Chapter 3.

Adrian’s POV.

“I hope you lose everything.”

Elena’s words didn’t fade. They settled into the bones of the penthouse, echoing between glass and steel long after the elevator doors closed, until even the rain against the windows seemed to press the sound deeper into the silence.

I poured another glass of scotch without thinking, the bottle already half empty though I couldn’t remember when I started it. She was alive. Wealthy. Standing in front of me as Clara Everett—the woman I had paid five million dollars to silence, now the one holding the match.

Her voice stayed in my head, not loud but fixed, lodged somewhere it couldn’t be ignored. She believed every word she said, and that was the part that didn’t sit right. Not the accusation itself, but the certainty behind it, like she had lived through something I had only ever decided from a distance.

I pressed my thumb harder into the cut crystal, the edge biting into my skin as the thought settled deeper than I expected. I had wired that money to Richard Hartman, but not for the reason she thought, and what I couldn’t explain was why a woman running a con had come back with fifteen percent of my company and eyes that held nothing resembling guilt.

I had known since I was twenty-two that I couldn’t father children. Azoospermia. The diagnosis had been quiet, clinical, final—no sperm, no possibility. So when Elena stood in my office five years ago with shaking hands and a test in her purse, something in me had gone cold. I had cared about her, and the fact that she would stand there and look me in the eye with someone else’s child made it worse, not better. My grandfather’s voice had already been there before she even finished speaking, steady and absolute—a Voss heir who cannot produce an heir is not an heir at all.

So I said nothing useful. I told her to find the real father, and I walked away before she could see what it cost me.

Richard Hartman walked in three days later with a threat and left with five million, and at the time I thought I was burying a lie. Now I wasn’t so sure, because the woman who stood in front of me today wasn’t angry the way people are when their schemes unravel. She was angry the way people are when something has been done to them, something precise, something they haven’t forgotten a single detail of, and the hatred in her eyes had nothing to do with money.

I hadn’t asked what Richard did with the money. It hadn’t mattered then.

Now it did.

My phone lit up against the counter, the screen cutting through the dim light.

Mandatory Voss Family Dinner. 8 p.m.

Five months ago, Magnus had made it simple—marry Clara Everett or lose everything. Five months of silence followed, calls blocked, emails returned, twenty percent above market value offered for her shares and ignored. She hadn’t responded to money, which meant there was only one thing she actually wanted.

Marry her. Fix the mess you created. Don’t come back until you have a ring on her finger.

Which meant I needed her.

The only path back to my company ran through a woman I had already discarded, except she wasn’t a ghost anymore. She was Elena Hart, the same woman I had dismissed without hesitation, now holding enough power to decide whether I had a future.

I picked up my keys and left.

The Voss estate stood above the city like it always had, lit from within so it looked warm, but the moment I stepped inside, the illusion thinned into something colder, something that had never needed to pretend.

Magnus sat at the head of the table, reading from a tablet without looking up. “Adrian. Good of you to make it.”

“So he still remembers where the door is.”

The voice came from behind him, light, amused, already settled into the space like it belonged there. Dorian didn’t look at me immediately. He adjusted his cuff instead, slow and deliberate, before lifting his gaze as if I were something mildly inconvenient he had just noticed.

“I was beginning to think the bank might have taken the car before you got here,” he added casually.

Final Notice. Three hundred thousand. Friday. The words surfaced before I could stop them, the red stamp still sharp in my mind from where it had sat on my desk since Tuesday.

I took my seat without responding, the same chair I’d used since I was sixteen, though it no longer felt like it belonged to me.

Magnus set the tablet down and finally looked at me. “Is it true?”

“Temporary liquidity issue,” I said evenly. “I’m handling it.”

“Handling it,” he repeated, the words flattening. “The bank president called me this morning. You’re three hundred thousand in arrears. Don’t lie at my table.”

Dorian let out a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh. “He’s been handling it for months.”

My jaw tightened, but I didn’t look at him.

“If the bank forecloses,” Magnus continued, “you move back to the East Wing. I will not have a Voss living like a failure in public.”

“I won’t lose the penthouse.”

“Then fix it.” His gaze didn’t shift. “I told you not to return without Clara Everett’s signature. I assume you’re here because you’ve secured the marriage.”

Silence stretched, heavy enough to settle over the table.

Dorian leaned back slightly, his attention on me now, interest sharpening his expression. “You should have seen it,” he said, almost conversational. “She looked at him like he was nothing. He followed her to the elevator like a stray.”

Magnus didn’t react. “Was she one of yours, Adrian?”

“He’ll be begging for a long time,” Dorian went on. “That woman would rather marry a firing squad.”

Magnus looked at me then, whatever remained of expectation gone. “You are useless to me, Adrian.”

He picked up his tablet again, and the conversation moved on without me, as if I had already been removed.

I stood and walked out, the weight of the room sliding off me as I crossed the foyer and pushed through the doors. The rain hit cold against my skin as the night opened around me.

“I’ll make this simple, Adrian.”

I didn’t need to turn to know he followed.

“You’re finished,” Dorian said, stepping closer. “Grandfather’s ready to lock you in the East Wing, and Clara Everett would rather die than marry you.”

I stopped at the steps, turning just enough to face him. “What do you want, Dorian?”

“My answer?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Your shares. The last five percent.”

“Go to hell.”

“If you don’t, you’ll be there by Friday anyway.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “But if you do, I clear your debts. You disappear quietly. No press. No East Wing. Just gone.”

He paused, watching me.

“Say it,” he added softly. “Say I was right about you.”

We don’t leave things unfinished, Adrian.

“I’d rather rot.”

I turned away from him and kept walking, the gravel crunching underfoot as the rain soaked through my coat.

If the bank took the penthouse, Magnus would lock me in the East Wing to rot where everyone could see. Dorian would carve what remained of my father’s company apart, stripping it down piece by piece until there was nothing left that still carried my name.

They had already decided how this would end.

They were wrong.

Elena’s face rose in my mind, not the girl from five years ago but the woman from the hallway, controlled, distant, certain.

She had meant it.

Good.

Then I would let her believe she held every piece on the board, let her set the terms, dictate the pace, and watch me come to her on her terms, as long as she said yes, because crawling back to Elena Hart was the only way I got anything back.

I reached my car as my phone buzzed in my hand, the sound cutting through the rain.

Unknown number.

I answered without thinking. “Voss.”

“Good evening, Mr. Voss.” Henry Lawes.

My grip tightened slightly. “She changed her mind?”

A brief pause.

“She will see you. Tomorrow. Eight a.m. Bring your lawyers.”

The line went dead.

I stayed there for a moment longer, the rain steady against the roof, the weight of it settling into something sharp and focused as everything aligned into place.

After five months of silence, the door had finally opened.

This time, I wasn’t walking in blind.

If bleeding was the price, then I would pay it.