A man named Reeves

Mira POV

Diego Steel had a way of standing in a doorway that made it feel like the only exit in the building.

For one absurd second, I considered simply walking past him, chin high, pretending I hadn't heard him say my name at all, the way I'd learned to walk past every uncomfortable moment in the five years since I'd decided Adrian Hayes and his crumbling empire were worth the effort of building an entire second life around. It had worked before. It had worked at his mother's funeral, when the old woman's sister looked at me like she smelled something rotten in the room. It had worked at every dinner party where someone mentioned Aysha's name too casually and watched to see how I'd react.

It wasn't going to work now, and some deep, animal part of me already understood that before my mind caught up.

His suit was perfectly tailored, dark navy, nothing flashy, the kind of quiet expensive that told you a man had nothing left to prove. I remembered thinking, back when Adrian first introduced us at some fundraiser years ago, that Diego Steel looked like a man who noticed everything and said very little about any of it, and standing here now, trapped in a stairwell with him blocking my only way out, that old assessment felt less like an observation and more like a warning I should have taken far more seriously.

I hadn't spoken to him directly in five years, not since a handful of business dinners early on when Adrian was still chasing every possible lead on the mysterious rise of Vale Global, back before we understood there was nothing to find. I remembered him vaguely from before that too, actually, a friend of Aysha's from some charity event years ago, quiet and watchful in a way that used to make me uncomfortable even then, though I could never say exactly why.

Now I understood why.

"I don't believe we have anything to talk about," I said, forcing my voice into something light and unbothered, reaching past him for the door handle.

He didn't move out of the way.

"I think we both know that's not true, Mira."

Something in the way he said my name, flat and certain, like he already knew every secret I'd spent years burying, sent a fresh wave of cold straight through my chest.

"Excuse me."

"You're excused the second you tell me who you were just on the phone with."

I stared at him, my pulse hammering hard enough I was certain he could see it fluttering at my throat. "That's none of your business."

"Isn't it?" He tilted his head slightly, studying me with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing, the same maddening composure I remembered from those old business dinners. "You slipped out of a ballroom the second Seraphine Vale finished her introduction, made a frantic phone call in a stairwell, and now you're standing here refusing to tell me who was on the other end of it. Forgive me if that raises a few questions."

"You've been following me."

"I've been watching you for exactly as long as it took you to leave that ballroom," he said. "Call it instinct."

I lifted my chin, trying to summon back whatever composure I'd walked into this gala with three hours ago, though it felt impossibly far away now, like something that belonged to a different woman entirely.

"I don't know what you think you heard," I said, "but I can assure you, whatever conclusions you've drawn are wrong."

"I didn't hear anything." He let that sit for a second, watching my face carefully. "But you just told me plenty without meaning to."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then why does your hand keep shaking?"

I looked down before I could stop myself, and sure enough, my fingers were trembling faintly around the clasp of my clutch. I pressed them flat against the fabric, forcing them still, forcing my expression back into something composed and mildly annoyed instead of the raw panic clawing up my throat.

"It's warm in here."

"Mira." His voice softened slightly, though nothing about his eyes did. "I'm only going to ask you this once, and I'd think very carefully before you decide how to answer it. Five years ago, a truck ran a car off the highway on a stretch of road well outside the city, late at night, no witnesses, no cameras for nearly two miles in either direction. Convenient, for whoever arranged it. Do you know anything about that?"

The air seemed to leave the entire stairwell.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said again, my voice thinner this time, less convincing even to my own ears.

"I think you do."

"You're threatening me." I took a step back, putting distance between us that felt entirely insufficient given the size of the stairwell. "Over what, exactly? A car accident that happened half a decade ago? I wasn't even involved with Adrian yet when that happened."

"I never said the accident had anything to do with you and Adrian." Something flickered behind his eyes, sharp and dangerous. "I only mentioned the accident. You're the one who connected it to yourself."

I felt the blood drain from my face.

He watched the realization land, watched me understand exactly how badly I'd just cornered myself with my own words, and something in his expression, some faint, cold satisfaction, told me he'd expected exactly this outcome the entire time. This had never been a fishing expedition. He'd known. He'd walked into this stairwell already certain, and I had just handed him confirmation on a silver platter.

"I think this conversation is over," I said, my voice shaking now despite every effort to keep it level.

"For tonight," he agreed, finally stepping aside to let me pass. "But I'd think very carefully about what happens next, Mira. Because the woman you buried five years ago just built an empire worth twelve billion dollars, and empires like that don't get built by people who forgive easily."

I pushed past him without another word, my legs unsteady beneath me, my mind racing through every possible way this could unravel, every phone call, every payment, every carefully covered track that suddenly felt paper thin against what I'd just seen tonight.

I made it three steps down the hallway before Diego's voice reached me one last time, quiet, almost gentle, and somehow far more terrifying for it.

"One more thing," he said. "She already knows you're looking into her. She's known for weeks."

I stopped dead in my tracks, my heels rooted to the marble like the floor itself had reached up and grabbed hold of me.

"That's not possible. I've been careful. I hired someone outside the country specifically so nothing could be traced back."

"You hired a man named Reeves out of a firm in Geneva," Diego said, and the casual certainty in his voice made my skin crawl. "He filed his first inquiry into Vale Empire's public records eleven days ago. We noticed within the hour."

I turned back to face him slowly, every ounce of composure I'd walked into this stairwell with completely stripped away now, leaving nothing behind but raw, unguarded fear.

"What did you just say?"