I exhale, something tight in my chest loosening just a little.
“Hold that thought,” I murmur to Sylvester. “Let me take her upstairs.”
Sylvester takes one look at her sleeping form and nods, his expression softer than he’d ever admit. “Okay.”
I carry Vivian into our suite, the room dim and quiet. Laying her on the bed feels strangely intimate, like placing something fragile where nothing should ever hurt it again. I pull the sheets up over her, smoothing them over her shoulder. Then, without thinking, I lean down and kiss her forehead—soft, quick, but real.
I pull back sharply, breath uneven, and force myself out of the room.
“Sebastian just sent something,” Sylvester says the moment I step back into the living room. His tone is urgent—no hesitation, no softness left.
“What is it?” I move fast, crossing the room in a few long strides.
He tilts the screen toward me.
CCTV footage fills the display—grainy, timestamped. A man walks into the bank where the fake accounts were created. The moment his face comes into view, everything inside me freezes.
No.
Not him.
Sylvester glances at me. “You recognize him.”
I don’t answer. Can’t.
Because I do recognize him—too well. Someone from the old-money circle. Someone who once shook my hand in boardrooms and conducted perfectly legitimate business with my company. Someone who was supposed to be gone…removed from the chessboard years ago.
Yet here he is, alive, active, and walking straight into the heart of the scheme designed to destroy us.
My pulse pounds. The enemy isn’t the Kovals alone. It’s someone much closer. Someone who knows exactly where to put the knife.
Chapter 18 – Vivian
I wake to the soft thrum of rain against the windows and the low murmur of voices somewhere outside the room. For a moment, I forget where I am—then Dimitri’s scent on the sheets hits me, warm and sharp, and the memory snaps back into place.
The living room. The files. His hand closing around mine.
And then…I fell asleep. Typical.
I sit up slowly. The clock on the bedside table blinks 2:07 a.m.
Great. I must have knocked out right on the couch like some exhausted intern. I rub my eyes, stifling a yawn as I slide off the bed. My feet touch the cold floor, grounding me, and I notice Dimitri’s coat draped over a chair.
He carried me here.
The thought unsettles something deep in my chest, something I’m not ready to name.
I grab the coat, wrap it around myself like armor, and push open the bedroom door.
The hallway is dim. Quiet. Except for the low, urgent rumble of conversation drifting from the living room.
I follow it.
As I step into the doorway, I freeze.
Sylvester and Dimitri are hunched over the glowing screen watching CCTV footage.
On it, a tall, gray-haired man stands at a bank counter, speaking calmly to a teller as if he owns the place.
