chapter 21

Sierra’s POV

The house felt like a command center in a war movie. Louis and Marcus were locked in his study with lawyers, their voices a low, urgent rumble through the door. My mother-in-law—the thought still sent a jolt through me—Nia had taken over the dining room, coordinating with a discreet private security firm on a separate line. Diamond was upstairs, a cheerful fortress in the playroom with Katie, the sounds of cartoons a bizarrely normal soundtrack to the chaos.

I felt useless. Adrenaline still hummed under my skin from the sight of that awful mannequin, the blank face meant to be mine. I paced the kitchen, my mind replaying the cold promise on that sign.

*Next time it won’t be plastic.*

My hands itched to do something. To fight back. But what could I do? I was a baker, not a soldier.

My phone buzzed with an unknown number. Normally, I’d ignore it. Now, every unknown thing felt like a threat. I answered, my voice tight. “Hello?”

“Sierra Savalini?” A woman’s voice, crisp and professional.

“Yes.”

“This is Adrienne Cole. Louis Trevane’s head of public relations. We need to talk.”

I remembered her from Louis’s notes. The razor-sharp PR strategist. “Now isn’t really a good time.”

“It’s the only time,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I’m outside the east gate. Your security has been notified. I need five minutes of your time. It’s about Victor Hale.”

The name was a key that unlocked my fear. I told the guard at the interior door I was stepping into the side garden. He nodded, his hand resting on his weapon, his eyes scanning the walls.

Adrienne Cole was waiting on a stone bench by a dormant fountain. She was as polished as her voice, in a severe black suit, her hair in a perfect knot. She didn’t smile.

“Ms. Savalini. Thank you for seeing me.”

“What do you know about Victor?” I asked, bypassing any pleasantries.

“I know he’s a parasite. And I know Louis is about to make a mistake.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “He’s going to the police. He’s going to try to bury Victor with a public arrest, a media circus of a trial.”

“Isn’t that what you do? Manage media circuses?”

“I manage narratives. And the narrative of ‘Billionaire’s Secret Family Targeted by Madman’ is a messy, prolonged, dangerous one. It keeps you and your daughter on the front page for months. It gives Victor a platform. It makes every moment of your life testimony.”

Her words were ice water. “So what’s the alternative? Let him get away with it?”

“Of course not.” Her eyes, a cool grey, met mine. “The alternative is to make him disappear. Not literally. Professionally, socially, financially. You erase him. You don’t arrest a monster, you turn off the lights and let the other monsters eat him.”

I sank onto the bench opposite her. “How?”

“Louis has the financial means to ruin him ten times over. He’s started. But he’s being noisy about it. He needs to be quiet. Surgical.” She leaned forward slightly. “Victor has a daughter. At Stanford. She’s his one soft spot. His ex-wife, the daughter’s mother, loathes him. She has information. Bank accounts in the Caymans. Details of old ‘accidents’ that happened to business rivals. The kind of information that doesn’t lead to a trial, but to a very quiet conversation with federal investigators. The kind that makes a man choose between spending his life in a concrete box or jumping off a yacht in the middle of the Pacific.”

I stared at her, horrified and fascinated. “You’re talking about blackmail.”

“I’m talking about leverage. Victor used your child. Use his. Not to hurt her. To save your own. Give him a choice: permanent exile and silence, or total annihilation. You offer him the first option through his ex-wife. If he refuses, you unleash the second. No trial. No spotlight on Katie. Just… gone.”

It was ruthless. It was brutal. It was exactly the kind of calculation I imagined happening in these walls, but never directed at protecting me.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Why not go to Louis?”

“Because Louis is too angry. He wants a head on a spike. I want the problem removed. You…” she assessed me, “you are a mother. You understand the value of a clean, quiet solution. You can make him see reason. Appeal to his protector instinct, not his destroyer one.”

She stood up, smoothing her suit. “The ex-wife’s name is Lenora Hale. She’s in Napa. She’ll talk to you. She wouldn’t talk to Louis or his lawyers. But a young mother, scared for her child… she might.” She placed a business card on the bench. “My direct line. If you choose the quiet path, I will facilitate everything. If you choose the loud one, I will manage that, too. But know what you’re choosing.”

She left as silently as she arrived, disappearing through the gate.

I sat there, the card burning a hole in my hand. The afternoon sun was warm, but I felt chilled to the bone. This was the world I was in. Not just fancy cars and glittering parties, but these dark, shadowy choices in sunlit gardens.

I thought of Katie’s laugh. I thought of the blank face of the mannequin. I thought of Louis’s face, twisted with a rage that scared me because it mirrored my own deepest fear.

I didn’t want a trial. I didn’t want Katie’s picture splashed across the news for months as “the billionaire’s imperiled child.” I didn’t want to have to testify while Victor Hale smirked at me from a defense table.

I wanted him to vanish. I wanted to sleep without wondering if the shadow at the gate was plastic or flesh.

I stood up, my decision settling into a hard, cold certainty in my gut. I walked back into the house, past the guard, and straight to Louis’s study. I knocked once and entered without waiting.

Four men in suits, plus Marcus and Louis, looked up from a spread of documents and laptops. Louis’s eyes were dark with exhaustion and fury.

“Sierra, we’re in the middle of—”

“I need to speak with you. Alone. Now.”

He heard the tone in my voice. He dismissed the others with a curt nod. When the door closed, he came around the desk. “What is it? What’s happened?”

I held up Adrienne’s card. “I just met with your PR director. She offered me a choice. And I’ve made it.”

I told him everything. Lenora Hale. The daughter at Stanford. The quiet, brutal alternative. As I spoke, his initial anger faded, replaced by a sharp, calculating focus. He was seeing the strategy, not just the threat.

When I finished, he was silent for a long minute. He walked to the window, looking out over the grounds he’d turned into a fortress.

“A quiet conversation,” he mused, his voice low. “An offer he can’t refuse.”

“It gets Katie out of the headlines. It gets him away from us. Forever.” I walked to him, placing a hand on his tense arm. “You promised to protect us. The best protection is making him disappear, not making a spectacle of his hatred.”

He turned to me, his gaze searching my face. “This is a dark path, Sierra. Are you sure?”

“He put a target on our daughter’s back,” I said, my voice trembling not with fear, but with resolve. “I don’t care if the path is dark. I just want him gone.”

A slow, grim smile touched his lips. It wasn’t a happy expression. It was the look of a man who had found a better weapon. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

“Marcus. Change of plan. Find everything you can on Lenora Hale. And get Adrienne Cole back here. We have a new strategy.”

He hung up and pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly. “My brave, ruthless woman,” he murmured into my hair. “Together, then. We turn off the lights.”

As I held him, I felt the last remnant of the scared bakery girl slip away. In her place stood someone new. A mother. A protector. A partner in the shadows.

Victor Hale had wanted a war with Louis Trevane, the billionaire.

He had no idea he was now at war with Sierra Trevane, the lioness.