SENTENCED TO YOU

Episode 4 (Polished Venom)

For the fifth time, he checked his phone.

Still nothing. No messages. No calls.

Not the one he wanted.

The silence scraped at his composure. The absence of Emilia Fawkes lingered like a smudge on an otherwise perfect surface. She was throwing a wrench in his plan.

Michael exhaled, clipped and sharp, as he set the phone down on the black marble surface of his desk.

He tapped the side of his desk. A discreet chime sounded.

Exactly sixty seconds later, Mason entered. The head of security looked like a sermon carved from steel—black suit, grey tie, and a face that hadn’t smiled in years.

He moved like a man accustomed to bullets and billionaires. “You called, sir?”

Michael didn’t answer immediately. His eyes were fixed on the glass windows behind him, where the city stretched beneath him like a conquered territory.

Finally, he spoke.

“Have you received any calls from anyone unusual lately?”

Mason didn’t blink. “I receive calls from unknown persons daily, sir. You’ll have to be more specific, sir.”

Michael turned his gaze toward him, cold and precise. “The woman I had lunch with last week. Emilia Fawkes. Has she reached out to the team? Her lawyer? Anyone?”

“No, sir,” Mason replied evenly. “There’s been no contact.”

There was a pause. A long one. Then Michael nodded, once — sharp, deliberate.

“Do you want me to reach out to her?”

Michael shook his head. “No.”

Mason waited, silent.

Michael rose from his seat, the slow grace of the movement more commanding than if he’d shouted. “To win the game,” he said, “you never chase. You create a funnel. One choice. One path. And you wait until they know it too.”

Then, without breaking pace, he picked up the intercom.

A second later, the door clicked open, and Gina—his personal assistant—stepped in, hips swinging beneath a houndstooth pencil skirt, her heels clicking with the kind of authority reserved for people who knew they were beautiful.

“Your ten o’clock is here, sir,” she said, offering a folder with one hand and a not-quite-professional smile with the other. “These are the files you asked for.”

“I’ll be in the east office.”

She turned with a lingering glance and left.

Once the door clicked shut, Michael turned back to Mason.

The man before him wasn’t just any security chief. Mason had been recruited directly from the Veyron House — a sacred stronghold where multi-generational dynasties forged alliances over crystal flutes and ancient contracts. Only the highest pedigree of elite operatives ever passed through its ranks.

The Rourkes, of course, had always sat at its deepest table.

“I want you to contact the press,” Michael said quietly. “Start a stir around Miss Fawkes. Have them dig into her past — education, family, career, past affiliations. I want them to start making some noise.”

Mason inclined his head. “Understood.”

“Oh—and one more thing.”

He opened a drawer and removed a cream card, the kind embossed with gold trim and the Rourke family insignia pressed like a seal into old paper.

Picking up his gold Montblanc, he jotted down a few crisp lines in his heavy, deliberate script.

“Take this to the Veyron House. I’ll call ahead. They’ll grant you access.”

Mason nodded once. “Noted.”

Michael slid another card across the desk.

“And this one, you deliver to Wesley B. Directly.”

“Consider it done.”

Mason bowed his head slightly, and turned to leave.

By the time the door closed behind him, Michael had already crossed the room to the glass-paneled east office where Claudia Wesson waited.

She rose too quickly, nervous energy pulsing beneath her flawless skin. Her skirt was just short enough to signal ambition, her shirt just tight enough to say she was trying. But it was the way her eyes widened at the sight of him that gave away the truth: she had rehearsed this moment in her head for years.

“Mr. Rourke,” she said breathlessly. “It’s an honor. My name is Claudia Wesson. I—I actually applied to intern here years ago. Being here, being with you, it means so much. Thank you for the opportunity. RKP is as beautiful on the inside as I often imagined.”

Michael took her hand briefly but offered no smile. “Good,” he said, settling into the chair across from her. “Let’s not waste time.”

Claudia blinked, recovering fast. “Of course.”

“You’re the new Regulatory Officer at Ashborne & Keene, correct? You replaced Emilia Fawkes after she left?”

She chuckled, eyes flicking down demurely. “That’s putting it mildly. But yes, I did.”

Michael crossed one leg over the other and studied her.

He could see it: the way her shoulders tilted slightly toward him, the way she tried to match his rhythm, the hunger behind her compliance. She’d talk. He wouldn’t even have to ask hard.

“Awesome,” he quipped smoothly. “Because I brought you here to discuss her.”

Claudia lit up, the eagerness almost clinging to her skin. “Of course. I’d be happy to tell you whatever I can.”She nodded quickly.

Michael’s voice dropped slightly, not in volume but in tone — rich and assured.

“I don’t want whatever you can. I want everything you know.”

And just like that, the temperature in the room changed.

Claudia straightened, fingers curling delicately around the stem of her wine glass.

“And whatever I tell you will be off the record?” she asked, green eyes catching the light, searching his face for signs of intent.

Michael offered a nonchalant nod. The kind of nod that wasn’t a promise, but a warning not to mistake this meeting for a confession booth.

