Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
ADDIE
"I’m resigning, Nell. Effective immediately."
Nell didn't even look up from her tablet. She tapped a stylus against the glass. "Hilarious, Addie. I need that audit on the logistics merger by five, so save the dry humor for happy hour."
"I'm not joking."
That got her attention. Nell leaned back, her sharp eyes scanning my face with the precision of a diamond cutter. She wasn't just my boss; she was the only woman who had seen through my mask and helped me sharpen it into a blade. She was a friend, and that made this a thousand times harder.
"You're serious," she said, her voice dropping into a register of genuine concern. "What happened? Did your father—"
"How do you know about my father?"
I’d spent ten years scrubbing my history, burying the Vane name under layers of corporate excellence and clean credit.
I’d used my mother’s maiden name on my college application and every document after.
Though I hadn't left the state, I stayed out upstate where my father's territory lay.
I figured it was easier to hide in a crowd than to go to some backwoods small town.
Besides, all the corporate sky rises were here, and I was determined to make it to the top of one. Or, I had been.
Nell leaned back, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t a mocking look; it was the look of a mentor who was watching her mentee ascend. But not in the Obi Wan/ Anakin Skywalker way.
"Addie, please. Did you think I’d hire someone with your specific brand of... let’s call it aggressive efficiency... without doing a deep dive? I knew you were a Vane the day you walked in for your first interview."
I stared at her, my tongue feeling like lead. "And you still hired me? Knowing my family's business?"
Nell shrugged. "So what? You’re a hotel princess. You have more work ethic than either of the Hilton girls."
She didn't know. She didn't know that the Vanguard hotels were just a front for a criminal organization. Just like Blackwood Holdings dealt in more than shipping and restaurants.
"Game recognizes game," Nell said simply, her eyes boring into mine.
"I saw a woman who was running from a legacy, wanting to turn that inherited grit into something useful.
I didn't care where you came from, as long as you were heading toward the top.
That's still where we're headed, right? To the top. "
Nell stepped closer, her voice vibrating with a fierce, protective energy.
"We’re the two smartest people in any room we walk into, Addie.
We don’t let men like your father, or idiots like the Sterlings, dictate the ceiling of our lives.
If you’re unhappy here, if you’re feeling the walls close in, then let’s go.
Together. We’ll form our own firm. We’ll take half the clients with us before the elevator hits the lobby. "
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. This was the merger I wanted.
This was the dream I’d been building in the quiet corners of my mind for years: working with someone who saw my worth, who wanted a partner, not a possession.
For a heartbeat, I allowed myself to imagine it: a life where I wasn't currency, where my brain was the only thing that mattered.
The image of Vidar Blackwood, cold and beautiful behind a massive desk, shattered the fantasy.
He was a mountain that had decided to move into my path.
I was trapped in one of those nightmares where you ran until your lungs burned and your legs turned to lead, but no matter how fast or how far you went, you never escaped the shadow stretching out behind you.
Vidar had looked at a map of his future and decided I was a necessary landmark. He’d decided I was going to be his wife. And there was nothing in this world—not even Nell’s brilliance—that could change a fact he had already rendered into stone.
"I can't, Nell," I whispered, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. I had to kill the hope in her eyes before it broke me. "I’m getting married."
Nell didn't offer congratulations; she started an interrogation. "Give me one good reason why a woman like you would throw away everything for a man."
"Love." Too bad that single word sounded like a question, not a declaration.
"That sounded like a cry for help, Addie, not a confession of the heart. What's really going on? You don't leave a partnership for a man you've never mentioned unless there’s a gun to your head."
I wanted to tell her. I wanted to scream that I was being repossessed like a piece of faulty equipment. But I couldn't. Bringing Nell into the light would only put her in the crosshairs of people who didn't understand the word no. Because at the end of the day, they weren't people.
Protecting Nell meant lying to her. It meant letting her believe I was a fool rather than a victim.
"You’re the most analytical person I know. You don't do fast. You do research. You do due diligence."
