The Lie I Built My Empire On

(Ethan Blackwood – POV)

I don’t panic.

That was the first thing I learned to do to myself when I was still sleeping in my car and counting coins for gas money. Panicking only uses up precious time. Panicking gets men killed. So when the security alert flashed red on the screen and my team looked at me in confusion and dismay, I did not panic.

But when I looked at her, and she was still there, looking pale and wide-eyed and so vulnerable, something worse than panic threatened to overwhelm me.

Fear.

Not for myself. Not for my company. For her.

And that made me angry.

I dismissed the room with a single curt order and walked her out myself, my hand firmly on her elbow. She flinched at my touch, and that hurt me more than I could have anticipated. I remembered that. I remembered the girl who trusted me enough to fall asleep on my chest without fear.

Sophia Reed used to be my safe place.

Now she was my greatest weakness.

I locked her inside the private office and turned to the security team, my voice cold and precise as I issued orders. “Trace the breach. I want IPs, names, motives. Nothing leaves this room.”

They moved fast. They always did.

But my thoughts weren’t with them.

They were with the woman behind the glass wall, hugging her arms like she was holding herself together by force. I told myself it was professional concern. That she was my employee. That the timing of the breach was suspicious.

That it had nothing to do with the way my chest tightened when I saw fear in her eyes.

I was lying.

I had been lying to myself for years.

Because the truth was simple and dangerous: I never stopped loving her. I just buried it under money, power, and rage.

I walked back into the office and closed the door behind me. She looked up immediately, as if she had been waiting for me. Of course she had. She always did.

“Are we in danger?” she asked softly.

Her voice still did that thing to me. It slid past my defenses and hit somewhere deep, somewhere raw.

“Yes,” I said honestly. “But not from inside this building.”

Her eyes widened. “Then from where?”

I hesitated. I shouldn’t tell her. I knew that. But keeping secrets from Sophia had destroyed us once already.

“From people who don’t like loose ends,” I said.

She went still.

And that was when I knew—she understood more than she was letting on.

I turned away before she could see the crack in my control. Memories came uninvited. Her crying in the rain the night she left. The unanswered calls. The empty apartment. The letter that said she was sorry but needed more than love.

More than poverty.

I had believed it with every bitter breath in my body.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” I said quietly.

She flinched again, like I’d struck her.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.

I laughed then. A short, humorless sound. “You always had a choice, Sophia. You just didn’t choose me.”

Silence filled the room, thick and heavy.

She looked like she wanted to say something. Like the words were burning inside her. But she didn’t speak.

And that silence did something dangerous to me.

Because a man can survive anger. He can survive hatred. But unanswered questions? They rot you from the inside.

I left her there and went straight to my private office. There was something I needed to see. Something I hadn’t touched in years.

A file.

Buried deep in my encrypted system. Protected by passwords only I knew. A file I told myself I kept for closure.

That was another lie.

The file was labeled with one word: Sophia.

I opened it.

Photographs appeared on the screen. Surveillance stills. Bank transfers. Old investigation reports. I stared at the numbers again, my jaw tightening.

A payment.

Large.

Anonymous.

Dated the same week she disappeared.

I had seen this before. Years ago. I had convinced myself it was proof. Proof that she sold us out. That she took the money and ran.

That loving me was never enough.

But now… with the security breach, with the timing, with the way fear had flashed across her face when I mentioned loose ends—

Something didn’t sit right.

I pulled up another file. One I had ignored.

A sealed report from a private investigator I had hired when I first became rich enough to dig into the past.

The conclusion had been vague. Too vague.

At the time, I had been too angry to care.

Now, I read every word.

And my blood ran cold.

Subject did not initiate contact.

Payment traced to third party with known criminal ties.

Evidence suggests coercion.

Coercion.

I stared at the word like it might change if I blinked.

My phone buzzed.

“Boss,” my head of security said. “We traced the breach.”

“To who?” I asked.

A pause. Then: “A shell company tied to a man named Victor Hale.”

The name hit like a punch to the gut.

Victor Hale.

The man who once offered me protection when I was nobody. The man who smiled while warning me that success had a price. The man who disappeared right around the time Sophia vanished.

And the man who was very much alive.

I closed my eyes slowly.

It wasn’t betrayal.

It was a setup.

I had built my empire on the belief that she abandoned me. On the fire of hatred and revenge. On the promise that I would never be weak enough to love her again.

And now the foundation was cracking.

Because if Sophia was forced to leave…

If she was paid to disappear to save my life…

Then I had spent years punishing the wrong person.

I walked back to the glass wall where she stood, staring out at the city like she didn’t belong in it anymore.

She turned when she sensed me.

Our eyes met.

And for the first time since she walked back into my life, I wasn’t looking at the woman who broke my heart.

I was looking at the woman who might have saved my life.

“Sophia,” I said, my voice low, dangerous, undone.

She swallowed. “Yes?”

I stepped closer. Too close. Close enough that she could see the truth I could no longer hide.

“Tell me,” I said quietly, “who paid you to leave me.”

Her face was drained of color.

And in that moment, I knew.

The lie I built my empire on was about to destroy us both.