Chapter 9
NINE
SHAE
I glare at him for almost a full minute, drawing out the negotiation tactic I learned during the trial by fire that was my first wealth management position.
For a second, sheer panic flamed hot through my body at the idea that he’d decided to play Daddy to the twins and was now here to exact his revenge for my keeping him away.
But then I realized an important fact.
Storm had the opportunity to be in their lives when I reached out to him before giving birth. His silence was a clear and definitive answer.
So, I shove aside all fear and panic and submissive thoughts and stare my ex-lover down.
Storm doesn’t move. Doesn’t break.
We’re just two immutable forces clashing against each other and trying to get the opposition to crack.
And it won’t fucking be me.
I lift my wrist, adjusting my watch face but also surreptitiously squeezing the gold band against my flesh to make sure I’m not stuck in a dream.
Or rather, a nightmare.
“You,” I say slowly, lifting my eyes and tasting the word like it's poison, “want me to drop the Keystone Financial deal?”
He gives a slow, deliberate nod, his gaze never wavering.
No shame. No hesitation.
As if he didn’t leave me to pick up the pieces of my life almost a decade ago. As if he has the right to own anything tied to me.
The rage flares so fast, so hot, that I barely register I’m up and walking away until I’m grabbing the handle to the glass door.
“Wait, Shae. You need to stop the deal before it’s too late. You don’t have any other good choices here.”
I whirl around at that.
“ I don’t have a choice? No, I have plenty of choices, and there will never be a time when you will be one of them, Storm Sandoval.”
My throat burns, tightens.
“Goddamn it, Shae! They’re enslaving people, sending weapons of mass destruction all over the globe. You ever stop to think why they’re selling? Why there are so many split opinions among the board? It’s because this is blood money, and they will kill you , Shae.”
“Stop with the hyperbole!” I shout.
“This isn’t a fucking game! None of this is a game, and you’re at the center of this shit.”
I stare down at the tablet Storm shoves into my hands, my heart hammering so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs.
At first, it’s just numbers. Rows and rows of ledger entries. Nothing I haven’t seen before in the course of building Orisun.
“Who made this?” I rasp.
“Axel Webb. The best in the business.”
I hum, my eyes burning as I stare at the screen and scroll and scroll, hoping I’m misunderstanding the data in my hands.
I’m not.
In plain rows of numbers, the sum of transfers flagged tops over $400 billion, all from the last year.
I scroll faster, my breath catching in my throat as I skim the notes buried beneath the surface. Fake water projects. Fraudulent “orphan care” charities. A biotech incubator that probably doesn't exist.
Layer after layer of bullshit because?—
I scroll to the top of the screen and stare at the images: The piles of semi-automatic weapons at least fifteen feet high; the diamonds tossed carelessly into crates with a one-armed child with dead eyes standing next to the precious jewels; a shipping container filled with dirty brown and Black faces.
Terrified faces.
Children.
And all of it...apparently tied back to the business I just gave half a billion dollars to.
He’s somehow in the middle of this horror I’ve walked into.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “No, no, no?—”
I look up, but Storm is already moving closer, crowding my space. His face is grim, hard, the look of a man ready to go to war.
“I’m not here to play with you, Shae.” His voice is low, brutal. “They’re going to use you. Your name. Your company. And then, when they have you where they want you, they’re going to make sure you go down for all this shit.”
The words hit like body blows.
“Zane and I would know if something like this were connected with Keystone,” I whisper.
Storm jerks when I mention my business partner’s name, his face going hard for a second before smoothing out.
“Not with the technology and people they have encasing all of this.”
I grip the edge of the conference table to steady myself. My knees threaten to give out. My stomach roils.
I want to scream. I want to tear the tablet in half.
I want to believe he’s lying.
But the sick truth is right there in front of me, coded in the same numbers and finance-speak I’ve built my entire life around.
I shove the iPad away from me like it burns. “I don’t believe this.”
“Yes, you do,” Storm says quietly.
I snap my head up to glare at him. The room tilts for a second, but I plant my feet harder against the ground, forcing myself upright.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I bite out, my voice trembling with the effort to keep from losing it completely.
“I want to help you,” he says, stepping closer. “I want to protect you.”
“Fuck you,” I spit, shoving against his chest, but he doesn’t move an inch.
