Chapter 24
Sebastian
The door closed behind her, and I forced myself back to my desk.
Pathetic, really. Even in high school and college, women had angled for a piece of what I had, betting early on a name they assumed would matter.
They were right, of course. I did go places.
Back then it was ambition. Now it was the weight of my last name, my company’s name, and the size of the accounts trailing behind them both.
No one had ever said no to me. Not until her.
And the stickler? She had invoked the relationship clause in her contract with Sanctum. As long as she was meeting with her master, letting him train her in the art of submission, she was prohibited from outside relationships.
I shook my head, leaning back in my chair.
Because the truth was maddeningly simple: she had chosen me already, in a way.
Just not the version of me she knew in daylight.
And damn it if I didn’t want her in both worlds—the quiet dark where she dropped her guard, and the glass-lined boardroom where she sharpened it.
I logged into my computer and pulled up the code Micah and Mira had been working through.
Victor had already weighed in between meetings with prospective new analysts, his notes clipped and efficient, as expected.
We’d all been tempted to skip this job fair, but we’d gotten some good talent since we’d started going.
We’d always known Micah was more than an analyst. His instincts ran deeper than his title suggested, the kind you don’t teach and couldn’t fake.
Mira, though, had surprised us. Not with brilliance alone, but with her attention to the anomalies most people dismissed as noise.
She didn’t just follow patterns. She questioned why they existed in the first place.
The knock came a moment later. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed.
I needed a day without interruptions. Just one day I could focus on my business.
Not my father’s affairs or the fact my mother refused to move back to Washington, insisting to stay in Arizona alone.
She claimed she wasn’t alone, she had plenty of friends, but I hated she was so far away. Ugh. I’d keep working on her.
“Come in,” I said, trying to hide my annoyance, because unless Mira left her desk she’d be the only one who it would be.
While she still reminded me that she wasn’t my assistant, I was going to have a hard time letting her go back to the analyst pool.
She’d managed to be better than the last several temps I had, and I wasn’t looking forward to hiring a new assistant.
Maybe I’d pawn that job off on Ethan. He was better at it than I was.
Mira stepped into my office, tugging at her sleeves.
I hadn’t pointed out the bruise on her wrist earlier because the last thing I wanted was to put her on the spot, but at the same time, I’d asked her out, doing just that.
I had to admit though her wearing my mark, made me want to do more than push her against the wall and hit my knees.
Damn it. I shifted in my seat, knowing my mind needed to be on something else or this was going to get embarrassing.
She stopped short of the chair, not motioning to sit, and stood straight, her hands clasped in front of her as she met my gaze.
“I have a question.”
I waited, cocking my head.
“Why?” she asked. “Why me?”
I fought the smirk that wanted to surface. Had she spent the last hour wondering about this? Why did that please me so much?
There were multiple answers I could give her. Safe, polished ones but I didn’t use any of them.
“You don’t disappear when things get uncomfortable,” I started. “You fight for what you believe in. You don’t look for permission.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t interrupt me.
“You don’t look for status or what people can do to elevate you. You look at me like a person, not a CEO. Not someone to use to get to where you want to go. Not a meal ticket.”
She held my gaze, searching for the angle. Finding none didn’t soften her expression.
“That doesn’t change anything,” she said.
“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”
She turned to leave.
“Mira?” God, I loved how her name felt on my lips. The number of times I’d caught myself in the last few sessions seconds from using it, blowing everything I’d built.
“Yes, Sir?”
I stood, buttoning my jacket as I moved to the front of my desk and leaned against it instead of using it as a shield.
“Let me ask you a question,” I asked before stopping myself.
“You asked me why. I gave you my answer. If the person you’re seeing was filling your needs, would you have come and asked me your question?
Or are you interested?” I was going to go to hell, there was no doubt about it, but I couldn’t stop the smirk on my lips.
She didn’t answer, just looked at me, not quite believing what she heard.
I shrugged and straightened. “Think about it. That’s all I ask.”
She blinked, but I didn’t miss her breath catching. It was brief but betrayed her all the same, like a line of code that complied despite the syntax.
I knew her master gave her something she needed. Discipline. Boundaries. The kind of shadows that felt chosen.
But I also saw the question forming behind her eyes now, even if she hadn’t said it aloud:
Were the shadows enough… or did she want something more?
“I’ll admit it,” Victor said, his eyes scanning his screen. “I wasn’t on board with keeping Ms. Rhodes after everything, but this concept and the way the code’s structured? It’s solid. Elegant, even.”
Praise didn’t come easily from Victor, and he sounded down right impressed.
He went over the code with a fine-tooth comb, as he always did, though he’d already reviewed it at least once at length on his flight home.
Tonight wasn’t about discovery. It was about implementation.
Which meant he was checking it again, line by line, looking for failure points no one else would think to ask about.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “And our clients?” he asked. “Does any of this compromise existing systems or expose data we can’t afford to touch? Are we putting ANY of them at risk?”
The room went quiet.
This was the question that mattered. Actually, the only question that mattered.
All of this was for naught if our clients were compromised.
That was what had brought this to our attention in the first place.
The clause Ms. Rhodes had flagged. The one buried deep enough to grant an international firm access to our proprietary security architecture under the guise of compliance.
