Chapter 7 : The Predator

I pulled away from Gavin so hard I hit the opposite wall.

"Two weeks," I said. "You tracked me for two weeks before that night."

"Yes." He did not even flinch.

"My shifts. My routes. My hours." My voice cracked on the last word. "You were hunting me."

Lucian appeared at the hallway entrance. Jacket on, arms loose at his sides, completely composed. The expression on his face was not guilt. It was not even close to guilt.

"We do not leave things we want to chance," he said.

I stared at him. "I am not a thing."

"No," he said. "You are the most important thing. That is the difference."

I looked at all three of them standing in that expensive, silent hallway and understood something that my exhausted brain had been refusing to process since the sidewalk.

These were not men who had fallen into something messy and were trying to manage the fallout.

These were predators who had planned every single step.

I did not sleep well.

Morning came anyway.

Zane knocked at six forty with coffee and the blue dress and a look that dared me to argue. I took both without a word. I was saving my energy.

I was going to need it.

The executive floor of the Fury stadium was quiet at eight in the morning. Glass walls, thick carpet, the kind of air conditioning that cost a fortune to maintain. I had delivered paperwork to this floor exactly once, in my foam suit with the left ear drooping, while a coordinator stared past me like I was furniture.

Today the entire floor stopped.

I felt every eye the moment the elevator opened. The receptionist. The scheduling coordinators. The assistant to the assistant GM who had never learned my name in six months.

They were all seeing the same thing: the mascot girl, in a dress that cost more than her monthly rent, walking between three men who now owned the building.

Rivera came out of a side office holding a folder.

He had clearly rehearsed.

"Miss Fonoti." He stepped directly into my path. "HR has processed your contract termination effective yesterday. I will need you to sign the exit forms before you access any further areas of the facility."

He held the folder out.

Lucian walked past him like he was a traffic cone.

"Shred it," Lucian said.

Rivera turned. "Mr. Voss, league protocol requires that we formally"

"She does not report to you," Lucian said. He still had not stopped walking. "She does not report to this department or this floor's administrative structure. Her title is Private Media Consultant, she answers exclusively to the ownership group, and she outranks you by four levels as of this morning." He glanced back once. "If that folder touches her desk, you will be the one signing exit forms."

Rivera's mouth stayed open.

I kept walking.

The office at the end of the corridor had my name on the door. Printed, mounted, real. I stood in front of it for two full seconds before I trusted myself to go inside.

It was large and quiet, with a window that looked directly over the ice. Everything on the desk was new. The laptop. The notepad. The coffee cup with the Fury logo that someone had placed precisely in the upper right corner.

Zane set a security badge down in front of me.

My photo. My name. Below it in block capitals: EXECUTIVE ACCESS.

"I am not writing press releases," I said. "I am not cleaning up your scandal or building a PR wall around the franchise buyout. If that is what this job is, you can take the badge back right now."

"That is not what the job is," Zane said.

I looked at Lucian. "Then what is it?"

He moved to the edge of my desk. Both hands flat on the surface, leaning forward, those gray eyes level with mine.

"Write whatever you came to Miami to write," he said. "Full access. Every door in this building opens with that badge."

I searched his face for the catch. There was always a catch.

"One thing first," he said.

He turned his phone around and set it on the desk facing me.

It was an industry announcement. A small Miami outlet, the kind that ran aggressive investigative pieces and never apologized for them. New hire. Senior Investigative Correspondent.

The name hit me like cold water.

Derek Marsh.

My ex. The man who had stolen my column and handed it to the editor he was sleeping with. The man who had ended my career in Ohio with one conversation.

He was in Miami now.

And the announcement listed his first assignment underneath his name.

It was me.