I didn’t belong here. But I was going in anyway.
The lobby was marble and cold. A woman in her thirties looked up from the reception desk as I approached, her smile professional and completely fake.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to see Archer Devlin.”
Her smile didn’t waver, but her eyes shifted, calculating. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Devlin’s schedule is fully booked today. If you’d like to leave your name and contact information, I can have his assistant?—.”
“Tell him Gianna Pearson is here.” My voice came out hard with purpose. “Tell him I need to see him now.”
Something in my tone must have registered, because her professional mask slipped slightly. “One moment please.”
She picked up her phone and spoke quietly, her eyes never leaving me like I might bolt or cause a scene. Maybe both. When she hung up, her expression was neutral.
“Mr. Devlin’s office is on the twenty-third floor. The elevators are?—”
“I’ll find them.”
I walked away before she could finish, before I could think too hard about what I was doing. The elevator ride felt endless, each floor ticking by while my heart hammered against my ribs. The folder of documents felt heavy in my hands, proof of everything he’d done laid out in corporate language that made destruction sound inevitable.
The twenty-third floor was quieter than the lobby, all muted colors and expensive art that probably cost more than my apartment. Another receptionist sat at another desk, but before she could speak, I walked past her toward the only office with closed doors.
“Excuse me, you can’t just?—”
I pushed the door open without knocking.
Archer was on the phone, standing by the windows overlooking the city he’d helped reshape through displacement and profit margins. He wore an expensive suit, looking every inch the CEO I’d been too blind to see.
When he saw my face, he hung up mid-sentence.
“Gianna—”
I threw the folder onto his desk. Papers scattered across the expensive wood, documentation of his sins spreading like a stain.
“Is your name Archer Devlin?” My voice came out steady despite the way my hands shook. “Are you the CEO of Devlin Holdings?”
He didn’t answer, just looked at me like he’d been waiting for this moment and dreading it in equal measure.
“Answer me.” The steadiness was gone now, replaced by something raw. “Was Sunset Park your project ten years ago?”
“Yes.” The word came out quiet. “To all of it. Yes.”
The confirmation hit me like a blow even though I’d known, had spent all night staring at the evidence. But hearing him say it made it real in a way the documents hadn’t.
“When did you know?” I asked. “When did you figure out who I was?”
“After we reconnected. I found out and I should have told you immediately, I know that. I was trying to fix things first, trying to?—”
“Fix things?” I laughed, and the sound came out wrong, broken. “You were trying to fix things? Before what? Before I found out? Before you had to face what you’d done?”
He moved toward me but I stepped back fast enough that I nearly hit the door.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice came out hard. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
