Sophie's POV
The boardroom table was a slab of black marble, polished to such a mirror finish that every man seated around it could admire his own reflection while pretending to care about mine. The cold surface reflected the chandelier above, fracturing its light into dozens of glittering shards that danced across the walls like trapped fireflies. I sat perfectly still in my chair, back straight, hands folded on the table, watching the men who thought they could take everything from me. Their tailored suits and practiced smiles couldn't hide the hunger in their eyes—the kind of hunger that came from decades of waiting in the shadows for their moment to strike. Damien leaned back in his chair, the leather sighing beneath him, letting the silence stretch like a noose. He wanted them to sweat. Wanted them to remember who had rebuilt this empire from the ashes of his father's failures. The tension in the room was so thick I could taste it—coppery and electric, like the moment before a lightning strike. Then Carlton Whitlock, the ancient lawyer who had served the Blackstone family since before Damien was born, dropped the bomb. "The will's marriage clause is ironclad." His gnarled fingers, spotted with age, tapped the document with deliberate emphasis. "No wife by your thirtieth birthday, and control of Blackstone Group reverts to the board." A murmur rippled through the room. I kept my face impassive, even as my blood turned to ice. "Thirty days," I said, my voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. "There's always a loophole." "Not this time." Marcus Kane, my ever-ambitious CFO, slid a folder toward me with a smirk that made my fingers itch to wipe it off his face. "We've had three teams scour it. Your grandfather learned from your father's... indiscretions." The unspoken word “bastard” hung in the air like gun smoke. Specifically, Elijah. The brother who should have inherited half of everything if Father hadn't tried to burn the truth out of existence. I flipped open the folder, my eyes scanning the terms that were worse than I'd imagined: "Legal marriage: No proxies, no offshore quickies". "Public cohabitation: Verified by board-appointed inspectors." "No annulment for five years or assets freeze. " Marcus's smirk widened. "Problem, Damien? Not even your money can buy love." Damien closed the folder with a snap that made the junior executives flinch. "It can buy compliance." Damien's penthouse smelled like Scotch and stale power plays when he summoned his head of security at midnight. The city lights stretched out beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a glittering tapestry of ambition and deceit. Hendricks stood at attention, his military bearing unmistakable even in civilian clothes. He had been with me for years, through boardroom coups and hostile takeovers, and he knew better than to question my orders. "I need a wife," I said, tossing the dossier onto the coffee table. The files scattered across the polished surface, revealing headshots and dossiers of potential candidates. "Someone presentable but desperate. No family ties. No social media addicts." Hendricks didn't blink. "Duration?" "Six months minimum. Seven figures." He flipped through the files, his expression unreadable. Then he paused at one, his fingers hovering over the photograph. "Sophie Laurent? The artist whose father" "Jumped from his office window," I finished, swirling my drink. The ice clinked against the crystal, a sharp counterpoint to the silence. "Perfect. She'll have motivation to pretend." Hendricks frowned. "She'll also want revenge." I smiled for the first time all day. "Let her try." **The Gala** Damine spotted me the moment i walked into the Vanderbilt Ballroom a wounded bird in a thrift-store dress, already bleeding from the socialites' claws. Sophie Laurent, moved through the crowd like a ghost, my shoulders stiff, my chin held high despite the whispers that followed her. I was beautiful, but not in the polished, manufactured way of the women who usually filled these rooms. My beauty was raw, untamed, like a storm on the horizon. Daniel Carter's wine arced toward her chest in slow motion. He could have stopped it. But he didn't. "Let her be humiliated. Let her hit rock bottom." "Only then would my offer taste like salvation instead of poison." When the red stain bloomed across my ribs, Damien made his move. I fought like a feral cat in the elevator, his jacket sliding off my shoulders. "I don't need your pity!" "I don't need anyone's pity!" "Good," he said, catching the fabric before it fell. "Because this isn't a pity. It's a business proposal." The penthouse lights revealed what the ballroom shadows had hidden the sharp intelligence in her gaze, the stubborn set of her jaw. This wasn't some vapid socialite. This was a weapon. He handed me the contract. "Five million dollars. Six months. All I require is your signature..." He leaned in, close enough to smell the wine on my skin. "And your performance." I laughed, the sound bitter as broken glass. "You can't buy a wife." "Not a real one," He agreed, tapping Clause 4.3. "But I can rent a very convincing fake." My eyes flickered. He could see the exact moment desperation outweighed pride. Then I did what no board member, no rival CEO, no one in a decade had dared. I negotiated. "Double it. And I want my father's last painting." I hid my approval behind a sip of Scotch. "Deal." The contract lay between us on the glass table, its terms spelled out in black and white. "Public Appearances: Required as a loving couple." "No Sexual Contact: Unless mutually agreed upon." "Non-Disclosure: Absolute silence on the terms of the agreement." But buried in the fine print was a single sentence that changed everything: "This contract becomes void if either party knowingly withholds material information pertaining to the other’s financial or personal welfare." A loophole. A weapon. My fingers trembled fiercely as I reached for the pen. I watched me sign my name, the ink dark as blood on the page. I thought I was agreeing to a business arrangement. But I had just set a