It was past midnight. The top floor of the Bush Group headquarters was dead quiet, save for the faint hum of the city far below.
Abraham sat behind his massive walnut desk. The tip of his cigar glowed an angry red in the dim light.
The heavy oak doors swung open. Avery walked in quickly, holding a thick, classified manila folder with both hands. He placed it directly in front of Abraham.
Abraham crushed the cigar into a crystal ashtray. His long fingers unwound the string of the folder. He pulled out the background check.
The first page showed her name: Christal Clay.
Next to it was a headshot. The girl in the photo had bright eyes and a soft, genuine smile. She looked nothing like the terrified, broken, wine-soaked woman he had cornered in the dark tonight.
Abraham's eyes scanned the text. Orphanage. Adopted by the Finley family at age eight. Struggling actress.
His brow furrowed. He flipped the page.
A printed screenshot of a gossip website glared up at him. The headline read: Finley Adopted Daughter Caught in Hotel Sex Trade. Fiancé Delays Wedding.
Below the text were two photos. One showed Christal walking down the hallway of the Zephyr Hotel. The other showed a fat, balding man-Vice President Kurtis Kramer-walking down the same hall.
The temperature in the office plummeted below freezing.
Abraham slammed the file onto the desk. The sound cracked like a whip. "What is this garbage?" he demanded, his voice laced with murder.
Avery kept his head bowed. "Sir, we investigated the hotel's security. The cameras were jammed, but our tech department managed to recover a fragmented video file from a backup server."
Avery placed a tablet on the desk and hit play.
The video was heavily corrupted by the localized jammer. There was no audio, and the frame rate was a choppy, glitching mess of static. But through the distortion, the grainy black-and-white footage showed Christal walking down the hall. She was stumbling, clearly heavily drugged. She leaned against the wall, swiped her keycard at room 809, and the door opened.
The video skipped forward ten minutes.
Kurtis Kramer waddled down the hall. He stopped at room 809, grabbed the handle, and found it locked from the inside. He came back into the frame two minutes later, kicking the wall in a fit of rage before storming off.
The truth clicked into place.
Abraham's chest tightened painfully. She wasn't a whore. She wasn't trying to sleep her way to the top. She was drugged, confused, and terrified. She was a victim of a setup, just like he was.
He remembered the way she cried in the dark hotel room. He remembered her standing alone in the ballroom tonight, surrounded by wolves, refusing to bend until the wine hit her chest.
A dark, violent possessiveness erupted in his blood. His prey. His woman. She had been tortured and humiliated by a bunch of pathetic insects.
He flipped to the last page of the file.
A photo of Ethan Stein stared back at him. Next to it was the label: Current Fiancé.
Abraham remembered the way Ethan had grabbed her wrist tonight, the way he looked at her with sick jealousy.
Abraham let out a low laugh. It was the sound of a tyrant declaring war.
He tapped his index finger hard against Ethan's photo. "Three days," Abraham ordered. "I want this lawyer disbarred, bankrupt, and destroyed."
Avery hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Sir, Ethan Stein's law firm handles several minor contracts for the Vasquez family. If we destroy him, Gwendolyn will notice."
Abraham looked up. His eyes were completely dead.
"Avery, initiate Protocol B," Abraham said coldly, his voice devoid of any emotion. "I want every major Vasquez Group project for the next three months to encounter sudden, inexplicable 'delays.' Squeeze their supply chains. Make Gwendolyn's father bleed enough that he comes crawling to my office begging for mercy."
Avery shivered. He bowed his head and quickly left the room. The king had spoken. Blood was going to flow in New York.
At that exact moment, in a freezing apartment in Lower Manhattan, Christal was curled into a tight ball on a broken sofa.
She was shivering violently. Clara was wiping her forehead with a cold towel.
"You're burning up," Clara panicked, looking at the thermometer. "102 degrees. I have to take you to the hospital."
Clara stood up and looked out the window. She froze.
Parked on the dark street below were two black SUVs. Four men in dark jackets were leaning against the cars, staring directly up at their window. Ethan's dogs.
Clara cursed, pulling the blinds shut. They were trapped. She spent the entire night changing cold towels, praying Christal's brain wouldn't cook.
By morning, the fever finally broke.
Christal opened her heavy, swollen eyes. Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. She reached out with a weak hand and opened the text. It was from Jeremiah, her adoptive father.
Christal, my child. I know you've been deeply wronged, and I have failed to protect you. But Ethan's misunderstandings are destroying us. He is threatening to pull all funding. Please, just come home tonight for a quiet family dinner. Let's talk to him, clear the air. For the sake of the Finley family, and for the sake of the father who always tried to love you... please come back.
Christal stared at the screen. Tears slid silently down her pale cheeks.
Jeremiah was a coward, but he was the only person in that house who had ever bought her a birthday cake. She couldn't let him die on the streets. Ethan knew exactly which button to push.
She forced her weak body to sit up. "I have to go back to the Finley house tonight," she told Clara, her voice hollow. "I have to end this."
Back in the Bush Tower, Abraham was staring at a massive monitor on his wall.
It showed a live satellite feed of the street outside Clara's apartment. He saw the black SUVs. He saw Christal walk out the front door, looking like a ghost, and get into a cab.
Abraham stood up. He grabbed his car keys from the desk.
He walked past Avery in the hallway. "Get the cars," Abraham ordered. "We are going to the Upper East Side."
