Chapter six

***Elena’s POV***

Sleep had been a cruel joke.

I woke several times through the night, each time to the same unfamiliar ceiling and the same silent reminder that I was no longer in the life I had once known.

No Marcus.

No Vivienne.

No parents waiting to tear me apart with polished smiles and poisoned words.

…Only this estate.

Only Dominic Blackwood’s shadow stretching across every corner of my mind.

Don't get me wrong, not that I preferred my old life to this one. Well, that seems too early to determine. Who knows what Damien has in store for me…. Lol

By morning, I had made peace with one thing: if I was going to survive here, I needed more than rage. I needed patience. Precision… A face the world could not read.

I dressed in the simplest thing I could find—a fitted black blouse and tailored trousers Juliet had apparently left outside my wardrobe in the night. Either she had an unnerving talent for predicting my size, or this mansion collected information the way other homes collected dust.

When I stepped out, the corridor was already awake. Men in dark suits moved with quiet urgency, earpieces in place, folders tucked under arms. The estate had the polished tension of a body preparing for impact.

Juliet found me near the staircase.

“You look … more awake,” she said, handing me a cup of tea.

I studied her carefully before taking it. “Did Dominic send you to spy on me?”

Her mouth twitched. “If he did, I’d be offended. I’m far more useful than that.”

I gave a small, reluctant huff of amusement and sipped the tea. It was strong, slightly sweet, and warmer than I expected.

Juliet leaned closer, her eyeballs moved to and fro before lowering her voice. “He’s in a mood.”

“That’s not exactly helpful. He’s always in a mood.”

“No,” she said dryly. “Today is worse.”

I frowned. “Why?”... Not like I cared anyways.

She hesitated just long enough to make my stomach tighten. “There are board members coming in. Men who think they can tell Dominic how to run his own empire. That never ends well.”

“Should I be worried?”

Juliet looked at me with the sort of pity that made me uneasy. “Not if you keep your mouth shut.”

That was not reassuring.

Before I could ask more, one of the guards appeared at the base of the stairs. “Miss.”

“The boss wants you in the west conference room.”

I exchanged a glance with Juliet. She gave me a look that said, behave if you want to live.

I almost smiled.

Almost.

The west conference room was colder than the rest of the estate. Dark glass, polished wood, a long table that looked like it had witnessed enough power struggles to develop its own resentment. Three men were already seated when I entered, each dressed with the confidence of wealth and the stiffness of men who feared losing control.

Dominic stood at the head of the table.

He was in a charcoal suit today, no tie, sleeves rolled at the forearms again. Casual, if one ignored the fact that he looked like a man carved out of restraint and threat. His gaze landed on me once, quick and assessing, before shifting to the men across from him.

“Sit,” he said.

I obeyed immediately, choosing the chair nearest the end of the table.

One of the board members, a silver-haired man with a pinched face, looked at me like I was a stain on the upholstery. “And this is?”

Dominic’s expression didn’t change. “Someone who will be useful.”

The man gave a faint, disbelieving smile. “In what capacity?”

I felt the room tighten around us.

Dominic’s eyes flicked to me, not unkindly, but with enough quiet warning to make my spine go straight. He was giving me a choice. Stay silent. Or speak.

Interesting.

I set my tea down. “Depends on what you’re asking.” The edge of my left brow lifted.

The silver-haired man blinked, apparently offended that I had addressed him at all.

Dominic’s mouth did something nearly invisible—almost a smile, almost approval.

Another board member, younger and more impatient, leaned forward. “We’re discussing a transfer issue tied to the Denvale account. The numbers do not align.”

I tilted my head. “Of course they don’t.”

The room went still.

The younger man frowned. “And why would you say that?”

Because I had already seen enough financial lies to recognize them by shape alone.

But I didn’t say that.

Instead, I asked, “Who prepared the report?”

The men exchanged glances.

Dominic answered for them. “His department.”

I looked at the paper in front of me. “Then someone buried the real transaction path under a secondary trail. It’s not sloppy... It’s deliberate.”

The silver-haired man narrowed his eyes. “You’re making a claim with no evidence.”

I met his stare without blinking. “Then open the attached ledger from last quarter and compare the shipping contracts to the payment flow. The same shell company appears in both. Different name, same bank routing pattern.”

No one spoke.

Dominic’s gaze sharpened, but not on me. On the documents.

He reached for the folder, turned a page, and the room shifted almost imperceptibly.

The younger board member’s jaw tightened.

I knew then I was right.

Dominic closed the file and looked at the man. “You may leave.”

The younger man bristled. “Dominic—”

“Leave.”

The word was not loud. It did not need to be.

