Chapter 52
* * *
Damien
I’d dreamt the whole night.
But I didn’t sleep.
Not a single wink.
I stayed awake—not out of obligation, but because I couldn’t stop watching her breathe. Like some feral, obsessive Edward Cullen variant—the same one she’d mocked for being creepy.
But I didn’t care.
Not last night. Not after everything that happened.
I tended to her in still intervals—lidocaine every two hours, Advil every four.
She never stirred. Not really.
A little sound here, the faint shift of her fingers there—tiny movements that told me she was okay. But nothing that hinted at regret. Nothing that resembled fear.
She’d given me everything. Trusted me with everything. And she’d loved it.
Not tolerated it. Not merely liked it.
Loved it.
That truth—those possibilities threaded through it—carried me through the morning.
Through the ache of pulling myself away from her warmth, from the softness of her body against my pillow.
But it was also the thing that ignited something sharp and bright inside me.
A fire.
A purpose.
A renewed, brutal clarity to put her world together—piece by piece, name by name—until nothing that had torn her apart could ever touch her again.
The fire in me didn’t dim—not when I showered, not when I dressed, not when I checked on her one last time.
And it sure as hell didn’t dim when I walked down to the garage.
My car sat parked near the back, shadows pooled across the concrete around it. I clicked the remote start, warming it for the person already sitting inside.
I reached the door, yanking the handle the way I did every morning—but today wasn’t every morning.
Today was the day Davidson fell.
The day the board saw exactly who’d been sabotaging Emma.
The day everything shifted—one way or another.
I slid into the driver’s seat, the heat from the vents already rolling through the cabin, and Phil lifted his attention from the folder on his lap.
“Morning,” he said, like he hadn’t broken into my car before sunrise.
He dropped the updated folder into my lap the second my door closed, the weight of it landing like a verdict. “Davidson’s worse than we thought.”
I flipped the cover open. A photo of Gregory Davidson stared back—arrogant, entitled, terrified in the grainy night-vision shot Phil’s people must’ve taken.
“Start talking,” I said.
“Estate tied up. Assets frozen. Litigation everywhere,” Phil rattled off. “He’s hemorrhaging liquidity. He needs cash now. Can’t get it without pulling out of Elion. And pulling out after the merger would make him look like a fucking idiot.”
My jaw tightened. Emma had taken that bastard’s attacks personally—his criticism, his condescension, his impossible demands. All while he was just trying to create chaos big enough to justify an exit.
I looked up. “Show me.”
Phil flipped the page. Financial diversions. Shell companies. R I swallowed it down.
Farnsworth let out a low whistle. “These numbers are impressive.”
Alicia and Linda were already leaning forward, eyes darting between columns, recalculating valuation in real time.
Ashford cleared his throat. “How were these verified?”
“Through a third party,” I said simply. “Full methodology is attached.”
I left out the part where the auditing firm belonged to Phil. Well—one of his aliases.
Mouths curved.
Only a few remained stubbornly neutral.
“What was the deal with the document leak then?” Richter asked, face pinched. “Where did those come from?”
“They were leaked by one of Elion’s investors,” I said. “Gregory Davidson. The investigation confirmed the files originated from Ms. Sinclair’s computer before being altered and released by him.”
“Bullshit,” Nathan scoffed. “Why the hell would he do something like that?”
“The next packet will show you exactly why.” I nodded to my assistant, who handed out the second stack. “Davidson’s investments came from his father’s estate. That money is now tied up. Frozen.”
A chorus of groans rippled around the table.
“He needed the liquidity,” Lang muttered.
“And if he liquidated his stake now, just before partnership—” Linda began.
“He’d look like an idiot,” Alicia finished, crisp as a blade.
“Exactly,” I said.
Shore’s packet hit the table with a dull thud. “But even that doesn’t make sense. Why not wait until after the partnership to pull out?”
Farnsworth’s mouth tilted—slow, knowing. “Because he wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”
The room paused as the logic landed.
I leaned back, letting Farnsworth continue. He was surgical when it came to dismantling stupidity.
