His Crumbling Empire

POV: JAXON ROMANO (Present Day)

I stood at the windows of my office long after Dr. Vale left, staring at the Manhattan skyline without really seeing it.

Have we met before?

The question gnawed at me like a splinter I couldn't reach. Something about her eyes, dark, intelligent, burning with an intensity that felt almost... personal. The way she'd looked at me across that boardroom table hadn't been the typical deference consultants usually showed. It had been colder.

Like she knew me.

But that was impossible. I'd remember meeting someone like her. Dr. Isla Vale wasn't the type of woman a man forgot.

My phone buzzed on the desk behind me. I ignored it. It would be Patricia with the meeting notes, or Gerald wanting to discuss Vale's demands, or another board member expressing concern about giving so much power to an outsider.

They were right to be concerned. What she was asking for, CTO position, board seat, complete autonomy, it was unprecedented for a consultant. Any sane person would negotiate, push back, maintain some control.

But we were drowning, and she was the only lifeline in sight.

The phone buzzed again. This time I looked.

My father. Dante Romano.

I declined the call and watched it go to voicemail. The third call I'd ignored from him this week. He'd want a progress report on Apex, want to know why his investment was failing, and want to remind me that Romano men didn't accept failure.

As if I needed the reminder.

I'd built Apex Technologies from the ground up ten years ago with family money and sheer force of will. For eight years, it had been my crown jewel, the legitimate business that proved I was more than just Dante Romano's son, more than just another link in a chain of violence and criminal enterprise.

Then, two years ago, everything started falling apart.

Products failing. Engineers quitting. Competitors swooping in like vultures. And I couldn't figure out why. The company that had once been my greatest achievement was becoming my most public failure.

"Jaxon?" Patricia's voice came through the intercom. "The board wants to meet at seven to vote on Dr. Vale's terms."

"Fine." I pressed the button without turning around. "Clear my schedule until then."

"Actually, you have…"

"Clear it, Patricia."

 "Yes, sir."

I released the button and rubbed my temples where a headache was forming. When had I become this person? This short-tempered, stressed-out version of myself who snapped at assistants who were just doing their jobs?

I knew exactly when. Two years ago, when my second marriage imploded in spectacular fashion.

Vivian. My ex-wife. My first wife's sister.

What a disaster that had been.

I'd married Vivian three years after divorcing Isla, convinced that I was making a better choice this time. Vivian was beautiful, sophisticated, exciting, everything my first wife hadn't been. We'd had Ashley, my daughter, who was now seven years old and living with Vivian in a different state, courtesy of our equally spectacular divorce.

A daughter I barely saw. Another failure to add to the growing list.

The phone buzzed again. Not my father this time, Gerald.

I answered. "Yeah."

"The board's meeting at seven, but Jaxon, I need to talk to you before then." Gerald's voice was careful. "About Dr. Vale."

"What about her?"

"I knew her. Or rather, I knew someone who looked very much like her. Six, seven years ago."

My hand tightened on the phone. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying..." He paused. "There was a woman who used to work here. Technically, she worked for you. Did a lot of the coding in the early days. Quiet girl, always wore glasses, kept to herself."

A vague memory stirred. "Patricia?"

"No, not Patricia. This was before Patricia. I can't remember her name, she was only here about a year, maybe less. But Jaxon, when Dr. Vale walked into that boardroom today, I could have sworn..."

"Sworn what?"

Another pause. "Nothing. Probably nothing. It's been years, and this woman, she's completely different. And Dr. Vale has credentials a mile long. I'm probably just seeing similarities that aren't there."

But he'd planted the seed, and it was already taking root.

"What was her name?" I asked. "The woman who worked here."

"I don't remember. I could check the old employee records, but honestly, it's probably not relevant. Dr. Vale comes highly recommended. Three companies she's consulted for are now industry leaders. We'd be lucky to have her."

"Then why bring it up?"

Silence on the other end. Then: "Because the way she looked at you in that meeting, Jaxon. It wasn't the way consultants usually look at potential clients. It was..."

"What?"

"Personal."

The word hung between us.

"I'll see you at seven," I said and hung up before he could respond.

Personal.

I walked to my desk and opened my laptop, pulling up Dr. Isla Vale's profile. I'd reviewed it before, but I'd been focused on credentials, on references, on her track record of success.

Now I looked at her face in the professional headshot. Dark hair styled in a sleek bob. No glasses. Sharp features. Intelligent eyes that seemed to see right through the camera.

Something nagged at me. Something familiar.

I opened a new search window and typed: Apex Technologies employees 2015-2017.

Nothing came up in the company database. Either the records had been purged when we updated systems, or whoever this woman was, she'd been contracted, not employed.

I tried a different approach, pulling up old project files from those years. The early days of Apex, when I'd been working sixteen-hour days, when the company was just me and a handful of developers and…

And someone else.