Both men rose stiffly and left with barely concealed resentment. The silver-haired one hesitated at the door, his eyes cutting briefly toward me before he followed.

When they were gone, the silence in the room felt deeper than before.

Dominic sat down across from me. “You found that quickly.”

I shrugged. “Numbers are easier than people.”

His eyes lingered on me a beat too long. “That sounded personal.”

It was.

I looked away.

“Maybe I just enjoy exposing liars.”

Something flickered in his gaze then—something dark, intent, almost amused. “That makes two of us.”

The words should not have sounded intimate.

But, … they did.

A knock interrupted the moment. One of the guards opened the door and stepped inside. “Boss, there’s a problem in the east security wing.”

Dominic rose at once. “What kind of problem?”

The guard hesitated. “A breach attempt. No access gained, but one of the internal cameras was disabled for forty-three seconds.”

I felt Dominic’s entire body go still.

Forty-three seconds sounded small. It was not.

He turned to me. “Stay here.”

I frowned. “I’m not a child.”

“No,” he said, already moving toward the door. “You’re worse. You’re curious.”

I stared after him.

That was insultingly accurate.

The moment he left, I exhaled slowly and looked around the conference room. No one was there except me and the faint hum of technology beneath the walls. My gaze drifted to the screen Dominic had left on. One corner of the file was still open.

I shouldn’t.

I knew I shouldn’t.

That made it far more difficult not to.

I stepped closer and scanned the data he had been reviewing. Routing codes. Internal transfers. Security logs. My pulse quickened. This was the kind of information Marcus had hidden from me all those years—enough to build empires and ruin lives.

There it was again.

The raw, ugly thrill of power.

Footsteps approached before I could read much more. I stepped back just as Dominic returned, his expression even harder than before.

“Did you touch anything?” he asked.

“No.”

My expression was that of someone who has been falsely accused.

He studied me, clearly deciding whether to believe me. “Good.”

I folded my arms. “That bad?”

“Someone tried to access the restricted east records. They failed.”

“That sounds like your problem, not mine.”

His gaze dropped to me, slow and sharp. “Everything inside this estate becomes my problem when I allow someone into it.”

I stiffened.

There was no accusation in his voice. That was somehow worse.

For a second, neither of us spoke. Then he handed a tablet to the nearest guard and said, “Find out who did it.”

The man left.

Dominic turned back to me. “Come with me.”

I followed him out without argument, though I hated how easily he seemed to command movement from me. We crossed into a quieter corridor, one lined with dark panels and framed security monitors. At the end was a room I had not seen before—a private office, smaller than the study, less formal, but somehow more dangerous.

He shut the door behind us.

The sound was soft.

Final.

I looked up at him. “You’re starting to make this feel suspicious.”

“That’s because it is.” He stepped toward a console and keyed something in. A security feed appeared on the wall screen. “The breach came from inside.”

My stomach tightened. “A mole.”

“Yes.”

He watched my face carefully, as if measuring what I thought of that. As if I might be the reason.

I lifted my chin. “Do you think it was me?”

“No.”

The answer came too fast to be a lie.

That should have comforted me. Instead, it unsettled me more.

He folded his arms. “But I think whoever sent the attempt is interested in you.”

My pulse gave a small, traitorous jump. “Why?”

“Because you’re new. Unknown. And you are now close enough to matter.”

I swallowed. “That’s not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be.”

I should have hated how controlled he was. How every word arrived exactly where he intended. Instead, I found myself watching the line of his mouth, the faint shadow of tension in his jaw.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

His expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. “You’re not afraid of me as much as you should be.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “You say that like it’s a complaint.”

“I say it like a fact.”

The air between us changed.

Not softening. Not quite.

But bending.

I looked away first, hating that he could still make me feel cornered without raising his voice. “So what happens now?”

He stepped closer, just enough for me to feel the heat of him without touching. “Now, Elena, we find out who wants you dead.”

My breath caught—not because of the words, but because he had used my name like that. Low. Certain. Possessive enough to be dangerous.

I lifted my eyes to his. “And if it turns out they come for you too?”

A slow, dangerous curve touched his mouth. “Then they will discover how expensive that mistake is.”

For a long moment, we just stood there.

Then the intercom crackled.

Dominic’s eyes darkened as he reached for it. A static burst, then a voice—strained, unfamiliar, urgent.

“Boss,” the guard said. “We found something in the east records. You need to see this immediately.”

Dominic’s hand tightened around the receiver.

“What is it?”

A pause.

Then, in a voice suddenly stripped of confidence, the guard answered:

“It’s a file under Elena Hart’s name.”

My heart stopped.

And Dominic turned to me with the kind of expression that made my blood run cold.