“Once the partnership finalizes, Elion’s valuation jumps.” He tapped the figures. “Falkirk validation pushes them into another bracket. If he sells after that? Every analyst in New York watches the move. SEC screens it. A post-merger audit becomes inevitable.”
Alicia nodded. “And that audit would expose everything. The shell companies. The R&D diversions. His father’s dispute. He’d be cooked.”
Linda added, “He couldn’t pull out after the partnership without looking like he was bailing on a rising company.”
Ashford, cautious as always, murmured, “He needed instability on the record first. Something he could point to later.”
“Exactly,” I said. “He needed documented volatility before the merger. A paper trail. Something that let him liquidate under the guise of responsible asset management.”
Lang swallowed. “He needed a reason to leave without looking like a fool.”
“And without anyone questioning what he was running from,” Alicia added.
Richter finally sagged back, realization dawning. “So he created a crisis.”
“He created noise,” I corrected. “Enough noise that when he pulled out, it wouldn’t look like abandonment. It would look like prudence.”
Shore exhaled. “Jesus.”
I flipped to the next page and let the numbers settle like ash.
“He sabotaged Ms. Sinclair,” I said. “Her team. Her reputation. Because he needed an excuse to flee a ship that wasn’t sinking. He needed to make it look like it was.”
Silence crackled around the table. Even Nathan looked off balance.
“So where does that leave Falkirk?” Lang asked skeptically.
“We move forward with the merger,” I said.
I opened the final packet. “In fact, I have a preliminary contract prepared for us to review today. My intention is to announce the merger at this afternoon’s press conference—along with the official narrative regarding the breach.
Falkirk and Elion both come out blameless.
We recover trust, stabilize stock sentiment, and gain the momentum we projected three quarters ago. ”
I leaned forward. “Not to mention the boost we were already expecting from bringing Elion in.”
Packets opened. Pages flipped. Heads bent.
Calculations rippled across the room like a current.
“There is no way Falkirk can accept these terms,” Nathan said, sliding the packet away from him like it was something diseased.
Shore barked a laugh. “We’re guaranteeing a minimum annual R&D budget of twenty million dollars—non-retractable, non-contingent on performance—for seven fiscal years?”
Nathan joined him. “There’s no fucking way we’re agreeing to that.”
“No way in hell,” Richter parroted.
My pulse steadied.
This was the moment.
The circle before the kill.
“I’ve already discussed this with Ms. Sinclair,” I said. “She’s willing to reduce it to five years.”
“That’s still ridiculous,” Nathan snapped.
Alicia tapped her pen, considering. “Not as ridiculous as seven. And Damien’s right—given what’s in the Elion audit packet, they’ll return that investment two-fold. Minimum.”
“The cost savings alone would justify these concessions. The political capital we gain is the real prize,” Linda added.
Lang let out a breath. “Honestly? The fact that they can scale that quickly makes the rest of these terms look civil.”
Silence spread—heavy, calculating.
Then Farnsworth raised his hand. “All in favor of approving the proposed contract?”
Alicia’s hand went up next.
Then Linda’s.
And mine—counting for two votes.
Five.
Nathan and his four remained motionless.
Five against five.
A deadlock.
Not enough.
I opened my mouth to press the issue, but Nathan cut across the room like a blade.
“I still want my thirty days, Holt.”
The words hit like ice water. The meeting. Emma’s expression. Her distance. The agreement she’d made before she and I had changed everything.
The one thing I couldn’t object to without revealing far too much.
I inhaled once. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll amend the contract.”
Nathan’s lip curled. “No need. I’ll annotate my copy.” He pulled out a pen, scribbling the clause in the margin in messy, looping handwriting before signing decisively at the bottom.
He slid the packet to Shore.
Shore signed immediately—the mandatory second signature meant to prevent conflicts of interest, effectively cementing the amendment into permanence.
Lang’s hand lifted.
Richter’s followed.
Ashford’s, begrudgingly, next.
Then Nathan raised his hand—slow, savoring it.
A wave of hands.
Five votes from his side.
Five from mine.
Unanimous.