed through photos of the apartment they shared, printouts of medical bills, and Aria’s hospital discharge forms. Some things were redacted or hard to retrieve. Even Sam's PI hadn’t been able to dig too deep into their medical past, privacy laws and closed records—but what I had was enough.

I leaned back in my chair again.

She’d been fighting her entire life. Carrying a weight she had no business carrying. She wasn’t just struggling; she was surviving.

There was a difference.

And that difference was what made her dangerous.

Because Alexis Torres wasn’t like the women I dealt with in boardrooms or at black-tie galas. She didn’t pretend to be strong, she simply was. Not because she wanted to be, but because life gave her no other choice.

I hated that kind of strength.

Not because I found it admirable, but because it was inconvenient. Unreliable. Uncontrolled.

I liked pieces that moved the way I directed them. She was not one of them, that was for sure, but she would be.

And I didn’t have time for ideal candidates. I had time for results.

I reached for my pen and circled one note in the file: “Aria’s condition worsening—financial strain increasing.”

Good. Desperation would keep her focused.

Just as I was closing the file, my phone buzzed again.

Sam.

I let it ring once.

Twice.

Then I declined the call.

A second later, a text lit up the screen.

Sam: “Ignoring me? Rude. What did she say? Are you getting married or not? And when do I meet her?”

Another text followed a beat later.

Sam: “Fine. Don’t answer. But when you end up on TMZ with a secret baby I didn’t know about, don’t say I didn’t ask.”

I didn’t respond.

Sam would find out eventually, probably sooner than anyone else. But not yet.

Instead, I leaned back and let my eyes fall closed for a moment.

A memory, short and fragmented, rose without warning.

FLASHBACK

I was ten. The air in the Wilson estate was thick with the scent of my mother’s perfume: lilac and honey, sweet and suffocating.

My father was yelling again.

"You’re too soft on him," he barked.

"He's a child, Bernard!" my mother shouted back.

"He's weak. Just like you."

I had been standing at the top of the stairs, fingers curled around the railing, staring down at the two people who were supposed to protect me.

My mother looked up at me. Her eyes, tired and filled with something I wouldn’t understand until years later—met mine.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. You could tell she was breaking underneath.

“Go to your room, Brandon. I'll be there soon,” she said.

So I did.

Because obedience felt safer than watching love collapse in the living room.

My eyes snapped open.

I checked the clock: 4:30 PM.

I reached for my phone and opened a new message.

Brandon: Since your shift ends at 7 PM, meet me at Lena's restaurant near Central Park south, or I can send a driver to get you.

I paused, then added:

Brandon: Don’t be late.

Her response came about five minutes later.

Alexis: No thank you, I can take care of myself.

I didn’t reply after that. She could be as stubborn as she wanted; it was her loss. I knew how expensive a cab would be for her to go upstate, but I didn't care.

Let her think this was a meeting. A negotiation.

Let her feel like she had power.

I would give her the illusion she needed to say yes. After all, everyone had a price.

Even the unpredictable.

Even Alexis Torres.

And when she did say yes, everything else would fall into place—six months, an image, a company… and then I’d be done.

That was the plan.

And I never strayed from the plan.