All Chapters of Betrayed by design: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Damon sat alone in the back corner where nobody bothered him with a glass of water in front of him. The restaurant was quiet for a Thursday evening. His phone buzzed once, he stared at the name on the screen for thirty seconds before he finally answered.“Cross.” Said the voice on the other end. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.” Damon leaned back in his chair slowly, his free hand rested on the table.“Marcus,” Damon said. “It’s been a while.”“Three weeks, actually.” Marcus continued. “That’s longer than our arrangement allows for silence.”“I’ve been handling things on my end.”A waiter passed by carrying steaks to another table.“I’m sure you have,” Marcus spoke again. “Which brings me to the reason I’m calling. Status report, Cross. Where are we?”Damon’s eyes moved briefly to the restaurant entrance — a reflex, not a fear. His dark hair was slightly disheveled from a long day, and he hadn’t bothered to fix it. There was a tiredness sitting behind his eyes toni

The morning after was coffee made in silence, documents stacked beside a bowl of untouched fruits and two people moving around each other in Sloane’s penthouse kitchen.Damon had stayed in the guest room after they’d finally, mutually, wordlessly agreed to put the contracts away and stop pretending either of them could concentrate. But he was still here in the morning, standing at her kitchen counter in yesterday’s shirt with his sleeves still rolled to his elbows, pouring coffee like nothing happened.Sloane sat at the island in a clean silk blouse and tailored trousers, her hair down and still slightly damp from the shower, pretending to read her emails. Meanwhile, she was thinking about his hand at the back of her neck.She pressed her thumb against the side of her mug and made herself focus.“Emily is coming at nine,” Sloane said, without looking up from her screen. “She’s bringing the updated file on the Harlow account.” “Good,” Damon set a second mug of coffee on the island in

Sloane called Emily into the office at exactly nine o’clock on Wednesday morning, not privately. She did it in front of everyone.The executive floor of Vance Industries was already humming by then. Keyboards clicking, phones murmuring, the smell of fresh coffee drifting from the small kitchen at the far end of the hall. Twelve people sat at their desks in the main workspace, and every single one of them looked up when Sloane walked out of her office with a folder tucked beneath one arm.“Emily. My office, please.” Emily came out of her corner desk quickly, with her leather portfolio already in hand.She walked into Sloane’s office. Sloane followed her in and left the door open. “You can set the portfolio down,” Sloane said. “You won’t need it.”Emily set it down on the chair beside the door and stood waiting.“Mrs. Blackwell—”“I’m going to say this once,” Sloane said as she closed the folder in her hands and place it gently on the desk. “Your employment with Vance Industries is te

The accountant’s name was Gerald Fitch, a wiry man in his late fifties with reading glasses balanced at the very end of his nose with a kind of face that was easy to forget in a crowd. Gerald Fitch had spent thirty years finding things in numbers that other people had tried very hard to hide, and he was very, very good at it. Sloane had hired him on a quiet recommendation from her attorney, who had described Gerald in exactly three words: thorough, discreet, relentless.The meeting was at Gerald’s office, which was on the seventh floor of an aging downtown building with brown carpet, fluorescent lighting, filing cabinets along every wall. Everystacks of paper on the desk were organized.Sloane arrived first. She was in a fitted charcoal blazer over a simple white top, dark trousers, low heels. She sat across from Gerald’s desk with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap.Damon arrived two minutes later and took the chair beside Sloane without being asked.Gerald adjusted the

Sloane stood in front of the mirror in the master bathroom with one hand resting against the marble counter. The ivory dress was fitted at the waist and fell cleanly to just below the knee. Her hair was up in a smooth, low knot at the back of her neck, small pearl earrings and a single thin bracelet. The image in the mirror was exactly what the campaign team had put in the brief: polished, warm, quietly elegant. The kind of woman who stood beside a man at a podium and made him look like he had a life worth voting for.She picked up her clutch and went downstairs, she could hear staff moving through the house preparing for departure.The drive to the Hartley Grand took twenty minutes. Nathaniel spent most of it reviewing talking points on his phone while Sloane watched the city move past the windows.The ballroom glowed gold from the chandeliers with three hundred people at least, maybe more. Donors crowded near the bar while reporters gathered behind velvet roped near the stage and wa