trap. And he had walked right into it. As I walked out of Blackstone Tower at midnight, the contract burned in my purse like a live coal. I thought had outmaneuvered Damien. But he had spent a lifetime playing this game. And I never lost.Sophie's pov **The ICU** The cardiac monitor beeps a jagged rhythm forty-seven beats per minute, too slow, too weak, too Damien. Each mechanical breath from the ventilator sounds like the “Scheherazade” groaning against its moorings. The scent of antiseptic can't quite mask the lingering copper of blood. His blood still crusted under my fingernails in rust-colored half-moons. I press my forehead against the cool glass partition, watching the medical team swarm around his motionless body like worker ants tending their dying queen. Their voices slice through the sterile air: "Massive blood loss we're looking at seven units transfused..." "Nicked hepatic artery miraculously it didn't fully rupture..." "If he makes it through the night..." Lillian's wheelchair squeaks beside me, the sound jarring against the ICU's mechanical hum. Her fingers still too thin from months in her own hospital bed, the skin stretched translucent over her knuckles as she dug into my bicep with sur
Sophie's pov **The Wreck** The “Scheherazade” groans beneath my feet like a dying animal, its rotting timbers protesting every step. Saltwater sprays through the rusted hull, the brume mixing with the copper stench of blood old blood from the deck where my father died, new blood from the man I came to save. The storage container's padlock resists my picks Damien taught me this, his hands guiding mine in the penthouse safe room, whispering "Just listen to the pins, Sophie" against my temple until the final tumbler clicks. The door creaks open to reveal: Damien slumped against the far wall, his once-pristine white shirt now a macabre tapestry of sweat, seawater, and blooming bruises. The silver cuffs I gave him for our anniversary bite into his wrists, the skin beneath raw and weeping. His head jerks up at the sound, dark eyes widening not with relief, but horror. "You shouldn't be here," he rasps, his voice ruined. I drop to my knees, fingers flying over his re
Sophie's pov The Blackstone Tower blueprints glow on my tablet, every air duct and service corridor highlighted in neon pink the exact shade I once used to mark champagne stations for charity galas, back when my biggest concern was whether the Veuve Clicquot would be chilled properly. The irony tastes like gunpowder on my tongue. "Guard rotation every 47 minutes," Claire whispers, her manicured nail tapping a staff staircase on the screen. The Chanel polish is chipped the first time I've ever seen her imperfect. "But Marcus added a new security measure after the docks." I zoom in until the pixels blur. "The fire suppression system." My finger traces the isolated piping. "It's not tied to the main alarms. He'll have manual override in the sub-basement." Elena leans over my shoulder, her signature jasmine perfume undercut by the acrid scent of adrenaline. "You want to burn him out?" I tap the emergency exit routes the ones I personally designed last year when planning the Chil
Sophie's pov ** The Harbor** Rain slashes my face like shards of broken glass as I crouch behind the rusted shipping container. The abandoned Lobster Harbor warehouse looms ahead, its broken windows glowing like predator's eyes in the storm-darkened afternoon. The scent of rotting fish and diesel fuel clings to the air, mixing with the metallic tang of my fear. Claire's voice crackles in my earpiece, barely audible over the howling wind: "Heat signatures confirm two hostiles on the upper level. Damien's in the basement. And Sophie" A pause that makes my stomach drop. "Marcus just sent six men to Lillian's hospital."My fingers tighten around the Glock until the grip bites into my palm. "Right on schedule," I whisper, though the words taste like ash. The FBI surveillance van parked three blocks away doesn't know I've slipped their protective custody. The tactical team prepping their raid doesn't know I spent last night disabling the warehouse's motion sensors. And Marcus
Sophie's pov ** The Chase Begins** Marble floors reflect my distorted silhouette as I sprint through Blackstone Tower's lobby. My Louis Vuitton's, the red-soled ones Damien bought me in Paris,slip on the polished surface, but I don't slow down. The security guards tense but don't intervene; not when they see the feral glint in my eyes, not when they spot the Glock 26 strapped to my thigh in a holster Damien himself taught me to use. Claire materializes from behind a pillar like a specter. Her manicured fingers are always perfect, always professional dig into my wrist with surprising strength as she yanks me into a service elevator. The doors close just as two Blackstone security officers round the corner. "Marcus took him," she breathes against my ear. The elevator cameras blink red still recording so she presses closer, her Chanel No. 19 mixing with the acrid scent of fear. "Forty minutes ago. Black SUV with diplomatic plates." The numbers climb “52...67...78” but my pulse
Sophie's pov The scent hits me first—Chanel No. 5 and dust. *Mom's perfume.* I'd forgotten about this relic, buried in the back of my old closet. The buttery calfskin is worn smooth in places from years of carrying canvases to art classes, legal documents to meetings, and later when everything fell apart a change of clothes for nights spent waiting outside Lillian's hospital room. My fingers catch on the hidden compartment, the one Damien had custom-made after that mugging in Paris. "For emergencies," he'd murmured against my temple while showing me the trick clasp. "Only us." The mechanism still works. **Marcus Blackstone's Personal Stationery** **Dated: The Night Before Dad Died** The paper crackles like dried blood as I unfold it. The words blur behind sudden tears which I couldn't hold in anymore: "Arthur's orders the Laurent embezzlement story sticks to you, not us. Sign the confession, or we'll make Sophie watch what happens to Lillian next." Beneath Marcus'