CHAPTER 2
MALCOLM
The cold Chicago wind hits me the second I step through the revolving glass doors of the hotel lobby, but I barely register the drop in temperature.
I reach into my trouser pocket, my thumb finding the smooth metal of my lighter. I don’t pull it out. I just press the edge of it into my skin, using the dull pain to anchor the adrenaline currently flooding my system.
I don’t experience adrenaline often. My entire existence is built on the absence of it.
When a senator’s son drives his Porsche into a storefront at three in the morning, or when a corporate merger is threatened by a leaked sex tape, I am the man they call because my heart rate never spikes.
I assess. I contain. I eliminate the liability.
But right now, there is a distinct, rhythmic tension pulling at the muscles in my jaw.
I can still smell her.
Beneath the sharp bite of the winter air and the exhaust fumes of Michigan Avenue, I can smell the cheap gin she was drinking, mixed with a faint trace of vanilla and the expensive, floral perfume she probably bought back when her bank account had more than two digits.
Audrey Jennings.
She was smaller in person than she looked in the surveillance photos. Smaller, but infinitely sharper. I expected a weeping, broken woman mourning the loss of her business and her fiancé. Instead, I found a woman calculating the cost of a martini olive and casually debating the merits of arson.
A black SUV idles at the curb. The rear door opens before I even step off the pavement.
Grant is standing by the vehicle, his massive frame blocking the wind.
He’s wearing a dark overcoat that barely conceals the tactical holster strapped to his chest. He doesn’t look at me directly—he’s currently scanning the street, his eyes lingering on a delivery truck parked too close to the intersection.
"Clear," Grant murmurs, his voice a low rumble.
I slide into the backseat. The interior of the car is dead silent, the heavy doors shutting out the noise of the city completely. Grant gets into the driver’s seat, shifts the car into gear, and pulls away from the curb with smooth, practiced efficiency.
"You were inside for twenty-four minutes," Grant says, glancing at the rearview mirror. "I was beginning to think the target didn't show."
"She showed." I unbutton my suit jacket and lean back against the leather headrest. "And she is not a target, Grant. She’s an asset."
Grant doesn’t reply immediately. He taps his thick fingers against the steering wheel, navigating the late-night traffic. Grant has been with me for six years. He knows the difference between a job I take for the firm and a job I take for myself. This is the latter.
"Did she take the bait?" he asks.
"She took the card." I look out the tinted window, watching the streetlights blur into streaks of yellow. "She’ll call by tomorrow afternoon. The alcohol will wear off, the reality of her financial ruin will set in, and she’ll realize she has exactly zero options."
I don’t say it with pride. It’s a simple, ugly fact.
Simon made sure of it.
My younger brother has always been a parasite, but his latest stunt was impressive even for his low standards.
He didn’t just cheat on Audrey. He meticulously dismantled her life.
He convinced her to put the lease of her architecture firm under his holding company, drained the operating accounts, and locked her out of the building.
Then, he proposed to Chloe, the twenty-three-year-old receptionist from his downtown office, ensuring the Vance family name remained tied to a compliant, easily manipulated trophy wife.
My father, naturally, approved of the move. Preston Vance despises weakness, and in his eyes, Audrey’s fatal flaw was trusting the man she was sleeping with.
I pull the lighter from my pocket and flick the lid open. Clack. I close it. Clack.
"You want me to draft the standard non-disclosure agreement?" Grant asks, breaking the silence as we merge onto the highway heading toward the Gold Coast.
"No." I stop spinning the lighter. "Draft a contract. Full engagement protocols. I want the standard clauses for public appearances, media compliance, and asset protection. But add a residential requirement."
Grant’s eyes flick to the mirror again. This time, they stay there a fraction of a second longer. "Residential requirement. You mean the safe house in the suburbs?"
"I mean the penthouse."
The car drifts slightly before Grant corrects the steering wheel. It’s the closest thing to a physical reaction I’ve seen from him in months.
"You want her living with you," Grant says, his tone carefully neutral. "In your personal residence. The one you don't even let the cleaning staff enter without supervision."
"Yes."
"Sir, with all due respect, bringing a civilian into your primary location is a security risk. Especially a civilian who has a personal vendetta against your family. She’s volatile."
"She’s angry," I correct him, my voice dropping a fraction. "There is a difference. Volatile people make mistakes. Angry people burn the world down. I just need to hand her the matches."
Grant sighs, a heavy, tired sound. "And what happens when your father finds out you’re harboring Simon’s ex-fiancée? The engagement party is in four weeks. The board is already scrutinizing your division."
"Let them scrutinize." I turn my gaze back to the window. "My father built his empire on the concept of leverage. He taught Simon how to take what he wants and discard the rest. It’s time someone taught Simon the consequences of leaving his garbage in my city."
I don’t elaborate. I don’t need to. Grant knows the history.
He knows the scars I carry, both the visible ones on my back and the invisible ones that dictate every choice I make.
The Vance family is not a family. It is a corporation masquerading as a bloodline.
I am the enforcer. Simon is the golden boy.
For thirty years, I have cleaned up their messes. I have buried their scandals, paid off their mistakes, and stood in the shadows while they smiled for the cameras.
But Simon made a mistake when he ruined Audrey Jennings.
He left a weapon lying on the ground, fully loaded and pointed directly at his own chest. He just didn’t realize I would be the one to pick it up.
We arrive at my building twenty minutes later. It’s a sleek, brutalist tower of glass and steel overlooking Lake Michigan. I own the top three floors. The private elevator requires a retinal scan and a biometric keycard, a level of security that borders on paranoia.
