Mag-log inThird-Person POV"Damien," she said, tracing a slow line down his chest with her fingernail. "Can I ask you something?""Hmm.""Do you still have your Bennett Holdings credentials? Your login?"His eyes opened. He turned his head to look at her, and for one second she thought she'd moved too fast, thought the question had landed too soon after the act and he would see through her, would understand that the whiskey and the blouse and the mouth and the bed had all been instruments pointed at this exact moment.But Damien Bennett was not a man who looked for manipulation because Damien Bennett did not believe women were capable of it. That was his mother's lasting gift to him, a blind spot the size of the world."Yeah," he said slowly. "I think so. Nobody ever deactivated them. Why?"Isabella smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Because I think it's time Evelyn Bennett found out what it feels like to lose everything in one night."Damien stared at her. And then, slowly, a smile sp
Third Person POVHe crossed the distance between them in two steps and kissed her again, harder this time, his hands moving over her body with a roughness that bordered on carelessness. He wasn't cruel, exactly, but he wasn't careful either. His fingers gripped where they should have glided. His teeth caught her lower lip hard enough that she tasted copper.Isabella didn't pull away. She filed it. Every detail. Every tell. The way Damien touched a woman told her everything she needed to know about how to keep him.She reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. His body was softer than Adrian's, less disciplined, the body of a man who had stopped caring about himself months ago. She ran her hands over his chest and watched him shiver, watched the hunger on his face sharpen into something almost painful."Sit down," she murmured, pressing him backwards until the backs of his knees hit the mattress and he sat.She knelt between his legs. Slowly and deliberately. She looked up at
Third Person POVDamien's eyes lingered on the open buttons of her blouse a beat too long before he dragged them back to her face. He wasn't subtle about it. He had never been subtle about anything in his life, and that was precisely what made him useful."Right now?" He scratched the back of his neck, a gesture that was half-nervous, half-flattered. "Nothing. I was supposed to meet someone about a job, but they didn't show.""A job?" Isabella tilted her head, letting her hair fall to one side, exposing the line of her neck. "What kind of job?""Warehouse logistics." He said it the way someone confesses to a crime. "It's not, you know... it's not what I'm used to."No, it wasn't. Damien Bennett had been raised on Egyptian cotton and room service, and a mother who told him the world owed him something for the inconvenience of being born into it. A warehouse job was the kind of humiliation that left marks on a man like him, not on his hands but on the soft, bruised thing inside his ches
Third Person POV"Hart can get anything that lives on Bennett Holdings' servers. He's been cooperating, which means he still has access. The police haven't restricted his credentials because they want him to keep pulling files for their investigation. He won't know the files are being used for anything other than legal compliance.""He will know," Margaret corrected gently. "But he won't care, because you're going to give him a reason not to. Hart has a family. A pension. A life he's watching collapse in real time as the investigation grinds forward. You're going to offer him an alternative. Financial protection. Legal counsel. A soft landing on the other side of this. He won't ask where it comes from, because frightened men don't ask questions when someone hands them a lifeline."Isabella nodded slowly. "And the timing?""The launch date was pushed this morning. It will happen next week, so how about three days before the launch? It is close enough that the story dominates the news c
Third-Person POV"I came because I'm curious, not because I care. If you've called me here to cry about my son, you can save your tears. Adrian has made his choices, and I've made mine, and neither of those things involves you."So Adrian had told his mother about their estranged relationship then? Regardless, she drew in a deep breath and turned to Margaret.Isabella met her gaze without flinching. Whatever performance she had been preparing on the drive over, whatever careful preamble she had designed, she abandoned it now. Margaret Whitmore did not respond to theatrics; she only cared about leverage."Adrian gathered evidence that I was involved in Evelyn Bennett's kidnapping," Isabella said. "He gave that evidence to Evelyn. I expect she'll turn it over to the police in the near future, and when she does, I'm finished. I have no resources, no allies, and no legal strategy that would survive the first hearing. I came to you because you're the only person in this city who has a reas
Third-Person POVIsabella Clarke had been sitting in her car for forty minutes.The engine was off. The windows were up. Outside, the city moved in its ordinary rhythms, people walking dogs, taxis pulling over, a woman laughing into her phone on the corner of Ashland and Fifth. None of them looked at the silver Audi parked by the kerb. None of them noticed the woman inside it, sitting perfectly still with her hands on the steering wheel and her world in ruins.She had left Adrian's office two hours ago in another failed attempt to get him to get Evelyn to hand over the incriminating evidence about her he had given her weeks ago. Two hours since he had looked at her with that unbearable expression.Isabella couldn't believe Adrian was choosing Evelyn over her. There was a time when she'd been so precious to Adrian that at the slightest discomfort, he'd come rushing over. Now, he couldn't even bear to be with her for a full minute.Evelyn was now his choice.Not chosen her, exactly. Tha
Evelyn POVIf Isabella wanted to humiliate me, she had chosen the wrong woman to do it quietly.Evelyn Bennett did not do quiet, humiliation anymore.I took a deep breath in the back of my car, looking at my reflection in the compact mirror one last time.Isabella wanted to humiliate me. She wanted
Evelyn POVThree days.It had been three days since I woke up in the hospital with no memory of how I got there. Three days since I learned about the video. Three days of damage control and media spin, and trying to piece together what had actually happened to Belle and me.Now I sat in my office w
Gabriel POVI parked at the hotel and led Evelyn inside. The restaurant was visible from the entrance, and I could see Rowan sitting at a table near the window, eating lunch alone.I guided Evelyn to a position where she could see him clearly without being obvious about it. I kept my hand on the sm
Gabriel POVI arrived at my compound and immediately began preparingRowan was part of the top 10 hit men in Bangria. If he showed up at my house, then I would take it as a sign that he wanted to do two things. Number one: kill me and take over. Number two: make peace, and things would go back to n







