Azeelia Cole
The notification chimed less than twenty minutes after I clicked send.
Meeting confirmed. 1:00 PM today. Le Petit Oiseau, private dining room.
Victor Salvatore had responded directly from his personal office account, signed with a warm note offering his deepest condolences for Ethan’s tragic passing. It was quick, polite, and completely unexpected. A man of his stature should have ignored a cold email from a beat reporter, or routed it through a wall of corporate lawyers.
Instead, he agreed to sit down with me immediately.
My stomach twisted with nervous anticipation. Gabriel had explicitly warned me not to touch this name, but Gabriel was also keeping half the puzzle locked behind his stone walls. If I wanted the truth, I had to be willing to play with fire.
I changed i