"I’ll have the contract drafted by 8:00 AM," Grant says as I step out of the SUV. "Do you want me to run another background sweep on her? Just to be sure there are no hidden debts Simon left behind?"
"Do it. And find out where she parked her car tonight. Send someone to keep an eye on it."
Grant nods once and pulls the door shut.
I step into the private elevator. The doors slide closed, cutting off the sound of the engine. As the car shoots upward, the silence of the enclosed space presses against my ears.
I close my eyes.
I can still feel the exact moment my hand covered hers at the bar.
It was a calculated move. I needed to interrupt her exit. I needed to establish physical dominance in the conversation without appearing threatening. But the moment my palm pressed against the back of her hand, the calculation fractured.
Her skin was freezing. She was trembling, though she was trying desperately to hide it behind a wall of sarcasm. The sheer force of her willpower—standing there, completely ruined, with seventy-four dollars to her name, and still looking at me like she could take me apart—hit me right in the chest.
The elevator chimes, the doors opening to the foyer of my penthouse.
The space is exactly as I left it. Spotless. Minimalist. Cold. The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of the dark lake and the glittering skyline, but there is no warmth in the room. No scattered magazines. No half-empty coffee cups. No evidence that a human being actually lives here.
I walk to the kitchen island, shrug out of my suit jacket, and drape it over one of the leather stools. I loosen my tie, pulling it free with a sharp tug, and unbutton the collar of my shirt.
I walk to the liquor cabinet, pour two fingers of Macallan into a crystal glass, and carry it into my home office.
The office is the only room in the penthouse that feels lived in. The mahogany desk is covered in neatly stacked files, encrypted hard drives, and legal briefs. I bypass all of it and open the bottom drawer of the desk, pulling out a thick manila folder.
I drop the folder onto the center of the desk and flip it open.
A dozen photographs spill out.
Most of them are surveillance shots taken over the last forty-eight hours.
Audrey walking out of a coffee shop, holding a cup with both hands to keep warm.
Audrey standing on the sidewalk outside her former office building, staring at the new locks on the door.
Audrey sitting in her car, her forehead resting against the steering wheel.
I pick up one of the photos. It’s a close-up, taken from across the street. She’s biting the inside of her cheek. Her eyes are red, but she isn’t crying. She looks furious.
I take a sip of the whiskey, letting the burn settle in my stomach.
I didn’t plan on this.
When I first found out Simon had embezzled funds from his fiancée to finance his new life, I merely ordered a background check to ensure the fallout wouldn’t impact the Vance holding company. It was routine. I look for vulnerabilities, and I neutralize them.
But then I read the file.
I read about a woman who spent four years building a business from scratch, refusing loans from banks, working eighty-hour weeks.
I read the transcripts of the emails Simon sent to his lawyers, laughing about how easy it was to trick her into signing the lease transfers, banking authorizations, and client-management access forms.
And then I started watching her.
It was supposed to be a basic threat assessment. I needed to know if she was going to go to the police. If she went to the authorities, the ensuing investigation could expose the shell corporations my father uses to funnel money out of the city. I needed to make sure she stayed quiet.
But watching her turned into a habit. A dangerous, quiet obsession.
I watched her lose her apartment. I watched her pack her life into the trunk of a Honda Civic. I watched her keep her spine straight and her chin high, refusing to break in public.
And tonight, when my security team alerted me that she was sitting at the bar of The Drake, drinking premium gin she couldn't afford, I didn't send Grant to handle it. I went myself.
I drop the photograph back onto the desk and pick up my glass.
The plan is simple. I offer her the resources she needs to destroy Simon.
In exchange, she plays the role of my devoted fiancée.
We walk into the Vance family engagement party, and we detonate a bomb in the center of their perfect, curated world.
Simon loses his mind. My father loses control of the narrative. Audrey gets her company back.
It is a flawless strategy. Mutually assured destruction.
I walk over to the small, biometric safe built into the wall behind my desk. I press my thumb against the scanner. The heavy steel door clicks open.
Inside, resting on a bed of black velvet, is a small square box.
I pull it out, flip the lid open, and stare at the ring.
It’s an emerald-cut diamond, flanked by two tapered baguettes, set in platinum. It is vintage. It belonged to my grandmother, the only person in the Vance family who ever looked at me with anything resembling affection. It is worth more than Simon’s entire real estate portfolio.
I bought it back from an auction house three years ago, intending to keep it locked away forever.
I reach out and brush my thumb over the cold facet of the stone.
I am a liar.
I told Audrey this was about revenge. I told Grant this was about leverage. I told myself this was about teaching Simon a lesson.
But as I stare at the ring, the quiet, ugly truth settles over me in the silence of the empty penthouse.
I don’t just want to ruin my brother.
I want to take the only good thing he ever had, and I want to make her mine. I want to put this ring on her finger, and I want to watch the realization hit Simon’s face that he threw away a queen for a pawn.
But more than that, I want to see Audrey Jennings standing in my kitchen, scattering her blueprints over my sterile countertops. I want to hear her sarcastic, biting voice echoing in these quiet rooms. I want to see how far she’s willing to go when she realizes I will never tell her no.
I snap the velvet box shut.
The trap is set.
Now, all I have to do is wait for her to walk into it.
I place the box on the center of the desk, right on top of her file. I finish my whiskey in one swallow, the alcohol doing absolutely nothing to dull the sharp, predatory anticipation humming in my blood.
I glance at the heavy silver clock on the wall.
It’s 2:14 AM.
She’s probably asleep in the back of her car, wrapped in a coat, clutching my business card like a lifeline.
Call me, Audrey, I think, staring at the dark screen of my phone resting on the desk. Call me, and let the devil in.