I picked up my messenger bag and pulled out the stack of financial documents Marco had sent.
“Then let’s get to work.”
We spent the next three hours comparing evidence while the morning light slowly shifted across the office windowsand empty coffee cups multiplied across the desk. His files confirmed what mine suggested: Richard Hartley had been Victor’s inside man from the beginning, systematically undermining Laurent Enterprises while skimming profits for himself. The Lakefront project was just the most visible symptom of a cancer that had been growing for years.
By noon, we had enough to bury both of them.
“I’ll need access to your original documents,” I said, making notes on my laptop. “Verified copies, not summaries. And I want to interview the contractors who were pressured to use substandard materials.”
“Arranged. Daniel’s already reaching out.”
“I’ll also need a statement from you. On the record.”
Sebastian nodded slowly. “What do you want me to say?”
I looked up from my screen. “The truth. Whatever that looks like.”
His phone buzzed — Daniel with an update on his mother’s new facility. I watched him read the message, watched the tension in his shoulders ease slightly.
“She’s safe,” he said. “For now.”
“Good.”
He set the phone down, and something in his expression shifted — the operational mode giving way to something quieter. “Em.”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever happens when this story breaks — whatever it costs me — I need you to know something.”
I waited.
“You’re mine,” he said quietly. The words landed differently than they would have a week ago. Not possessive. Not controlling. Just certain, the way true things were certain. “Not because I own you or can protect you or have any right to claimyou. But because you chose to stand here, with me, knowing exactly what you were getting into.”
My throat tightened. “Sebastian?—”
“I know it’s not enough. I know I haven’t earned it yet. But I will.” His eyes held mine. “I will.”
The declaration settled into the space between us like a promise he intended to keep.
I saved my document, closed my laptop, and stood.
“Then let’s give Victor Corsetti something to worry about.”
Sebastian smiled — really smiled, for the first time since I’d walked through his door.
“That,” he said, “I can definitely do.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sebastian “Bash” Laurent
The report went live at 6:47 AM.
I watched it happen from the windows of my office, coffee untouched on my desk, phone buzzing with notifications I wasn’t reading. Daniel had fielded thirty-two calls before eight o’clock. My legal team was assembling in the conference room down the hall. The board wanted an emergency session by noon.
None of it mattered as much as the byline.
Emilia Rivera. And the truth she had chosen to print — all of it, exactly as it was, without softening the edges or protecting the man at the center of it. She’d done exactly what she’d promised. Exposed Richard Hartley’s corruption, traced the money to Victor Corsetti’s offshore accounts, laid bare the rot festering inside my own company with the surgical precision of someone who had spent weeks understanding exactly where to cut.
