Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Julian
It’s nearly midnight when the office finally goes quiet enough for me to hear the hum of the ventilation system.
The city stretches beyond the windows in hard lines of white and gold, traffic threading through Manhattan far below while the forty-fourth floor sits mostly dark around me.
I haven’t gone home. There’s no point. Tomorrow begins in less than six hours, and the sofa in my office has become more familiar than my own bed.
My desk is covered in paper: printed copies of the article, legal memoranda, screenshots of headlines, notes from counsel, investor summaries, Preston’s latest demands for additional review, and Richard’s comments on containment. Every surface carries some version of the same problem.
I pick up the article again and stare at the headline I’ve seen repeated everywhere for days.
THE BLACKWELL DYNASTY: LEGACY OR LIES?
I already know the byline.
Kate Hobbes.
My eyes move farther down the page until they reach Sophie’s name beneath the reporting credits, and that’s the part I still can’t reconcile.
I pour another measure of whiskey and sit back in the chair, letting the glass rest against my palm while I reread passages I could quote from memory by now.
Some of the details are hers. I know they are.
Pieces of interviews conducted in Boston, notes from New York, and family history she asked about because she was trying to understand the difference between the company and the people carrying its name are scattered throughout the article.
Now those same details have been rearranged until they read like evidence. Secrecy becomes concealment. Discipline becomes control. Expansion becomes appetite. Every private piece of context has been sharpened into something accusatory.
I know what Sophie asked me, and I know how she listened. I know what the story was supposed to be, and this isn’t it. That should make the answer simple, but it doesn’t.
I take a drink and look back at the article. She’s credited, and her reporting is inside it. There’s no explanation for that fact sitting anywhere on my desk.
Maybe she gave them the notes because she was told to. Maybe she approved the direction. Maybe someone took the work away from her and turned it into something she never intended. I don’t know, and the uncertainty is worse than anger would be.
If I could decide she betrayed me, I could put the feeling somewhere useful.
I could close the door, categorize the mistake, and move on.
Instead, every memory of her pushes back against the conclusion.
The woman I knew wouldn’t have looked me in the eye at Lake Como and then handed those conversations over to be gutted for spectacle.
At least, I don’t think she would.
It’s that small trace of doubt that keeps me sitting here.
I set the article down and reach for the smaller phone inside my desk drawer.
I bought it years ago for travel and emergencies.
It isn’t tied to the company system, routed through Blackwell servers, or sitting inside the communication channels Legal now monitors as though every sentence might eventually become evidence.
I’ve already tried once. Two nights ago, I sent an email from a personal account I barely use, and it came back undeliverable. At the time, I assumed the address had been disabled temporarily.
Tonight, I try the phone.
Her number is still saved. I stare at her name for several seconds before opening a message.
Julian: Sophie, I need to talk to you. I need to understand what happened. Please call me. Everything here is a mess, but I need to hear this from you.
I read it twice. It’s more exposed than I’d normally allow, but I don’t change it before pressing send.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then the message fails.
I try again and get the same result.
I stare at the screen before switching back to the email account and pulling up the message from two days earlier.
Delivery failed. Address unavailable.
Something cold settles beneath my ribs. I check the number again as though I might’ve entered it incorrectly, but I haven’t.
There are other ways to find her. There are always other ways.
I could ask Daniel to locate another personal contact, but that would immediately put her name back inside company channels.
I could have someone contact the publication, but after the article, that would create another record for Preston to use.
I could push harder, involve more people, and create more questions.
Every route toward her now seems to run through the very machinery I’m trying to keep away from her.
I set the phone beside the article and pick up my whiskey again, but the glass doesn’t reach my mouth.
Sophie’s name is still visible beneath the reporting credit, and I find myself thinking about the last time I saw her in the foyer at the estate, her hand in mine and her face turned toward me when I kissed her goodbye.
We both behaved as though there’d be time.
That assumption feels almost arrogant now.
In less than two weeks, everything that existed between us has been swallowed by regulators, lawyers, board votes, press conferences, and a story neither of us ever discussed.
I don’t know if she’s angry. I don’t know if she believes I abandoned her.
I don’t know if she wants nothing more to do with me.
I don’t even know if the message in front of me would matter if it reached her.
The phone remains silent while Manhattan continues moving beyond the windows as though none of this matters.
I’ve spent my entire adult life solving things. When systems fail, I find the weakness. When companies falter, I rebuild the structure. When people panic, I make the decision no one else wants to make.
There’s nothing useful I can do with this.
The message sits beneath her name for another few seconds before the red notification appears again.
Not Delivered.
I stare at it until the words begin to blur. Somewhere between Italy and this office, Sophie disappears from my life without either of us ever saying goodbye.
I set the phone beside the article and turn toward the skyline, finally understanding that losing someone can happen long before you’re ready to call it loss.