Chapter 26
Declan
The shatter echoes down the hall.
For a second, the sound hangs there—glass exploding against tile, Zoe’s shriek riding the edges of it—and every muscle in my body tenses, ready for impact. Genny doesn’t even flinch. The second the screaming started, she was moving.
The key card I stole from my father's desk drawer slides through the reader. A tiny red light blinks, then turns green.
Beep. Click.
My thumb is sweaty on the plastic, but the motion is steady. Controlled. I push the door open and usher Genny inside.
The office is cold. Too cold. The air-conditioning hums like a low mechanical growl. The subtle, suffocating scent of his cologne sits over everything—expensive spice, bitter coffee, and something sharp and chemical underneath that I’ve never noticed before.
My gut clenches. This is a violation. This is the inner sanctum.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the arena like a private throne view. The desk is a slab of dark wood that probably costs more than some of the guys’ scholarships. Every pen is aligned, every frame perfectly angled. Not a single thing is out of place.
Just how he likes it.
I’m a liar. A thief.
No. I’m a soldier.
Genny is already at his desk, ignoring the massive leather chair like it’s wired to explode. She pulls a matte black USB drive from her hoodie pocket and plugs it into the docking station with a soft click.
“I’m in,” she whispers, fingers flying. “Encryption is thicker than we thought. I have to brute-force the archive.”
“How long?” I ask. My voice comes out lower than I intend, a rough growl.
“Six minutes. Maybe seven.”
I step back to the door, cracking it open to watch the hallway. I see Talia in the shadows, hovering near the corner, looking small and terrified and fierce all at once.
I gesture for her. Get inside.
She crosses the threshold in two seconds. I shut the door behind her, the latch clicking into place, sealing us in.
Now the silence is heavy. The air in here is pressurized, pressing against my eardrums. Genny is typing, a frantic, rhythmic clatter that sounds too loud.
I pull Talia away from the light of the door, dragging her into the blind spot in the corner. I press her back against the wall, my body crowding hers, shielding her from the window, from the room, from the ghost of the man who sits in that chair.
She’s trembling. I can feel the vibration of it radiating off her.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur, bracing my hand against the wall by her head.
“I’m fine,” she lies.
She isn’t. Neither am I.
My hand finds her hip, gripping the soft fabric of her hoodie. It’s a grounding wire. Touching her in here feels like a crime worse than the felony we’re currently committing. It feels like a desecration. I am muddying the pristine waters of my father’s life with the one thing he hates most.
“You just broke into my father’s office,” I say, the words tasting like ash and iron. “You’re standing in his sanctuary. You’re anything but fine.”
“We’re playing with fire,” she whispers, eyes darting toward Genny’s hunched back. “If they come back…”
“Let them come.”
The words leave my mouth before I can check them, but I mean them. God, I mean them. The reckless urge to burn it all down surges in my chest.
I dip my head, nose grazing her temple. I need to smell her—vanilla and rain—to scrub the scent of this office out of my lungs.
“I can’t be this close to you and not touch you,” I breathe against her skin. “Not anymore. I’m done trying.”
She reminds me we’re committing a felony. I tell her to add it to the list. I don’t care about the list anymore. The list was written by Alistair Reid, and I’m done reading it.
My hand slides under her hoodie, skin to skin. She is so warm. So alive in this dead, cold room.
“You said we’d fight back,” she whispers.
“We are.” I run my thumb over the dip of her waist. “But I’m allowed one selfish thing.”
I kiss her throat. I feel her pulse kick against my lips, wild and fast. She arches into me, and the surrender in the movement snaps the last thread of my control.
“We have four minutes,” she breathes, hands tangling in my hair. “This is not… a good idea.”
“It’s a spectacularly bad idea.”
I kiss her.
It’s not a sweet kiss. It’s a collision. It’s a claim. I kiss her like I can rewrite the history of this room with just my mouth. I kiss her until the taste of her is the only thing I know, until the hum of the server and the threat of the guards fades into white noise.
She pulls me closer, her hand sliding down my chest, brushing the waistband of my jeans. My breath hitches. I freeze, forehead dropping to her collarbone, fighting for a scrap of restraint.
“Tell me no,” I rasp. “And I stop.”
She doesn’t say no. She puts her hand on my stomach, a silent, searing brand.
“I’m not a distraction,” she whispers, the plea ragged. “Say it.”
I lift my head. Her eyes are wide, dark, searching. She thinks she’s the side effect of this war. She thinks she’s the collateral damage.
She doesn’t understand.
“You’re the only thing that makes any of this make sense,” I say, the truth tearing its way out of my throat. “You’re not a distraction, Talia. You’re the point.”
The realization hits me harder than the kiss. She is the point. Without her, this is just a rebellion for the sake of rebellion. With her, it’s a future.
