Chapter 5 - The Midnight EscapeEmily didn't beg for long.
The moment she realized my expression was carved from granite, the tears dried up. Her face hardened, the sharp, calculating features returning with a vengeance. She rose from the floor with a swift, predatory grace, smoothing down her emerald dress.
"You think you can just destroy me, Julian?" she hissed, her voice dropping all pretense of sweetness. "If I go down, I take the entire Moretti Corporation with me. Every shell company, every zoning bribe, every shady land acquisition your father handed down to you—I have the ledger in the private vault downstairs. Copies are already set on a dead-man's switch."
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"You're a billionaire playboy who ignored his wife for corporate spreadsheets," she sneered, walking toward the master bedroom. "The jury will eat me alive and spit you out. I'm packing a bag. Don't try to stop me, or I hit send."
I didn't move. I stood by the wet bar, watching her march into the bedroom like a general retreating from a lost campaign.
Let her pack. Let her run to her burner phones and offshore accounts. Because what Emily didn't know—what Marcus Vance had confirmed twenty minutes before I walked into the apartment—was that the dead-man's switch she thought she controlled had already been rerouted.
My phone buzzed again.
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Vance PI: Vault access intercepted. Offshore accounts frozen. She's locked out of every digital asset she owns. The bird is ready to fly straight into the cage.
A grim smile touched the corners of my mouth.
