“He told me you were partners with his father.”
“Partners.” Victor laughed — dry and humorless. “His father was a drunk and a brute, but he understood loyalty. When Sebastian killed him?—”
“Sebastian didn’t kill anyone.”
“Didn’t he?” Victor’s eyes glittered with the specific light of a man who had been carrying something for a very long time and had finally found someone to put it down in front of. “The old man died in a house fire three weeks after Sebastian left for college. Electrical fault, they said. Very convenient.”
My stomach lurched. “That’s a serious accusation.”
“It’s the truth. Sebastian Laurent built his empire on his father’s ashes — literally. He took the insurance money, leveraged it into real estate, and spent the next two decades systematically destroying everyone who knew what he really was.”
“You have proof of this?”
Victor smiled. “I have something better. I have documentation of every crime Sebastian committed on his way to the top. Bribes paid. Inspectors bought. Regulationscircumvented.” He patted the briefcase. “Everything you need to complete your story. The full picture.”
I looked at the briefcase.
The reporter in me wanted it with an urgency that was almost physical — the pull of a complete story, the final piece that would make everything I’d built bulletproof. I felt it the way I’d always felt the gravity of a good lead, a clean source, a document that said exactly what needed to be said.
I looked at it and didn’t move.
“Why would you give me this?” I asked.
“Because I’m dying.” He said it casually. “Cancer. Six months, maybe less. I’d rather see Sebastian Laurent fall than protect my own legacy at this point.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“Just your promise that you’ll use it. All of it. No holding back to protect your lover.”
The word landed like a slap. “Sebastian isn’t?—”
“Please.” Victor’s lip curled. “I’ve had people watching you for weeks. I know exactly what Sebastian Laurent is to you. The question is whether your integrity matters more than your heart.”
I stood in that rusting cathedral of a factory floor, the weight of the choice pressing down on me with the specific gravity of a decision that would define everything that came after it.
Victor Corsetti was offering me everything. The complete story. The definitive takedown. Evidence that could destroy Sebastian not just professionally but personally — accusations of arson, patricide, decades of crimes buried beneath the empire.
All I had to do was reach for it.
I thought about what Victor had said. The old man died in a house fire. The words sat in my chest with a cold weight I couldn’t yet categorize — not belief, not disbelief, but the specific unease of an accusation that needed to be examined rather thandismissed. I was a journalist. I didn’t dismiss things. I followed them.
But not like this. Not as someone else’s weapon.
I pulled my hand back.
“No.”
The smile vanished. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I don’t know what’s in that briefcase, but I know that you’ve been orchestrating a campaign of sabotage against Laurent Enterprises for years. You planted Richard Hartley inside his company. You fed him information to undermine Sebastian’s projects. Everything you’re offering me is tainted by your vendetta.”
“The evidence is real?—”
“Maybe. But I won’t be your weapon.” I stepped back toward the door. “I’m a journalist, not an assassin. If there’s a story about Sebastian’s past, I’ll find it my own way. On my terms. Not yours.”
Victor’s face contorted with the specific fury of a man who had spent years arranging a moment only to watch it refuse to happen. “You stupid girl. You think he’ll thank you for this? Sebastian Laurent doesn’t love — he possesses. He controls. The moment you become inconvenient, he’ll destroy you like he destroys everyone.”
“Maybe.” I kept moving, my heart hammering in a way I refused to let reach my face. “But that’s my choice to make. Not yours.”
