The vampire in the corner office

What he choose

Damon came for them first.

It happened at Voss Tower, two nights later, under cover of a late board meeting Adrian had called specifically to draw him out. Mia was in the office going over Elena's files one final time when the door opened and Damon walked in alone, smiling that same shark's smile, a security override badge in one hand.

"Working late, Ms. Bennett?"

Mia's blood went cold. "Mr. Cole. I didn't hear you—"

"That's rather the point of overriding a badge system." He stepped closer, and Mia noticed, too late, the gun at his hip, half-hidden by his jacket. "I'll need whatever you've found. Quietly, if possible. Adrian doesn't need another tragedy."

"You mean like Elena."

Something flickered across Damon's face — not guilt, Mia realized. Irritation, like she'd brought up an old inconvenience.

"Elena was going to destroy nine years of work over a rounding error she blew wildly out of proportion," Damon said. "I did what was necessary. I'll do it again if I have to."

Mia's fingers tightened around the USB drive in her pocket.

For the first time since she'd started investigating Elena's death, the pieces seemed to settle into place. The missing files. The altered accounts. The strange gaps in the company's records. Damon hadn't just known what happened to Elena. He had been there, and he'd spent four years making sure nobody could prove it.

"You killed her," Mia said quietly.

Damon's smile disappeared.

"Careful."

"You murdered her because she found out."

"She was going to take everything from me."

"No," Mia said. "She was going to expose you."

The silence that followed felt heavier than the room itself.

Damon reached for his gun.

"You won't get the chance."

Adrian's voice, from the doorway, was quiet in the way that precedes storms.

Damon turned, and for one instant Mia saw real fear cross his face — the fear of a man remembering, all at once, exactly what his business partner actually was.

"Adrian. This isn't—"

"Four years," Adrian said, crossing the room with terrible, controlled speed, "I mourned a woman you murdered over a spreadsheet. Four years I let myself believe it was an accident, because the alternative was unbearable." His eyes had gone fully amber now, ancient and furious. "You will not touch her."

Damon raised the gun. It didn't matter — Marcus was already in the doorway behind him, security team flooding the hall, and in the chaos that followed, the gun went off once, wide, shattering the window instead of anyone in the room, before Damon was wrestled to the ground by three men who'd clearly been waiting for exactly this moment.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Mia could hear her own breathing. Her hands were trembling so badly she couldn't close them properly.

Then Adrian was in front of her.

He checked her face, her shoulders, her arms, as though he needed to make certain she was really standing there.

"Are you hurt?"

She shook her head.

"No."

Only then did some of the tension leave him.

When it was over, Mia was shaking, but unharmed, Adrian's arms around her, his voice low in her ear.

"I have you," he said. "I have you. You're safe."

"You came," she said into his chest. "You actually came."

"I told you," Adrian murmured. "I stopped letting myself want things four years ago. But I never stopped wanting to protect what mattered." He pulled back just enough to look at her. "You matter, Mia. More than I know how to say."

She looked at him for a moment, still trying to process everything that had happened.

"You were really going to come for me, weren't you?"

His expression softened.

"Every time."

And somehow, those two words frightened her less than they comforted her.

For the first time, Mia understood that Adrian hadn't been keeping his distance because he didn't care. He had been afraid that caring would give the world another person to take from him.

This time, he had chosen differently