I pull her flush against me, my hips bumping hers. The friction is electric. I want to take her right here, against the wall, amidst the wreckage of my father’s secrets. I want to ruin this room for him forever.
“Got it,” Genny’s voice slices through the haze.
The world snaps back into focus. Sharp. Cold. Dangerous.
I stiffen, forehead resting against Talia’s for one last, stolen second. “Later,” I promise. “I swear to God, later.”
We break apart. The loss of contact is physical pain. I step back, smoothing my shirt, turning toward the desk just as Genny starts closing windows.
“We’re at ninety-nine percent,” she says, voice tight. “Disconnecting. We need to move. Now.”
I step up behind her, eyes scanning the screen before it goes dark.
“Did you get it?” I ask.
“Everything. The rider. The archive.” She yanks the drive out. “And Declan… I saw an email. From Beatrice.”
My blood runs cold. “Beatrice?”
“She’s talking to him. About the coach. About ‘handling’ the situation.” Genny shoves the drive into her hoodie and stands up, face pale. “She’s not innocent in this. She’s feeding him ammo.”
The rage that spikes in my chest is different from the heat I felt a moment ago. It’s ice. Beatrice. My fiancée. The woman who smiles for the cameras and talks about wedding venues is conspiring to destroy a man’s career just to keep her merger on track.
“Go,” I order, shoving the feeling down. I can’t deal with that now. “Security will circle back any second.”
I check the door. Clear.
Genny slips out. Talia follows. She pauses, our shoulders brushing, and I check her face. She looks wrecked. Beautiful.
“You okay?”
“I just broke into your father’s office and almost let you talk me into round two behind the door,” she whispers, chin lifting. “I’m… better than okay.”
A dark, fierce pride curls in my chest. “That’s my girl.”
Footsteps. Heavy. Fast. Coming from the stairwell.
“Split,” I say.
They vanish toward the elevator bank. I turn the other way, buttoning my suit jacket, rolling my neck to release the tension.
Transform back into the golden boy.
I step fully into the hallway, letting the door close behind me with a quiet, solid click.
“Whoa,” I say, stopping short as the security team rounds the corner, the assistant leading the charge.
“Mr. Reid?” The head guard pulls up short, chest heaving. “This is a restricted area.”
I hold up my phone, looking bored. Confused.
“I know,” I say, voice smooth as the ice downstairs. “I was waiting for my father. His text said to meet him in his office ten minutes ago.” I gesture vaguely at the door I just exited. “He wasn’t there. I got tired of waiting.”
The lie is simple. Plausible. Alistair Reid makes people wait all the time.
The assistant’s eyes dart to the door, then back to me. She looks flustered, hair escaping its bun. “We had a disturbance down the hall. Mr. Reid is… unavailable.”
“Clearly,” I say dryly. “I’m heading out. Tell him to call me.”
I walk past them. I don’t run. I don’t look back. I walk with the entitled, heavy stride of a man who owns the building.
As I pass the nameplate on the wall—ALISTAIR REID, Director of Strategic Philanthropy—I slow.
My hand reaches out, almost of its own accord. My fingers find the expensive gold pen resting in the small groove of the placard frame. The one he uses to sign checks. The one he uses to sign intent-to-cut letters.
I slide it into my palm.
I don’t just take it. I press my thumb against the clip—the gold-plated steel meant to hold it to a pocket—and bend it back.
It resists for a second, biting into my skin, before it snaps with a sharp ping.
I drop the broken piece on the carpet and shove the ruined pen into my pocket.
Petty? Maybe. But it feels like a start.
I keep walking.
By the time I hit the lobby doors, I’ve pulled my phone out. I open the file Genny forwarded to the group chat.
I need to see it.
I scroll past the rider, past the financial spreadsheets, until I find the email Genny mentioned.
Beatrice: Alistair, I saw Declan with the coach's daughter at the fundraiser. He's clearly obsessed. You need to handle the coach, or I'm telling my father the merger is off. She is a "complication" we don't need.
Complication.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. The gray light of the afternoon washes over me.
It wasn’t just him.
Beatrice saw me look at Talia—once, twice—and she didn't get jealous. Instead of getting sad, she got strategic. Seeing a weakness, she emailed my father instructions on how to exploit it.
She isn’t just his choice for me; she is him.
A cold, hollow horror settles in my stomach. I was going to marry this woman. I was going to let them maneuver me into a life where love is a liability and people are just leverage.
I look down at my hand. There’s a small cut on my thumb where the pen clip snapped, a bead of blood mixing with a smudge of gold flake.
I flex my fingers. The sting grounds me.
I have the poison pill.
I have his motive.
I have his accomplice.
And I have the memory of Talia, pressed against a wall in the dark, telling me she’s not a distraction.
She’s right. She’s the weapon.
And I’m finally ready to pull the trigger.