The memory surfaced slowly, like something dredged from deep water.

A girl. Young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. Always at her computer when I arrived in the morning and still there when I left at night. I'd barely noticed her, barely spoke to her except to give directions or ask for project updates.

What had her name been?

I couldn't remember. Couldn't remember her face, either. Just the impression of someone quiet and unremarkable who'd somehow produced remarkable work.

She'd been there for maybe a year, and then she'd been gone. But what if…

No. That was insane. Dr. Isla Vale was a successful CEO with her own company. She had degrees from MIT, recommendations from Fortune 500 companies, a reputation that preceded her. She couldn't possibly be some junior developer I'd barely noticed years ago.

Could she?

My phone buzzed again. This time, a text from an unknown number.

Looking forward to dinner. —IV

Isla Vale. She'd gotten my personal number from... Patricia, probably. Or she'd simply asked the board for it. Either way, she had it now.

I stared at those two letters, IV and felt that nagging familiarity again.

Then it hit me.

My first wife. Her initials had been IW before she took my name. Isla Winters.

Isla.

My ex-wife had been named Isla.

A common enough name. A coincidence. It had to be.

Except I'd never actually seen my ex-wife without glasses. She'd always worn thick-framed ones that hid half her face. And she'd been... different. Smaller, somehow. Not in size, I couldn't actually remember what size she'd been but in presence. She'd taken up no space at all. Had barely existed in my orbit except as a convenient wife who handled household things and left me alone to work.

Dr. Vale took up all the space. Commanded every room she entered. Was impossible to ignore.

They couldn't be the same person.

But what if they were?

I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. Patricia looked up in surprise as I passed her desk.

"Sir? The board meeting…"

"I'll be back," I said, not slowing down. "I need to take care of something."

I needed to find out who Dr. Isla Vale really was.

And I needed to figure out why the thought that she might be my ex-wife made my chest feel tight with something that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite... hope.

The records department was in the basement, a fluorescent-lit maze of filing cabinets and outdated computers. A young man named Tim looked up from his desk in surprise when I walked in.

"Mr. Romano! I, uh…can I help you with something?"

"I need employee records from 2015 to 2017. Anyone who worked in development."

"That's going to be a lot of files, sir. Is there a specific name?"

"I don't have a name. But I'll know it when I see it."

Tim looked confused but didn't argue with the CEO. Twenty minutes later, I was surrounded by personnel files, most of them digital now, scanning through faces and names that meant nothing to me.

There.

My finger froze on the screen.

ISLA WINTERS. Contract developer. Hired March 2015. Contract terminated January 2016.

The photo was terrible, clearly taken with a cheap webcam for the employee badge. A young woman with oversized glasses that obscured most of her face. Brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She wasn't smiling, just staring at the camera with an expression I couldn't read.

I wouldn't have recognized her on the street. Damn, I barely recognized her from my own memory.

But those eyes.

Even in the grainy photo, even behind thick lenses, those eyes were the same ones that had looked at me across the boardroom table today with barely concealed contempt.

Dr. Isla Vale was Isla Winters.

My ex-wife.

The woman I'd divorced six years ago had walked back into my life today, and I hadn't even recognized her.

I sat back in the uncomfortable desk chair, my mind racing.

Why? Why come back? Why now?

The divorce had been clean… and cold. She'd signed the papers without fighting, had taken nothing in the settlement. I'd never heard from her again. As far as I'd known, she'd disappeared completely.

Instead, she'd reinvented herself. Built a company. Become exactly the kind of person I would respect, admire, even need.

And she'd done it all without me.

The thought should have made me angry. Instead, it made me feel... something else. Something uncomfortably close to regret.

"Sir?" Tim's voice broke through my thoughts. "Did you find what you needed?"

"Yes," I said slowly, still staring at the photo on the screen. "I found exactly what I needed."

I left the records department with my phone already out, pulling up her profile again. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see it. The shape of her face. The curve of her mouth. The way her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, even when she wasn't smiling.

She was Isla.

My Isla.

Except she'd never been mine, had she? I'd married her because of a business arrangement with her father. Had barely spoken to her during our year of marriage. Had ultimately divorced her to marry her sister because Vivian had been exciting and bold and everything Isla wasn't.

Or everything I'd thought Isla wasn't.

Turned out, I'd been wrong.

I checked my watch. Five-thirty. The board meeting was in ninety minutes, and I hadn't prepared at all. But that didn't matter anymore.

What mattered was dinner.

What mattered was sitting across from my ex-wife who didn't know that I knew who she was and figuring out what the hell she wanted.

Because she wanted something. People didn't reinvent themselves and walk back into their ex-husband's life by coincidence.

She was here for a reason.

And I was going to find out what it was.