CHAPTER 23
AUDREY
The penthouse is completely silent when we walk through the front door.
Malcolm doesn't turn on the main lights in the living room. He leaves the foyer dim, the only illumination coming from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. The city looks cold and distant from up here, completely detached from the chaos we just left behind at the Vance estate.
I step out of my stilettos, leaving them near the edge of the rug. My feet ache, a dull throb radiating up my calves. I reach around to the side of the charcoal jacket, my fingers fumbling blindly for the buttons.
Malcolm’s hands cover mine before I can find it.
"Let me," he murmurs.
His voice is rough, exhausted. He stands right behind me, his chest brushing against my bare back. He pulls the zipper down in one smooth, practiced motion. The heavy wool loosens instantly, as he helps me slide the jacket and trousers down my hips, pooling in a dark circle around my ankles.
I step out of them, shivering slightly as the cool air of the apartment hits my skin. I am wearing nothing but the dark silk camisole and seamless black underwear.
Malcolm doesn't step back. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me backward until I am flush against him. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.
"You're freezing," he says against my skin.
"I'm just coming down from the adrenaline." I lean my head back against his shoulder, closing my eyes. "I think my brain is still trying to process the fact that Simon actually locked me in a pantry like a cartoon villain."
I try to make it sound like a joke, a pathetic attempt to lighten the suffocating gravity in the room.
Malcolm doesn't laugh. His grip on my waist tightens, his fingers pressing hard enough to leave faint bruises on my hip bones.
"He is not going to have the opportunity to do it again," Malcolm says. The absolute, terrifying certainty in his voice makes my breath catch.
"Malcolm." I turn around in his arms, resting my hands flat against his chest. He has already discarded his tuxedo jacket and tie in the car.
The top buttons of his shirt are undone.
"It’s over. We won. Preston knows he can't use my mother’s debt against us.
Simon is humiliated. We don't have to fight them anymore. "
He looks down at me. The ambient light catches the sharp angles of his face, highlighting the deep exhaustion around his eyes.
"We won," he repeats softly.
He leans down and kisses me. It is a slow, heavy kiss, completely devoid of the frantic, desperate energy from the ballroom. It feels like an anchor. It feels like an apology.
When he pulls back, he traces the line of my jaw with his thumb. "Go put something warm on. I need to make a phone call."
"At midnight?"
"Logistics," he says smoothly. "I need to coordinate with Grant regarding the security contractors who pulled you out of the ballroom."
I nod, accepting the explanation. It makes sense. Malcolm doesn't leave loose ends, and a security breach at a family event is a massive loose end.
I walk down the hallway to the master bedroom. I don't turn the lights on. I navigate by memory, pulling open the heavy wooden drawer of his dresser. I grab a pair of his gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved black t-shirt. They swallow me completely, the cotton smelling faintly of his cedar cologne.
I walk into the master bathroom to wash my face. I scrub the heavy, dramatic makeup off, watching the severe, armored version of myself wash down the drain.
When I walk back out into the bedroom, I expect to find Malcolm waiting.
The room is empty.
I frown, walking back out into the hallway. I hear the low murmur of his voice coming from his home office. The door is cracked open exactly two inches, just like it was the afternoon before the family dinner.
I walk toward the door, intending to tell him I’m going to make tea.
I stop when I hear the tone of his voice.
He isn't talking to Grant. He isn't giving orders about security contractors.
"I don't care what the legal department says, Richard," Malcolm says. His voice is completely flat, stripped of all humanity. "The resignation is effective immediately. You will have the formal documents on your desk by eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
My heart stops beating.
I stand frozen in the hallway, my hand hovering inches from the heavy oak door.
Richard. Richard Sterling. The chief financial officer of the Vance holding company. The man who tried to pull Malcolm into the library tonight.
"Yes, I am aware of the stock implications," Malcolm continues, his tone laced with absolute boredom.