“No,” Victor said, without hesitation.
I glanced up. Ethan didn’t move.
“They didn’t reroute the money,” I said, picking up where Victor left off. “That would’ve tripped accounting months ago.”
Victor’s fingers paused over the keyboard.
“They kept a legitimate vendor alive on paper,” I continued. “One we stopped using years ago. The automation stayed in place. The approvals rolled forward. Same invoice cadence. Same dollar ranges. Nothing that crossed a review threshold.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “So we’ve been paying for nothing.”
“No,” I said. “We’ve been paying someone who knew exactly how to look invisible.”
I pulled up the transaction history beside the code.
“The vendor bills as maintenance overhead,” I explained. “Accounting sees consistency. The system sees legitimacy. But there’s no activity to justify it. No access logs, support tickets, or updates. Just invoices.”
Ethan exhaled slowly. “A ghost vendor.”
“Exactly,” Victor said. “Ms. Rhodes’ code doesn’t touch client systems at all. It cross-references payment activity against actual system engagement. The next time that invoice clears, we’ll know who kept the vendor active, who approved its continuation, and where the money ultimately lands.”
Ethan leaned forward. “So we finally get a name.”
“A name,” I confirmed.
“And proof,” Victor added.
Silence settled over the room. They messed with the wrong company. The wrong men. What sucked was that we didn’t catch it before now because it had been done so well and by someone who worked for us. We had a fucking mole. We’d be looking at our hiring practices once this was done.
“This goes live tonight,” Victor finished. “Quietly. Whoever’s been siphoning funds will think nothing’s changed.”
I let my gaze move between them.
My phone buzzed where it sat on the table. I ignored it.
“Everything has changed.” I stared at the screen and my phone buzzed again.
“You might want to get that.” Ethan gestured to my phone.
I scowled at the unknown number. People didn’t have my phone number. It wasn’t something I gave out. It stopped before I had a chance to answer it, but in the next second it rang again.
“Reid,” I snapped.
The blood drained from my head as the voice on the other end spoke, and I gripped the edge of the conference room table.
“What happened?”
Victor and Ethan were on their feet, next to me before I knew it.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said, my voice steady even as my grip failed me. I ended the call and set the phone down, only then noticing my hand was shaking.
“Bash?” Ethan asked, cutting through the fog in my head.
“My mom fell,” I said. “She’s in the hospital. That’s all they could tell me. The doctor’s supposed to call, but I need to—”
Ethan was already dialing, motioning to Victor.
Victor grabbed my jacket from the back of the conference chair and helped me shove my laptop and files into my bag. By the time I had what I needed, Ethan was off the phone.
“There’ll be a driver here in five,” he said. “He’ll take you straight to the airport. There’s a plane leaving in an hour. It’s booked.”
I nodded.
“You won’t have time to go home.”
“I have a bag in my car.”
I made it to the elevator as the doors were closing, leaving both Ethan and Victor in the conference room. They’d see the implementation through. They always did.
Damn it.
I needed to convince my mom to move closer. Somewhere that didn’t require a plane ticket and a knot in my chest every time the phone rang. I glanced around as I pushed the button, wondering why the elevator doors had been open, and when they bounced back open I got my answer.
I stepped in, the doors sealing us into the narrow space. The hum of the elevator filled the silence as it began its descent toward the garage.
I checked my watch again, shaking my head.
“Don’t you get off work at five?” I asked, leaning back against the wall even though the last thing I wanted was to sit still.
It was after eight-thirty. I’d been holed up in the conference room since four and assumed Mira had left after delivering dinner at six.
She and Micah had done their part. From here, it was on us.
She shrugged but didn’t answer.
There were scripts for moments like this. I knew I should just nod and smile, keep a professional distance but I never been good at following scripts.
My hand lifted before I could stop it, hovering just short of her face. Another inch and I could have cupped her cheek. Felt the warmth of her skin. Grounded myself in something real.
She didn’t step back.
She held her ground, eyes searching mine.
I let my hand fall.
“Mira,” I said quietly.
The blush that rose in her cheeks wasn’t dramatic, but I saw it. We weren’t technically on a first-name basis like that, but I liked the way it felt. Oh, to have her call me something other than Mr. Reid.
The elevator hummed as it continued downward.
“I need you to promise me you’ll be careful.”
Her brow lifted, the request clearly catching her off guard.
“I have to deal with something out of town,” I said. “If it weren’t important, I wouldn’t be leaving. I’d like to be able to check in on you while I’m gone, if that’s okay.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, tilting her head.
I stepped closer, close enough to catch her scent, to feel the heat of her presence, but I didn’t touch her even though it was all I wanted to do.
“Whoever’s been siphoning funds is about to realize we see them,” I said. “And brilliant minds like yours make convenient targets. Even when they shouldn’t.”
Her breath hitched.
“And,” I added, softer now, “I’d like to have one conversation in this building where we’re just two people standing in the same light. Where I’m not your boss, and you don’t work for me.”
She blinked once as she processed it, her. gaze never leaving mine.
“I guess it would be okay if you checked in,” she said, a small, cautious smile forming.
The elevator slowed as it reached the garage.
For the first time that night, the descent didn’t feel like a loss of control.
It felt like restraint.