CHAPTER 5

ZARIA POV

Soren walked over to his desk, but he didn't sit down. Instead, he leaned against the edge, ankles crossed, arms folded over his chest as he tracked my every movement. The silence in the room stretched, heavy and suffocating, but I refused to look down this time.

"You have exactly three minutes before I call security to escort you out, Gia," he said, his voice flat, completely unimpressed. "Make it count."

I reached into my pocket, pulling out the folded Ellison Corp agenda I had taken from the conference room, and placed it flat on his immaculate desk.

"Tristan Vance is liquidating the core assets of Ellison Corporation this Friday," I said, my natural voice echoing clearly in the quiet room. No stutter, no submissive pitch. "He's using a forged digital proxy from my late father to bypass the board. If he succeeds, he leaves a shell company, bleeds the minority shareholders dry, and vanishes with billions into offshore accounts."

Soren glanced down at the paper, then back up at me, an amused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "And why exactly should a janitress care about the internal corruption of the Ellison empire? More importantly, why should I?"

"Because you hate the Vance family," I fired back, taking a step closer. "And because Tristan Vance is committing grand larceny under the guise of an inheritance he didn't earn."

Soren’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He straightened up, his towering frame instantly shrinking the space between us. "Amusing. You know my history with the Vances. But let’s get one thing straight, sweetheart. I don't take cases based on office gossip, and I certainly don't represent dead people. The Ellison heiress is at the bottom of the ocean."

"She isn't."

I reached for my backpack, pulling out a small lanyard—the one holding my fake corporate ID. My hands were sweating inside my rubber gloves, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. As I pulled the ID out, my fingers slipped on the cheap plastic casing. The clip snapped, and the badge slid across the polished oak desk, landing right at Soren’s fingertips.

Only it wasn't just the fake ID.

The impact had loosened the back compartment of the holder, revealing a small, weathered piece of laminated paper I had kept hidden behind the forgery. It was my real, original government passport card—the one I had managed to keep in my pocket the night I was pushed off the cliff.

Soren looked down. His gaze locked onto the card.

The photo on the passport showed a stunning, unblemished blonde girl with bright, confident blue eyes, smiling under the name: Zaria Ellison.

I watched his face closely. For the first time since I met him, the absolute certainty in his gray eyes shattered. He looked at the passport, then slowly raised his eyes to scan my face—the thick glasses, the awful wig, and the rough, discolored prosthetic scars stretching across my jawline.

"You," Soren murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register. He picked up the passport card, inspecting it with a jeweler's precision before throwing it back onto the desk. "Zaria Ellison is dead. The coast guard found her car, her blood on the rocks."

"They found what Tristan wanted them to find," I said, reaching up to unclip the heavy glasses, throwing them onto the desk. I stood tall, shedding the submissive persona completely. "He pushed me off the cliff path behind the estate because I discovered he and my aunt were corporate thieves. I survived, Mr. Ellsworth. The scars are real, but the identity I'm using now is a shield. I came here because you're the only lawyer in this country ruthless enough to help me strip everything away from him."

Soren didn't say a word for a long, agonizing minute. He walked a slow circle around me, a predator evaluating its prey. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Let's say I believe you," Soren finally spoke, stopping right in front of me, his gaze dropping to the rough texture of my fake jawline scar. "Filing a lawsuit takes time. Time you don't have if the liquidation is this Friday. To stop the board vote, we don't just need a living heiress. We need a legal injunction that freezes every single asset under the Ellison name immediately."

"Can you do it?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly with a mix of fear and desperation.

"I can," Soren said, a dark, calculating glint returning to his eyes. "I can freeze their accounts by sunrise, file a fraud motion, and drag Tristan Vance into a courtroom by Thursday afternoon. I can dismantle his entire life before he even realizes who hit him."

A profound sense of relief washed over me, but I knew men like Soren Ellsworth didn't do favors out of the goodness of their hearts.

"What's the catch?" I asked bluntly. "What do you want in return?"

Soren stepped closer, his shadow completely enveloping me. He reached out, his long, warm fingers gently catching my chin, forcing me to look up into his icy gray eyes. The contact sent a strange, electric spark straight down my spine.

"I don't care about your money, Zaria," he murmured, his voice dangerously smooth. "But to execute a sudden asset freeze on a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate without raising a dozen red flags with the federal regulators, I need an airtight, undeniable legal interest in your estate."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I don't want to be just your attorney," Soren stated, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. "When we walk into that boardroom on Thursday to take back your empire, you will walk in as my wife. We sign a temporary, private marriage contract tomorrow morning. I get a seat on the Ellison board, full access to crush the Vances from the inside, and you get your life back."

He let go of my chin, stepping back and pulling a sleek silver pen from his pocket, laying it right next to my passport.

"The choice is yours, Miss Ellison," Soren said, gesturing toward the desk. "You can walk out that door, let them liquidate your father's legacy, and run for the rest of your life. Or you can sign my contract tomorrow and let the devil fight your battles."

I looked at the silver pen, then at the man standing before me. He was dangerous, perhaps just as dangerous as the people who had tried to kill me, but he was my only way out of the dark.

I picked up the pen.