Chapter 6

Sera's POV

Vivienne held my gaze for five seconds that felt like five hours. Then she smiled. It was the saddest smile I'd ever seen, and somehow also the most genuine.

"You really aren't that scared girl anymore," she said. She reached for the bedside table's bottom drawer. Her hand came back holding a black USB drive with a metal casing that looked like it could survive a house fire. "Marcus has been siphoning funds through shell companies for three years. I knew, but I needed him to think I didn't—a CEO who's too sick to notice is a CEO who's easy to rob. This drive has every transaction, every fake invoice, every offshore account."

She held the drive out to me. I took it, feeling the cold weight of it in my palm. It was smaller than I'd expected for something that contained the power to destroy a man's life.

"When do we use it?" I asked.

Vivienne's smile turned sharp. "When it will hurt him most. When he thinks he's won. When Callum Hargrave is about to sign a contract with Titan and Marcus is celebrating his genius. That's when we hand this to the FBI and watch his entire world collapse."

I slipped the drive into my jacket's inner pocket. I felt it settle against my ribs like a second heartbeat. My phone vibrated against my leg. I pulled it out to see a message from Dominic.

"Okay."

I stood up. I tucked my phone back into my pocket and adjusted my jacket so the USB drive wouldn't show. "I need to go. If I'm going to get Hargrave's attention, I need Dominic to give me access to his network first."

Vivienne's hand shot out and caught my wrist. Her fingers were cool and surprisingly strong. "Be careful. Dominic Blackwell doesn't give anything for free, and you just told him you need something from Callum Hargrave."

I looked down at her hand on my wrist. At the IV port still taped to the back of her hand and the hospital bracelet with her name and medical record number. Something cracked open in my chest.

"I know," I said quietly. "But I don't have a choice. None of us do."

I turned toward the door. My hand was already on the handle when Vivienne's voice stopped me.

"Sera."

I looked back. She was sitting up very straight in her hospital bed. Her spine was rigid and her chin lifted in a way that reminded me of every lecture she'd ever given me about refusing to apologize for taking up space in rooms that didn't want you.

"If I don't make it," she said. Her voice was perfectly steady. "Cross Aerospace is yours. My lawyer has the paperwork."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I stood there frozen with my hand on the door handle. My brain tried to process what she'd just said. Not "if things go badly" or "if the treatment doesn't work." If I don't make it. Present tense. Immediate future. Real.

"Don't," I started to say.

She cut me off with a raised hand. "I'm not being dramatic. I'm being practical. Marcus thinks he killed this company, but he just gave you a reason to destroy him. Don't waste it on sentiment."

I stood there in the doorway. Between the hospital room and the corridor beyond. Between the woman who'd saved me and the man who'd sent me away. Between the life I'd built and the life I was about to blow apart.

I made myself say the only thing that mattered.

"You're going to live long enough to see him lose everything," I said. My voice came out fierce and certain in a way I didn't entirely feel. "I promise."

I walked out before she could respond. Before either of us could say anything else that would make this moment bigger than it already was. The door swung shut behind me with a soft click that sounded like the end of something.

The corridor was empty except for a nurse updating a whiteboard at the far end. I stood there for a moment with my back against the wall. My hand pressed against my jacket pocket. I felt the hard edge of the USB drive through the fabric. In my other pocket, my phone was silent.

I pushed off the wall and headed for the elevator. My footsteps echoed in the quiet corridor. Somewhere in this building, Dominic had arranged for Vivienne to have a VIP room and around-the-clock care. He'd probably called in favors and made donations and done all the things powerful men did when they wanted to control a situation.

And somewhere across the city, Marcus Reid was celebrating his new position at Titan Dynamics. Probably taking meetings and drafting proposals and thinking he'd gotten away with it.

Neither of them knew about the USB drive in my pocket. Or the $850,000 I'd just transferred. Or the promise I'd made to a dying woman.

Neither of them knew I was done running.

The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside and watched my reflection appear in the polished metal. A woman in jeans and a jacket with her hair pulled back and shadows under her eyes. I looked tired and underfunded and completely out of my depth.

I looked exactly like someone Marcus Reid would underestimate.

The doors slid shut. I felt the elevator begin its descent. It carried me down toward the lobby and the taxi that would take me to Blackwell Manor. To whatever conversation waited for me at seven o'clock tonight.

I had three and a half hours to figure out how to ask for help from the man who'd spent five years making sure I couldn't survive without him. Three and a half hours to turn my desperation into leverage.

Three and a half hours to become someone who could win a war I'd never wanted to fight.

The elevator reached the ground floor. The doors opened onto the hospital lobby with its uncomfortable chairs and anxious families and the smell of bad coffee from the corner café. I walked through it all without stopping. I pushed through the automatic doors into the weak April sunlight and raised my hand for a taxi.

I had promises to keep, and miles to go before I could let myself think about what I'd just done.