She took it as reassurance anyway.

“I’ll be honest,” Claudia said, her voice softening, almost purring now. “Emilia Fawkes joined Ash & K about three years ago. Fresh out of uni, if I recall. She was sharp—brilliant, even. I’ll give her that. Could sniff out oversight like a bloodhound, call out inconsistencies in a heartbeat. Some of the girls practically idolized her.”

She smiled thinly, leaning into the backrest, her tone flattening with something sour.

“But I always knew the truth. That she was an entitled snob. And this is just my personal take.”

Michael said nothing, only studied her with the quiet, clinical attention of someone evaluating whether the subject in front of him was useful… or just loud.

Claudia continued, encouraged by his silence. “Thing is, even with that temper and that attitude, the firm tolerated her. More than tolerated. Promoted her.”

She paused, swirling her wine gently, letting the suspense stretch.

“Then the rumors started.”

Michael’s brow tightened. “What rumors?”

“Oh, the usual,” she said, too quickly. “Sleeping her way to the top. I mean—just look at the pattern. She was barely two years in and already brushing elbows with the Executive Director. I spotted them once at dinner—intimate setting, lots of smiles. Wasn’t a work meeting, I can tell you that.”

She took another sip of wine, legs crossing slowly, deliberately.

“And when that got stale, she moved on to someone a bit more… powerful.” She tilted her head slightly, watching his face. “Caleb Monroe. That dashing executive from your firm. The one with the socialite mother and a yacht named after his dog.”

Michael’s expression didn’t shift, but something in his posture recalibrated—just enough to indicate she had touched on a piece of real estate in his mental map.

“Go on.”

“She fed him information. Insider reports. Nothing proven, but I knew that relationship was headed for the rocks. And now everybody knows it.” Her tone dripped with suggestion now, thick with the venom of envy. “She handed him confidential documents like it was pillow talk. She was reckless, unprofessional. Knew what she wanted, and didn’t care what she had to wreck to get there.”

There it was.

Not intel. Not truth. Resentment.

It uncurled like smoke from her every word—resentment thick and old, wearing a silk blouse and too much perfume.

Michael leaned back in his seat, voice deceptively light.

“You don’t like Miss Fawkes, do you?”

Claudia laughed, awkwardly at first, then self-consciously. “Like? Dear Lord, no, I mean… she just—she isn’t very likable. If you’ve met her, you’d know. She’s impulsive, sharp-tongued, combative. Always five seconds from a meltdown. And oh my, she has no filter whatsoever. No poise. But the men…” Her voice faltered, eyes flicking to Michael. “They always liked her.”

Having met the woman in question, he could concede that some of Claudia’s claims weren’t entirely unfounded. Emilia was sharp-tongued, defiant, and carried a kind of fire most would find abrasive.

But unlike Claudia, he didn’t write those traits off as flaws. Not completely, not when they intrigued him.

Her cheeks flushed, and she shifted in her seat, tone adjusting like a malfunctioning dial. “That’s not to say she wasn’t talented. She was. Intellectually gifted. But raw. Undisciplined. Lacking tact. I suppose she could be bearable if she worked on her personality—a whole lot. She might have inherited some of her wild ways.”

Michael’s silence was now weighted, pressuring her to continue.

Her lips curled faintly. “Her father was a bit of a… riff raff. Street-wise. Definitely not our kind of people. I hear her mother is different. And her brother’s respectable. But personally? I’d think twice before aligning with that family. Professionally or otherwise.”

Michael studied her.

There was nothing elegant about the way she dismantled Emilia. No precision. Just the bitterness of a woman who couldn’t figure out why the world spun for someone else.

He found it disgusting.

Not because she was blowing things out of proportion—because she enjoyed it.

“Safe to say, you don’t think she was set up in the Verizon case?”

Claudia snorted. “Hardly. I think she earned every whisper. Got paid in her own coins.”

Michael’s tone turned razor-clean. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Claudia hesitated—then brightened, too eagerly.

“Well… I was hoping you might have an opening in Corporate Affairs. Not for me. For my sister. Huge fan of yours, sir. It would mean the world for her to work here.”

A fan? What am I, a talk show host?

Michael didn’t roll his eyes, but his internal sneer was sharp enough to leave an imprint of dismissal on his face.

“I’m sure,” he said flatly. “We’ll discuss that another time.”

He uncrossed his legs and rose fluidly—signaling the end of the conversation. “That will be all.”

“Oh,” she blinked, startled by his sudden shift. “Of course. Thank you again for meeting with me. I know you’re very busy. It was… it was truly an honor.”

Michael moved to the door, opened it.

Claudia rose, clutching her handbag, still hoping for a redeeming smile.

“I hope I’ve been helpful, Mr. Rourke. Should you need anything else… I’d be happy to be of service.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She exited, heels clicking down the hall, perfume trailing harshly as she walked.

Michael closed the door gently behind her.

And for a moment, just one… he stood in the silence and let the disgust settle in.

Not for Emilia.

But for the world that made women like Claudia feel powerful by tearing other women apart.