MasukEvelyn POVHis voice was different now. The veneer of confused professionalism was gone, replaced by something harder and uglier underneath."Am I?" I said."You have no idea what you're dealing with." He leaned forward, his wire-framed glasses catching the overhead light. "Do you think Victoria was operating alone? Do you think this was just one woman and a few employees skimming from the books? You're scratching the surface of something much bigger than your little company, and if you think firing six people is going to make it stop, you're more naive than I thought.""Is that a threat, Gregory?""It's a warning." His voice dropped. "I know things about this company that would make your investors run for the hills. I know about the Whitmore connection. I know about the deals your father made before he died, the ones that aren't in any official record. I know about the Ashford account and the money that moved through Bennett Holdings before you were old enough to read a balance sheet
Evelyn POVThe large conference room had a different energy today.Usually, it was a space for quarterly reviews and strategy sessions, for meetings where people brought laptops and lattes and spent the first ten minutes making small talk about their weekends. Today, the air felt different. Charged. Like the room itself knew something was about to happen.Grace had done her job perfectly. All six of them were seated around the table when I walked in at ten o'clock exactly.Gregory Hart sat at the near end, his wire-framed glasses perched on his nose, his thinning brown hair combed neatly to one side. He had a leather portfolio open in front of him, as if he'd come prepared for a normal meeting. Linda was beside him, scrolling through her phone. Derek Simmons was reviewing something on his tablet. Priya Menon sat with her hands folded, her expression pleasant and vacant. Raymond Voss was typing on his laptop. Janet Cross was applying lip balm and looking bored.Six people. Six parasite
Evelyn POV"Gabriel!" I said quietly when I reached him. "It's such a pleasant surprise. I didn't expect to see you here because this is a new address. How did you...""C'mon, Evelyn," he cut me off, "I know things, I thought I already made it clear.""Fine." I nodded, holding his gaze for a few minutes before looking away. "Thank you for the dog, Gabriel. I think it's what I need now more than ever.""When I saw it, I thought of you instantly, and I know we have a lot of unsettled scores between us, but I have to see you today, maybe after work?""Why?" I tried to compose my features. "You're seeing me now, whatever you need to say to me, you can say it right now.""Yes, I know," He nodded. "But you're on your way to work, and I have a meeting with Adrian soon. I'll be leaving Bangria within the week and I want to leave here on a clean slate. So, can you spare me time today, please?""There's nothing to say between us, Gabriel," I sighed. "We are adults, and we can handle ourselves."
Vincent POVThree streets. Gabriel Ross was living three streets from Evelyn, and she had no idea. The thought sent something cold through my whiskey-fogged brain."Whitmore has been making his own moves," Theo continued. "Quiet ones. The resignation from Bennett Holdings was strategic, not altruistic. He's repositioning himself. Shedding the corporate entanglement so he can operate with fewer constraints. And the evidence he handed her regarding Clarke..." Theo's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "That wasn't a gift. That was a chess move. He's dismantling Clarke's position piece by piece, and he's using the Bennett woman's anger to do it. Whether he realises that's what he's doing or genuinely believes he's acting out of conscience is, frankly, irrelevant. The outcome is the same."Each word was a scalpel, cutting through layers of narrative I'd been living inside for months, exposing the machinery underneath. Gabriel. Adrian. Evelyn. All of them are moving, reac
Vincent POVShe smiled, reading the gesture as a game rather than a refusal, and redirected her attention, her mouth moving to my jaw, my ear, the spot behind my earlobe that she'd discovered made my breath catch despite my best efforts at indifference.The dark-haired woman on my lap rolled her hips slowly, grinding against me with a rhythm that matched the bass pulsing through the floor. Her fingers worked the remaining buttons of my shirt open, and she pushed the fabric aside, her palms sliding across my bare chest. Her thumbs traced over my ribs, down my stomach, following the lines of muscle with an appreciative hum against my mouth.I kissed her back, harder this time, but not because I wanted her, but because I wanted to feel something other than the hollow ache that had been sitting in my chest since I'd walked out of Evelyn's office. I wanted to drown it, smother it, replace it with something simpler, cheaper, and easier to throw away in the morning.The blonde's mouth had tr
Vincent POVTwenty-four hours earlier...The whiskey was doing its job, though it was not fast enough.Each sip filed down the sharp edges of the afternoon until Evelyn's flushed face and Adrian's creased collar and the way she hadn't been able to meet my eyes softened into something blurry and manageable. Something I could hold at arm's length instead of right against my chest, where it had been sitting like a hot coal since I'd walked out of her office four hours ago.The Velvet Room was the club that didn't exist on any map. There was no sign outside. It didn't have an online listing. Just a matte black door on a side street in the Redbank district with a bouncer who didn't ask your name because if you'd found the door, you'd already been approved.Inside, it was all low light and dark leather, the bass from the sound system vibrating through the floor at a frequency you felt in your teeth. The air smelled like expensive perfume and cigar smoke and the particular brand of recklessn
Evelyn POVI stared at him, wondering if this conversation was happening. The sheer audacity of Adrian to call me a cheating partner when that was all he did in our three-year relationship.“And Isabella is your sister?” I fired back. “How dare you, Adrian? How dare you accuse me of cheating when t
Evelyn POVWe drove to a quiet bar in downtown Crescent HarbourIt was an upscale bar but intimate. Gabriel ordered whiskey for himself and a glass of wine for me. We sat in a corner booth, away from the main bar area.“I thought we were going to a more closed-off space,” I commented looking around
Isabella POVI sighed in relish as the masseuse found a stress point and slathered oil on it, then gently rubbed his hands.I could feel all my stress evaporating from his touch.“You’re so good, Dave!” I murmured, sinking further into the softness of the bed.After weeks of planning, I deserved th
Evelyn POVI walked into my office like a ghost, moving without purpose or direction. I didn’t really know how my feet were moving.The hallway felt longer than usual. It was quieter, every sound was muted, as if the building itself had decided to hold its breath.When I reached my office, I didn’t







