The elevator chimed.
I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t. If I saw her face before I was ready, I’d lose whatever carefully constructed script I’d prepared. And I needed that script. Needed the words arranged in precise order, because what I was about to reveal had the power to destroy everything we’d built — however fragile, however complicated that everything was.
Her footsteps crossed the marble. Deliberate. Measured. The sound of a woman who’d walked into rooms far more hostile than this one and walked out with the story everyone else had missed.
“You’re staring at the city like it owes you money.”
Her voice landed exactly where it always did. I turned.
Emilia stood near the leather seating arrangement, arms crossed, skepticism carved into every line of her posture. Up close I noticed what the distance had hidden — the faint shadows beneath her eyes, the tight set of her shoulders, the way she held herself a little too rigidly. The smear campaign and the threats had gotten under her skin, even if she’d never admit it.
She wore dark jeans and a fitted blazer over a silk top. Professional armor. Ready for battle.
“Most of it does, actually.” I moved toward the bar, giving my hands something to do. “Drink?”
“I didn’t come here for cocktails, Sebastian.”
“No.” I poured myself a whiskey I wouldn’t drink. Set it down. “You came for the truth.”
“The whole truth.” Her eyes tracked my movements, cataloging, assessing. The journalist never stopped working,even when the woman underneath was clearly exhausted. “You promised me that last night.”
“I remember what happened last night.”
Heat flickered between us — unwanted and unavoidable. The memory of her body against mine, the sounds she’d made, the way she’d looked at me afterward like she couldn’t decide whether to run or stay.
She was still deciding. I could see it.
“Sit down.” I gestured toward the curved leather sofa. “Please.”
“I’ll stand.”
Of course she would. I almost smiled.
“Fine.” I moved to the window again, putting distance between us. Easier to excavate old wounds without her scent distracting me. “What do you want to know first?”
“Why the threats against me lead back to someone who clearly knows you. Someone with resources. Someone who wants to use me to hurt you.” She stepped closer, and I felt the shift in the room’s pressure. “Who are they, Sebastian? And why does your past matter so much that they’d burn my reputation to protect whatever secrets you’re hiding?”
I exhaled slowly. My reflection stared back at me from the glass — a man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit who’d clawed his way out of violence and poverty, only to find both waiting at his door again.
“I wasn’t always this.” I touched the window, the glass cold against my fingertips. “The suits. The empire. The control everyone assumes I was born with.”
“I know you came from nothing. Logan Square, before it gentrified. Your mother worked two jobs. Your father?—”
“My father was a monster.” I turned from the window. “You know that now. What you don’t know is who’s been waiting to use it.”
She already knew the rest. I watched her eyes confirm it — she’d held it carefully since the night I’d handed it to her, and she was holding it carefully still.
“Victor Corsetti,” I said.
Emilia’s journalist instincts flared. I watched her file the name away, already connecting dots I hadn’t given her yet.
“After my father’s jaw healed, he went back to drinking. Back to hitting. But I was gone by then — working three jobs, putting myself through community college, building something that didn’t smell like blood and bourbon. By the time I started making real money, my father had drunk himself into a grave and Victor had inherited what remained of their operation.”
“He wanted a piece of your success.”
“He wanted everything. When I refused, he started looking for leverage.” I moved to the bar, gripped the edge until my knuckles whitened. “He’s been waiting fifteen years for an opportunity to hurt me. When your investigation started connecting Laurent Enterprises to the Lakefront corruption, he saw his chance.”
“Richard Hartley.”
