Chapter Four

The silence on the 60th floor was the kind that made your ears ring. It wasn’t the quiet of a library; it was the quiet of a graveyard right before something digs its way out of the dirt.

Adrian Knight sat behind a desk that looked like it was carved from a single block of shadows. He didn’t look up. He didn’t have to. He just sat there, staring at a manila folder like he was trying to set it on fire with his mind.

“It’s a mess, Adrian,” Ethan said. He wasn’t smiling. Ethan always smiled, but not today. “The guy is a parasite. Julian Vane is drowning in debt, most of it from underground poker rooms. And the kicker? Your little ‘Cherry’ isn’t even his wife.”

Adrian’s fingers twitched against the paper. A tiny movement, but dangerous. Not his wife.

“The marriage license is a fake, Adrian. A high-quality forgery,” Ethan continued, leaning against the cold glass wall. “Her uncle, Arthur Laurent, set the whole thing up. He needed her tied down and isolated so he could bleed her inheritance dry before she realized she was being robbed blind.”

Adrian felt a dark, oily satisfaction coat his throat. Elara wasn’t married. She wasn’t his. The thought made him want to laugh and burn the city down at the same time.

“Don’t tell her,” Adrian commanded. His voice was a low, jagged scrape. “If she knows she’s free, she’ll run. She’s like a bird that’s been in a cage so long she thinks the bars are part of her skeleton. I don’t want her to run. I want her to realize that every single person in her life is a liar—except for me.”

Downstairs, Elara felt like she was walking through deep water. Every step toward the elevator was a struggle. She had spent forty minutes in the lobby bathroom trying to pin her hair so tight it hurt, hoping the pain would keep her focused. She looked at herself in the cracked mirror—pale skin, wide eyes, and that hair. That damn cherry hair that Julian always complained was too loud, too much, too ‘Laurent.’

She reached the 60th floor. The doors slid open with a soft ding that sounded like a funeral bell.

The hallway was empty. No desks. No chirping phones. Just a long stretch of grey carpet leading to a set of doors that looked like they belonged to a king.

She spent three hours doing “entry work,” but her mind was a riot of noise. Why did he look at me like that in the café? Does he know? He can’t know. It was dark. I was a different person then.

“In my office. Now.”

The intercom didn’t just carry his voice; it carried a command that made her muscles move before her brain could say no.

She walked in. Adrian was standing by the window, his back to her. The sun was setting, casting a bloody orange light over his shoulders.

“You’re late, Elara,” he said. He didn’t turn. “Or should I call you Mrs. Vane? Is that the name you prefer while you’re pretending to be a secretary?”

Elara’s heart did a slow, painful roll in her chest. “I apologize, Mr. Knight. I was finishing the files.”

“Come here.”

It wasn’t a request. She walked to the desk. There were papers—non-disclosure agreements. As she leaned over to sign, her hand shaking just enough to make the pen tip dance, she felt the air change.

He was behind her. Close. Too close. She could smell him—sandalwood, expensive gin, and something cold, like rain on metal.

“You look different when you aren’t covered in coffee,” he whispered. His breath hit the back of her neck, and Elara felt a physical jolt go through her. “But the scent… I’d know it anywhere. Cherries and rain.”

Elara spun around, her hip hitting the desk. She was trapped between the wood and his massive frame. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” he breathed, his eyes tracking the movement of her throat as she swallowed. He reached out, his thumb grazing the edge of her jaw. His skin was hot. “You walked out of that club two years ago and thought you could just… vanish? You thought you could put on a cheap blazer and a fake wedding ring and I wouldn’t find you?”

“I’m a married woman, Adrian!” she snapped, the fear finally turning into a jagged edge of anger.

“Are you?” He leaned in, his nose brushing hers. “Because you don’t look like a wife, Elara. You look like a captive.”

The office phone shrieked.

The spell broke. Adrian pulled back, the predatory heat in his eyes replaced by a sharp, clinical coldness. He grabbed the phone.

“Speak.”

Elara watched him. His face went white. Not the white of fear, but the white of a man who was ready to kill. “Is the boy okay? If that fever hasn’t dropped, I want the Chief of Medicine fired by morning. I’m coming now.”

He slammed the phone down. He didn’t look at Elara. It was like she had turned into a piece of furniture.

“Leave,” he said, his voice trembling with a weird, raw energy. “Get out. Now.”

Elara didn’t wait. She grabbed her bag and bolted. But as she hit the door, she saw it. On the third shelf, tucked between a book on corporate law and a silver award, was a small, plastic blue car. A toy.

It was dusty. It was cheap. And it was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in this office.

‘The boy,’ he had said. ‘Is he okay?’

Elara hit the elevator button, her lungs burning. She had a husband who was a stranger and an uncle who was a shark, but Adrian Knight… Adrian was a man with a secret that felt like a heartbeat. And for some reason, it felt like her heartbeat, too.