SOLD HIS CONTRACT WIFE

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Chapter 2

The boardroom smelled like new carpet.

Six people stood up when Damian walked in. Nobody stood up for me not in this life, not yet but I didn't let it bother me. I took the seat next to him and folded my hands on the table like I had nothing to hide.

Old habits came back fast. I counted the exits without meaning to. Two doors, one stairwell down the hall. I noticed the guard outside new, not very experienced, easy to get past if it came to that.

I hated that my body still remembered how to do this.

I hated more that it might save my life again.

"Load-bearing revisions on the east wing are finalized," one of the engineers said, sliding a printout across the table. "We're two weeks ahead of schedule."

"It'll hold," I said, before I could stop myself.

Everyone looked at me.

"The revised calculations account for it," I added.

"You already reviewed them?" the engineer asked. "I only sent the final draft this morning."

"I just have a good feel for where the numbers usually land." Not really a lie. I'd built half this tower in my head, a year and a half before any of them would.

Nobody questioned it. The meeting moved on to hiring.

"Marcus Vale," the HR director said, flipping a page. "Strong résumé. Comes highly recommended. Interview's this afternoon."

My pen stopped.

I went still. Not from fear. From practice. I'd watched Marcus stand over us with a gun in his hand, calm as anything, and I'd learned it from him.

Under the table, my nails bit into my palm.

Marcus Vale. The man who smiled at my funeral. Who shook Damian's hand with my blood still under his fingernails. Who talked about an empire like I'd just been a line item in his plan.

"Who recommended him?" I kept it easy, like I was only making conversation.

The HR director checked her notes. "A former colleague of one of the board members. Strong background in operations."

"Which board member?"

"Does it matter?" Damian asked, not unkindly, reaching for his coffee. "We vet everyone the same way, no matter who sends them."

"It matters if the recommendation is doing some of the vetting for us."

He grinned like I'd told a joke and carried on with the meeting.

Then his hand slid over mine under the table. Warm, and so familiar it hurt. My ribs burned right where the bullet went in. He had no idea that hand was the last thing I felt before I died. Some small, stupid part of me still leaned into it anyway.

"I'm fine," I said. "Long morning."

I reached for my water, giving myself two seconds to steady out, then asked, as casually as I could, "Has he started yet? Vale."

"Interview's this afternoon," the coordinator said. "First step before an offer goes out."

Not yet. A window. A few hours before the man who ended my life walked through the door thinking he'd already won.

After the meeting broke up, Damian caught my wrist before I could walk off.

"You went somewhere for a second in there."

"I'm allowed to think about the wedding during a meeting. It's supposed to be distracting."

"You've never once let the wedding distract you from a load calculation." He said it lightly, but kept looking at me a second too long. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." I kissed his cheek so he wouldn't ask again. "Go take your call. I'll catch up."

I waited until he was down the hall, phone to his ear, then took the back stairs to the personnel records room. No cameras in there yet one of a hundred little gaps I used to fix without thinking twice. Today, I was grateful for all of them.

The place stank of dust and old toner. Every drawer jammed. I had to wrench them open one at a time.

I went straight for the V's.

Vale, Marcus.

The folder was thin. Too thin for a man who'd one day run half the city's hidden accounts and know exactly how to bury the money.

I laid it open and went through it the way I used to go through a set of drawings, looking for the one mistake nobody else had caught.

Three previous jobs. Two I recognized normal consulting firms. The third one stopped me cold.

Kessler Logistics Group.

I used to know that company's records inside and out, in another life. Every vendor, every account, every fake company Damian's business ever touched.

Kessler Logistics Group didn't exist. Not now, not ever, not anywhere in six years of records I used to have memorized.

A fake job. A made-up history. Marcus hadn't just lied on a résumé someone built him, piece by piece, to be exactly convincing enough to walk through Damian's door and be trusted.

My hands weren't steady as I got to the last page. A small folded note fell out and hit the floor. I picked it up carefully.

Handwriting. Not typed. Six words, pressed hard enough into the paper that it almost tore.

The architect must disappear first.

My breath caught, right where the bullet had hit me. Architect that was Damian's private name for me. He used it long before he ever called me his fiancée. Only a few people had ever heard him say it. None of them worked here, six days before our wedding.

Someone knew that word before any of this had happened. Someone planned around it. Built a man to carry it out. And waited.

Marcus didn't kill me because he wanted to. He was told to.

I read the note again, memorizing the handwriting the same way I used to memorize load numbers. Not because I wanted to remember it. Because I'd need it later, with no way to prove any of this to anyone who hadn't already died once to understand it.

The door opened behind me.

"I didn't expect to find you here."

Damian. Standing right in the doorway.

I crushed the note in my fist, so tight my knuckles turned white.

Run it through ZeroGPT again and send me anything still highlighted. When it's clear, send me Chapter 3's scan next.