“Shae,” he says, low and guttural, like he’s physically pained. “This is real. You’re about to step into the middle of this if you sign. And if you try to fight them on your own, it will cost you your life.”
I let out a shaky breath. My hands ball into fists at my sides.
I should hit him again. I want to hit him again.
Instead, I move back to the table and take up the chair Storm vacated. When he sits at the head of the table, I ask, “So you want me to back out of the Keystone deal. That’s impossible at this point. It’s not just me. I have a business partner.”
He looks grim.
“Zane would have to agree to this, too. He won’t—not without a good reason,” I say. Storm lifts an eyebrow.
“Proof of crimes against humanity isn’t good enough?” he grates out.
I open my mouth to reply, but no sound comes out for a long moment.
“We have five-hundred million tied up in this already,” I whisper, my voice weakening.
“I know, Shae.” He grunts, and it’s a frustrated sound, as if grasping at ideas to convince me. “I’ll give you the money. Once we’re on the other side of this, I’ll give it back to you from my personal accounts.”
He looks so fierce, so determined, an unwanted flash of us together in the past crops up.
If you knew the depths of my feelings, it would terrify you.
I shake my head at the lie he told me long ago.
“How? What’s your plan? You think I can just rip up a billion-dollar contract and everyone will be cool with it?"
“Don’t worry about it, Shae,” he says, and the tone of his voice brooks no argument at all.
I look at the clock behind him and close my eyes. Three months from now, I’m supposed to sip champagne with Zane and smile because I’ll have closed the biggest deal of my life.
I will have made it—crossed the finish line. Shae Olivya Rivers, the billionaire.
And now…I’m supposed to walk away from that? I’m supposed to?—
“Fuck.” The word bursts from my lips. I’m in this. I’m in this deep.
“What are you going to do to stop them?” I ask, still keeping my eyes closed.
When Storm doesn’t answer right away, I give myself a mental pep talk to prepare myself to look at him again.
The time doesn’t really help—it still hits me like an uppercut from Rhonda Rousey when I see his stupid, beautiful face.
Get a hold of yourself.
“What is your plan, Storm? You say we’re going to ‘work together’ and all that other kumbaya shit. So, partner , what’s the strategy?”
Storm looks like he really doesn’t want to tell me the answer but decides to anyway with a deep sigh.
“I’m gonna get the other deal pushed through.”
The silence is so absolute, I can hear the second hand tick, tick, tick as it matches my stunned heartbeats.
And then…I laugh. I burst out laughing so hard the door opens, and in walks a bewildered Zane and three security guards.
“Shae,” Storm grinds out, but I stop him short with a quick slice of my hand in the air.
“You had me going there for a second, Sandoval. Nice try, but I’m smarter than the average bear.”
“ Shae— ”
“I understand your angle. Get me to step away so you can slide in. You’re gonna get the other deal passed through—why? What cut do you get out of it?”
He shakes his head, as if denying my accusations, but I press forward anyway.
“You wanna get me to lose half of my existing business so you can get ahead. I don’t know why you’re holding on to the past so much that you want to fuck me over like this but hear me clearly: Get a fucking life.”
His face is hard, angry, and I demand my body to look away. Because he almost got me. I’m sure those figures and pictures are fabricated to convince me to make the biggest mistake of my life.
I trusted Storm Sandoval once, and look where that got me. I’d be the silliest bitch to ever walk the earth if I trusted him again.
“Baby,” I say, sauntering toward Zane. He looks perplexed and pleased at the term of endearment, and I feel only a little bad to toy with him like this. “Make sure this asshole is thrown out and barred from re-entry.”
I put my hand on Zane’s chest, angling my body so Storm gets a clear view of my hand traveling down to his abs, dangerously close to his belt buckle.
Lowering my voice, I say loud enough for the bane of my existence to hear, “Then meet me in my office.”
With a dirty kiss to Zane’s lips, which is so thoroughly out of character, so grossly unprofessional, I continue the act for several seconds.
All the while, Storm is silent.
Yes. Fuck you, Storm Sandoval.
I flick my hair over my shoulder and look back at my nemesis, hoping against hope that he’s angry or defeated or pissed off.
But I’m the one who’s pissed, because when my eyes land on Storm’s face, the asshole wears a smile.