"That is Preston’s problem to manage. If the board attempts to delay the transition, I will exercise my right to liquidate my shares entirely.
Tell my father that if he contacts me again, I will consider it a breach of our agreement in the library. "
A long pause. I hear the faint, tinny sound of Richard’s panicked voice coming through the phone speaker, though I can't make out the words.
"I am not negotiating, Richard. Goodbye."
The line clicks dead.
The silence that follows is deafening.
My brain struggles to process the data. The resignation is effective immediately.
Simon’s frantic, desperate voice from the pantry echoes in my head. He walked away from the security division. He told Father he would hand the flash drive to the feds and burn the entire family to the ground if he ever breathed a word about your mother.
I thought Simon was exaggerating. I thought it was just another one of Malcolm’s brilliant bluffs, like the threat to sell the proprietary software.
But Malcolm doesn't bluff about resignation.
I push the door open.
Malcolm is standing behind his desk. He is holding a glass of scotch, staring out the window at the dark city. He turns his head when the door creaks, his eyes locking onto me.
He sees the expression on my face, and he knows instantly that I heard the entire conversation.
He doesn't look panicked. He doesn't look guilty. He just sets the glass down on the mahogany desk, the crystal making a soft clink against the wood.
"You resigned," I say. My voice sounds thin, hollow, like it belongs to someone else.
"Yes."
"From Vance Security. The company you built."
"Yes."
I take a step into the office. My bare feet are freezing against the hardwood floor. "Why?"
"It was a necessary tactical decision," Malcolm says smoothly. He walks around the desk, stopping a few feet away from me. "Preston obtained the financial records regarding your mother. He intended to leverage them against me. He assumed I would prioritize the company over you."
"So you gave him the company."
"I gave him an ultimatum," Malcolm corrects. "I informed him that if he released the documents, I would hand the holding company’s encrypted ledgers to the federal government. To ensure he understood I was serious, I removed myself from the blast radius. I resigned."
He says it so calmly. He explains the complete destruction of his professional life as if he is explaining a minor shift in a floor plan.
"You lost everything," I whisper, the reality of it finally crashing into my chest. "You spent your entire life cleaning up their messes, building that division, and you just threw it away. For me."
"I didn't lose anything that matters." He steps closer, reaching out to touch my arm.
I step back.
It is a pure, involuntary reflex. The sheer scale of what he just did is terrifying.
Malcolm’s hand drops to his side. The muscle in his jaw flexes, a sharp, violent reaction to the physical rejection.
"Audrey," he says, his voice dropping to a low, warning register.
"Don't," I shake my head, pressing my hands against my eyes. "Don't manage me right now, Malcolm. Don't act like this is just a logistical adjustment. You gave up your empire because my mother made a mistake ten years ago."
"I gave up a prison," he says harshly.
He closes the distance between us, grabbing my wrists and pulling my hands away from my face. He doesn't let me step back this time. He holds my wrists firmly against his chest.
"Do you think I wanted to spend the rest of my life burying Simon’s mistakes?
" Malcolm demands, his dark eyes burning into mine.
"Do you think I enjoyed sitting at that dining table, pretending I didn't want to tear my father apart with my bare hands?
Vance Security was a cage. I built it, but it was still a cage. "
"You could have fought him," I argue, my voice cracking. "You could have found another way. You didn't have to fall on your sword for me."
"There was no other way." Malcolm’s grip on my wrists tightens.
"If I fought him, it would have taken months.
The media would have destroyed you in the crossfire.
Simon would have leaked the files. You would have spent the next year answering questions about a syndicate you didn't even know existed. "
He lets go of my wrists, his hands sliding up my arms to grip my shoulders.
"I am not going to let anyone look at you and see a liability," he says, his voice dropping to a fierce, broken whisper. "I am not going to let them erase you again."
A tear spills over my lashes, hot and fast, tracking down my cheek.
