LOGINThe Boardroom.The silence in the room was heavy.Sebastian St. Clair didn't look at the board members. He looked only at me. His eyes were dissecting me, looking for the cracks, looking for the fear he had tasted in Paris.I refused to give it to him. I sat perfectly still, hands folded on the table.Beside me, Lorenzo was a statue. He wasn't touching me. He wasn't looking at me. He was emanating a cold, terrifying indifference. He had brought me here as a weapon, and now that I was unsheathed, he expected me to be sharp."The agenda is simple," Sebastian said, sliding a dossier down the long mahogany table. "A vote of no confidence in CEO Lorenzo Moretti."A few board members gasped. The CFO looked down at his hands."On what grounds?" Lorenzo asked. His voice was bored."Instability," Sebastian said. "Erratic behavior. And reckless endangerment of company assets."He pointed a finger at Lorenzo."In the last
New York City. 8:00 AM.I woke up to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain hitting the glass.For a second, I panicked, thinking I was back in the "prison" routine. Then I looked at the bedroom door.It was slightly ajar.I wasn't locked in.I got out of bed, showered, and dressed in the only clothes I had that looked semi-professional—a black turtleneck and trousers Giovanni had retrieved from my old closet at the Estate.I walked out into the living room.The metal shutters were halfway up, letting in the grey morning light. The guards were still there, but they nodded at me respectfully."Morning, Mrs. Moretti," one of them said.Mrs. Moretti. It sounded different today. Yesterday, I was a liability. Today, I was the woman who tilted a ship.I found Lorenzo in the kitchen. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, looking sharp, dangerous, and utterly exhausted. He was reading a tablet while dr
New York City. 2:15 AM.The "War Room" was actually Lorenzo’s office, but it had transformed.The massive oak desk was now a command center. Three monitors had risen from hidden slots in the surface. The wall-sized screen was displaying a live satellite feed of the North Sea. It was dark, grainy, and green-tinted, but the shape of the cargo ship Iron Lady was unmistakable.And so were the three speedboats flanking it."Status," Lorenzo barked, sitting down and putting on a headset."Pirates are boarding," Giovanni said, his fingers flying across a keyboard. "They have jammed the ship's distress beacon. The crew is in the citadel (panic room), but the bridge is vulnerable."I stood by the door, barefoot in my sweatpants, feeling out of place but unable to look away."Alpha Team ETA?" Lorenzo asked."Twenty minutes," Giovanni replied."Too long," Lorenzo cursed. "They will strip the cargo and scuttle the ship in te
Day 4 of Lockdown.I was done crying. I was done feeling sorry for myself.Lorenzo had called me a liability. He had said I couldn't help.Watch me, I thought.I sat on the edge of the massive king-sized bed. The room was silent. I had no phone. No laptop. No tablet. Lorenzo had stripped the room of anything that could transmit a signal.But he had forgotten one thing.I looked at the wall opposite the bed.Mounted there was an 85-inch 8K Smart TV.It was designed for watching movies, but like every smart device, it had an operating system. And that operating system had a web browser.It was clunky. It was slow. Typing with a remote control was a nightmare. But it was a window to the outside world.I grabbed the remote. I muted the volume so the guards outside wouldn't hear.I opened the browser.I started searching. Not for news about the attacks—Lorenzo had already shown me those—but for Sebastian St. Clair.I pulled up every article, every interview, every paparazzi photo from the
Day 3 of Lockdown.I was living with a ghost.Lorenzo was there—physically. I heard him in the early hours of the morning, making espresso in the kitchen. I smelled his cologne in the hallway. I saw the light under his office door burning 24/7.But I hadn't spoken to him in seventy-two hours.He slept in the guest room. He ate his meals in his office. When we passed each other in the living room, he looked through me like I was a piece of furniture.I was going insane.I paced the living room for the hundredth time. The metal shutters were still down, turning the penthouse into a luxurious cave."Giovanni," I asked the man guarding the kitchen. "Can I at least have my phone? I need to check the news. I need to... I just need it.""Mr. Moretti said no outside comms," Giovanni said, looking apologetic. "He wants you off the grid entirely. For your safety.""My safety?" I laughed humorlessly, hugging my arms ar
Over the Atlantic. 40,000 Feet.The flight back to New York was silent.The silence was really bad. It felt like something was pushing down on me. I could not breathe. This feeling was even worse, than when people were screaming. The silence was very heavy. It was suffocating me.Lorenzo was sitting on one side of the cabin. I was sitting on the side of the cabin. Lorenzo had not looked at me since we got on the plane. He had his laptop open. He was typing really fast. There was a glass of whiskey sitting next, to him but he had not touched it.I had on a pair of grey sweatpants and a hoodie that Giovanni found in the emergency luggage on the jet. The sweatpants and hoodie made me feel really small. I felt like a kid who got in trouble at school and had to go to the principals office. Now I was being taken home by a parent who was not happy, with me. The grey sweatpants and hoodie did not make me feel any better."Lorenzo " I said quietly. My voice sounded super loud, in the airplane



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