I didn't answer. What could I say? She was right at every turn.
"So, who is the lucky man? Who managed to bypass every one of your firewalls?"
I looked back out at my desk, at the framed degree on my wall, the one I’d worked three jobs to pay for. I looked at the sleek, modern furniture I’d picked out myself. It all looked like stage props now; the costume of a woman who thought she was free.
"Vidar Blackwood."
"Vidar Blackwood? Addie, that man is a headline, not a husband. I’ve seen him in the gossip rags. He has a different woman on his arm every week. He’s a player. A high-stakes playboy."
I turned toward the window, looking down at the yellow cabs crawling like beetles on the street below.
I had seen the photos too. Vidar at galas.
Vidar on yachts. Always with some stunning, tanned woman who looked like she’d been carved out of sunlight.
And now he wanted me. The pale, corporate Irish wolf he intended to use as a broodmare and a social accessory.
I’d escaped the hell of my father’s den only to walk straight into the Blackwood purgatory.
"Wait a minute." Nell stopped mid-stride. "The Blackwood corporate arm started sniffing around our books yesterday. They were asking specifically about your portfolio and your logistics history. I thought it was headhunting. I thought they were trying to steal my best associate."
My heart gave a sharp, painful thud. Vidar had already started the acquisition before I even walked into his office. He hadn't been waiting for me to say yes; he’d been preparing to take what he’d already bought.
"Is this the reason, Addie? You can tell me if you want to leave me. Let me at least make you a counter-offer." Nell stepped closer, her gaze searching mine for a truth I wasn't allowed to give.
"I'm not going to be working in corporate. I'm going to stay at home and focus on my new relationship."
"Bull-fucking-shit. You haven’t even been on a date in six months. You spent New Year’s Eve with me and a bottle of Scotch, complaining about the lack of intellectual rigor in the dating pool. Now you’re leaving the career you bled for to play house?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just stood there, a signed asset waiting for transport.
"I have to go," I said, my voice hardening back into the professional mask. "There are people waiting for me. Arrangements to be made."
"Addie," Nell called out as I reached the door.
"I've got to go wedding dress shopping. Vidar's mother is planning the wedding. A big New York affair. But I get to choose my dress."
"Will I get an invitation?"
"Of course." Even though I wasn't sure if I was allowed to have a say in the guest list.
"Are you going for off-white? Eggshell? Or something crazy?" Nell asked, still searching my eyes.
"I was thinking of wearing black."
Nell ground her molars, but she didn't say anything else.
She let me go. But she didn't take her eyes off me. I felt her gaze boring into my back as I walked out of her office one last time. I could feel the walls of my life—the one I’d fought so hard to build—closing in on me like a collapsing tunnel.
All I wanted was to go home. I needed to be in my own apartment, surrounded by my own things, to breathe before I had to face the rest of my life as owned property.
I took the elevator down to the executive parking garage, my hand already digging into my bag for my keys.
I just needed the familiar hum of my own engine. I needed the wheel in my hands.
I rounded the corner to my assigned spot — and stopped dead.
My car was gone.
In its place sat a sleek, black town car, its tinted windows reflecting the harsh overhead fluorescents like a void. A wolf in driver's clothing stood by the rear door, his hands folded in front of him. He looked as if he’d been carved out of the same cold stone as Vidar’s desk.
"Ms. Vane," he said, his voice flat and professional. "Mr. Blackwood sent me to drive you to the family estate. You're expected for dinner."
I stared into the plush leather interior of the car. It looked like a velvet-lined coffin. Vidar hadn't even given me the courtesy of a goodbye to my own life. He had simply erased it while I was still standing in it.
My captivity didn't start at the wedding. It started now.
I didn't argue. There was no one to argue with but a man paid to be a wall.
I stepped into the back of the car. The door closed with a heavy, pressurized thud that sealed out the rest of the world.
As we pulled out of the garage, I watched the city lights flicker past, knowing that when I saw them again, I would no longer belong to myself.