I have spent my entire life trying to be self-sufficient. I built my company so I wouldn't have to rely on anyone. When Simon took it, I thought my life was over. I thought I was weak.
But looking at Malcolm, I realize the truth.
He didn't save me because I am weak. He saved me because he loves me.
He hasn't said the words. He probably doesn't even know how to say them. He speaks in contracts, threats, and absolute violence. But standing here in his office, having just burned his entire world to the ground to keep me safe, the truth is deafening.
I reach up, my hands framing his face.
"You are an idiot," I whisper, my voice thick with tears.
Malcolm closes his eyes, leaning heavily into my touch. "I am aware."
"What are you going to do now?" I ask, my thumbs brushing lightly over his cheekbones. "You don't have a job."
"I have enough personal capital to buy a small island nation," he murmurs, opening his eyes. The dark, predatory amusement is back, cutting through the heavy emotional exhaustion. "I think we will survive."
"I'm serious, Malcolm."
"So am I." He slides his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against him. "I am going to sleep for fourteen hours. And then, I am going to watch you rebuild your firm."
"My firm." I let out a wet, shaky laugh. "I don't even have a name for it yet."
"You have an office. You have a desk. You will figure it out."
He kisses me. It is slow, deep, and completely grounding. The panic that spiked in my chest when I heard the phone call dissolves, replaced by a fierce, undeniable loyalty.
Simon was wrong. Malcolm isn't going to ruin me.
We pull back at the same time. The silence in the office is no longer heavy. It feels like peace.
My phone buzzes in the pocket of the sweatpants.
I frown, pulling back slightly. "Who is calling at one in the morning?"
I dig the phone out of the pocket. The screen is still cracked, making it difficult to read the caller ID, but the name flashes brightly enough for both of us to see it.
Vivian.
I look at Malcolm. The peace vanishes instantly. Vivian knows we were at the party. She wouldn't call unless the crisis management team had flagged something catastrophic.
I hit accept and put it on speaker.
"Viv?" I say, my voice tense.
"Audrey." Vivian sounds out of breath, like she is walking fast. "Are you with Malcolm?"
"I'm here," Malcolm says, his voice instantly shifting back to the cold, authoritative CEO.
"Turn on the local news," Vivian says. "Channel five. Right now."
Malcolm doesn't ask questions. He reaches across the desk, grabs the remote, and turns on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall.
The screen flickers to life.
It is a live helicopter shot. The camera is zoomed in on a massive, stone-faced mansion surrounded by police cars and fire trucks. The red and blue lights flash rhythmically against the dark sky.
Flames are shooting out of the roof of the east wing.
I stare at the screen, my brain refusing to process the visual data.
"Is that..." I swallow hard. "Is that the Vance estate?"
"Yes," Vivian says through the phone. "It started ten minutes ago. The fire department is already on the scene, but the east wing is completely gone."
Malcolm stands perfectly still. He is staring at the television, his expression completely unreadable.
"Was anyone hurt?" I ask, my voice trembling.
"No," Vivian replies. "The house staff evacuated everyone. Preston and Simon are safe. But Audrey..." She hesitates, the sound of a siren wailing in the background of her call. "The police are already treating it as arson. And they are looking for Malcolm."
The air leaves my lungs in a sharp, painful rush.
I look at Malcolm.
Malcolm makes me feel like I could burn this entire house down, and he would stand in the driveway and hand me the gasoline.
I said that. I said that exact sentence at the dinner table, in front of Preston, in front of Simon, in front of the staff.
And now, the house is actually burning.
"Malcolm," I whisper, dropping the phone onto the desk.
He doesn't look at me. He is staring at the flames on the screen.
"I didn't do it," he says quietly.
I know he didn't. He was with me the entire time. He was in the ballroom, he was in the car, he was here in the penthouse.
But Preston Vance doesn't care about the truth. He lost his company tonight. He lost his leverage. And now, he is going to use my own words to frame his oldest son for arson.
The war didn't end.
It just changed weapons.