Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Knox
I watch her walk away until she’s just… gone.
And I do nothing.
Nothing but stand there on the sidewalk like an idiot while the one thing that matters most to me slips through my fingers.
Every instinct inside me screams to go after her. Drag her back to me. Fix it. Say something, anything.
But she’s right.
There’s nothing I can do to fix this that doesn’t involve burning down everything I’ve built.
Change the plans.
That’s the only real solution. Not flowers, not apologies, not another fucking grand gesture. The only thing that would make this right is killing the project that’s been holding my future together by a thread.
I would give her anything. The world. My time. My money. My name. Everything I own.
But this?
If I give her this, too… what the hell is left of me?
She doesn’t understand that. Except she does.
Isla looked me in the eye and told me she wouldn’t ask me to change my plans. She meant it. That’s what guts me the most.
I haven’t stopped thinking about the restaurant since that day on the terrace when Dorian confronted me about the divorce papers.
Every waking hour since then has been spent trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
Last week, when Isla got the job, I hoped maybe it would be enough to soften the blow of what I thought would land months from now. But even then, I knew better.
Besides, all I did was put her in touch with the right people. That job is hers because of her talent.
Money can’t buy people like André Nebruski. And it shouldn’t.
I just hoped her happiness—her dream—would temper the fallout when the truth eventually came out.
It didn’t. It fucking didn’t.
For the first time in my life, I don’t know what the right move is. There is no win here. Just different ways to lose.
The last time I felt this trapped, I was a kid in a house that never felt safe. Back then, I had no power, no money, no say in anything.
Now I have all of it.
Power. Money. Control.
And I’m standing here on a Manhattan sidewalk, watching the ghost of the woman I love walk away from me.
I need to do something.
But what?
I can’t go after her now. Not without a plan. An answer. A solution.
But fuck, there is something else I can do.
The press got ahold of my plans. My top-secret plans. I need to find out how.
How in the ever-loving fuck did they get their hands on something kept under lock and key?
My hand curls into a fist. Then I turn and head for my car.
I need to get to Vale Global.
Fury follows me into the building like a damn shadow.
I move through the lobby without seeing anyone, swipe my card at the private elevator, and force myself to breathe while the numbers climb. By the time the doors slide open on the executive floor, my blood is still pounding.
My father rounds the corner at the same moment. He lifts a hand in greeting, but the second he sees my face, his expression becomes cautious.
“I take it you’ve seen the newspapers,” he says.
“I have.”
“And I’m guessing this wasn’t you’re doing,” he adds, voice lowering. “Because if you were going to release anything to the press, you would have run it past me first.”
“Yes,” I grit out. “Someone leaked the information.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. He shakes his head once. “I’ll get the team on it immediately.”
Before I can answer, Dorian appears beside him, holding his tablet like he’s already three steps into the investigation.
“While they start digging,” Dorian says, “let’s go to your office and check the files ourselves. If something slipped, we’ll find it.”
Dad nods. “Keep me updated. I have a meeting, but let me know if you need anything.”
He walks off, and the moment he disappears around the corner, some of the control I’ve been holding in my spine breaks. My shoulders cave forward, my breath dragging.
Dorian studies me for a beat, then asks quietly, “Did Isla see the news?”
My throat tightens. “Yeah. In the worst possible way.”
Dorian studies my face for half a second, and his expression hardens. “What happened?”
“Disaster,” I groan. “We were having breakfast at the restaurant. One of the regulars walked up with the newspaper… and that was it. No warning. No chance to prepare. Everything just exploded in my face.”
Dorian swears under his breath. “Fuck.”
“I was blindsided. I didn’t even get a second to explain.” My voice comes out rough.
“Alright. Come on.” He gestures toward my office. “We’ll start with the files. If someone got hold of anything internal, we’ll figure out how.”
I drag a hand through my hair.
Dorian lowers his voice. “We can’t fix what happened with Isla right this second. But we can find out who leaked your plans. If we get ahead of that, it gives you room to breathe.”
I nod slowly, trying to steady my mind.
“Let’s go.” He brushes my shoulder.
We head to my office, and the next hour drags like a blade.
We comb through every file, every access log, every draft of the proposal, but nothing jumps out. Nothing obvious. Nothing that explains how a locked, internal-only project ended up on the front page of the fucking Times.
By the time IT security shows up, I’m pacing behind my desk like a caged animal.
But they have answers.
Garrett, the head of cybersecurity, walks in with a tablet tucked under his arm and a look that already tells me I’m not going to like what he found.
“We traced the breach,” he says.
My pulse kicks.
“It wasn’t internal,” he continues. “Your system was hacked through a masked overseas server, pulled the files straight from your encrypted drive, and sent them to a third party.”
Dorian’s jaw tightens. “A journalist?”
Garrett shakes his head. “No. A private investigator.”
Ice slides down my spine. “Who hired him?”
Garrett hesitates only long enough to confirm it. Then he turns the tablet toward me.
A name flashes on the screen—bold and unmistakable.
Chad Holloway.
The floor might as well drop out from under me.
Dorian seethes. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
My fists clench until my knuckles crack.
Chad.
Fucking Chad.
This was his doing.
That motherfucker couldn’t beat me with his fists, so he came at me this way.
And he didn’t just leak my plans. He engineered the entire explosion and made sure Isla found out in the worst possible way.
He wanted her broken.
He wanted us broken.
He wanted me broken.
For the first time since Isla walked away from me, something colder than guilt stirs in my gut. Fury.
And beneath it… something darker.
Doom.
Because if Chad got this far, if he managed to get into my encrypted files…
What else does he know?