Chapter 8 – Samuel
The clock on my office wall ticks past midnight, the steady, rhythmic sound doing nothing to calm the storm brewing in my chest.
For the last three days, my focus has been completely shot.
I’ve sat through high-stakes operational briefings, signed off on weapons shipments destined for the black ports of the Adriatic, and balanced the ledgers of an empire.
But every time I close my eyes, I don’t see numbers or shipping routes.
I see her.
I see the white-hot defiance in her dark eyes, the way her breath caught when she tried to say my name, and the absolute, freezing wall of hatred she erected between us.
“You’re a contractor, Mr. Rusnak. Nothing more.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, my voice a dark rumble in the empty room.
I lift a bottle of expensive single-malt scotch by the neck. I don’t bother with a glass tonight. I don’t care about the neat, two-finger measurements that usually ground me. I drink straight from the bottle, letting the raw, amber heat burn its way down my throat as I pace the floor.
My heavy steps carry me from one end of the floor-to-ceiling windows to the other, the sprawling lights of the city skyline blurred and distant.
I don’t like being disrupted. I don’t like anomalies.
My entire survival for the last four years has depended on my ability to compartmentalize, to box up my emotions, nail them shut, and bury them.
But Ashley has walked right past my defenses, shattered my composure, and left me questioning why a woman I walked away from half a decade ago still has this kind of pull on me.
There’s a soft, rhythmic knock on my office door.
“Enter,” I command, not turning around as I take another long pull from the bottle.
The heavy door swings open, and Kaplan walks in, holding a thick, unmarked manila folder in his hand. He doesn’t say a word at first. He just walks over to my desk and drops the file onto the dark wood with a heavy thud.
“Everything we could scrape up on Ashley Kang,” Kaplan says, his voice low as he leans his large frame against the edge of the desk. “She’s a fortress, Samuel. It’s like trying to hack into a federal vault just to find out her favorite color.”
I turn slowly, the bottle of scotch still dangling from my fingers as I walk over to the desk. I set the bottle down, pull the folder toward me, and flip it open. Her face stares back at me from a high-resolution corporate headshot—sharp, beautiful, and entirely guarded.
I start to pace again, carrying the open file in one hand and the bottle of scotch in the other, my eyes scanning the neatly printed pages as I move.
“Her professional record is immaculate,” I murmur, taking a slow drink as I read. “She’s been running Kang Logistics for seven years. Took a struggling family business and turned it into an absolute empire before she was even twenty-five.”
“She’s brilliant, and she’s ruthless,” Kaplan agrees, watching me track back and forth across the room.
“She secured exclusive maritime rights in the Mediterranean, restructured her board to weed out any weak links, and established herself as the most reliable, untouchable luxury logistics provider in the Eastern Hemisphere. No scandals. No lawsuits. Flawless.”
I stop pacing, staring down at the page. “But what about her personal life? There has to be a footprint. A boyfriend, a husband, a paper trail of who she spends her time with.”
“That’s the thing,” Kaplan says, shaking his head.
“There’s nothing. No visible relationships.
No high-profile suitors, no social media presence, no digital footprint outside of her corporate profiles.
She doesn’t attend the gala circuit unless it’s strictly for business.
She keeps her private life locked in a vacuum. ”
I frown, taking another pull from the bottle. The scotch burns, but it doesn’t distract me from the blank spaces in her file. “Nobody is that clean, Kaplan. Everyone leaves a trail. Everyone has a weakness.”
“Apparently not Ms. Kang,” Kaplan says. “She’s built a life where she doesn’t need anyone, and she sure as hell doesn’t let anyone in. She keeps her head down, runs her empire, and disappears the second she steps off the clock.”
I stare at the documents, my mind trying to calculate the variables, trying to fit her into a pattern I recognize.
But she doesn’t fit. She is completely unpredictable.
A riddle I can’t solve, a lock I can’t pick.
And for a man who controls every single variable in his life, her silence is the most compelling thing I have ever encountered.
“Is that all we have?” I ask, my eyes never leaving her photograph.
“That’s it.” Kaplan nods, studying my face. “You’re getting obsessed, Samuel. She’s just a shipping contractor. We have the deal. Let it go.”
“I don’t let anything go, Kaplan,” I say, my voice deadpan. “You know that.”
Kaplan sighs, realizing there’s no arguing with me when my mind is made up. “Just don’t burn the bridge before we get our cargo through.” He turns and walks out, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
I stand alone in the dark, the bottle of scotch heavy in my hand, staring down at the pristine, fiercely guarded life of Ashley Kang.
I know she wants me to keep my distance. I know she wants me to play the role of the obedient client, to pay my fees and stay in my lane. But as I close the folder and take one last drink from the bottle, a cold, predatory smile touches my lips.
My interest in her is no longer a casual ghost of the past. It’s deliberate, it’s focused, and I’m going to tear down every single brick of the fortress she built to keep me out.