I let him pull me toward the shattered window, with Gerald's envelope clutched against my chest. Behind us, sirens wail closer. The server I shot is being helped by a waitress, and part of me—the part that still remembers being the Davenport heiress who'd never fired a gun—wants to stop. Wants to help. Wants to pretend I'm still that person.
But I'm not.
I'm the woman who just shot an assassin to protect evidence of her father's murder. I'm the wife of a man who kills without hesitation. I'm the mother of a child who deserves a world where people like Matthew Ashford face consequences.
I'm done being the victim.
Sergei's SUV is where he left it, two blocks from the diner. We pile in and he floors it, tires screeching as we merge into traffic. Behind us, police cars converge on the street we just left.
"You followed me." My voice sounds distant, shocked.
"Of course I followed you." He takes a corner too fast, the SUV's weight shifting. "You think I'd let you walk into a meeting with your father's business partner alone? After everything that's happened?"
"I told you I'd be careful."
"And I told you I didn't believe you." His jaw is granite. "You were almost killed, Isabelle. If I'd been thirty seconds later?—"
"But you weren't." I reach across the console, finding his hand. His fingers are still smeared with blood, but I don't care. "You were there. Like you always are."
His grip tightens on mine. "The documents. What do they show?"
"Everything." I open the envelope, scanning pages with shaking hands. "Fifteen years of embezzlement. Tens of millions funneled through shell companies. And Dad's own notes—he was building a case. Was about to expose them when Matthew decided he had to die."
"Motive."
"Complete motive. This wasn't about the affair. This wasn't about Mother. This was about money." I look at the evidence spread across my lap—my father's handwriting, his careful documentation, his attempt to save his company from parasites."Matthew killed Dad to protect his fortune. Everything else was just cover."
"And your mother?"
"Knew about the embezzlement. Participated in it. Her signature's on half these transfers." I flip through pages, each one another nail in Catherine Davenport's coffin. "She wasn't just complicit in the affair. She was his partner. In everything."
The city blurs past the windows. My hands won't stop shaking, but it's not fear anymore.
It's rage.
"Wesley needs to see these immediately," I say. "We need copies. Backups. Multiple locations. If Matthew's willing to kill to keep this quiet?—"
"He's willing to do worse." Sergei's eyes meet mine briefly before returning to the road. "But so are we. And now we have everything we need to destroy him."
I stare at Dad's notes. His handwriting, so familiar it makes my chest ache. His meticulous mind, working to protect the company he built, the legacy he wanted to leave.
He never got to finish.
But I will.
"The gala," I say quietly. "That's when we do it. Matthew will be there. Mother, too. All of Manhattan watching."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive." I close the envelope, pressing it against my chest like armor. "Dad wanted complete annihilation. He wanted them to feel what it's like to lose everything."
I look at Sergei—blood on his hands, violence in his past, the most dangerous man I've ever known.
My husband.
My partner.
My Wolf.
