Bound by Contract, Owned by Hate

Documents That Change Nothing

Chapter 8

(Xander's POV)

The offices of Voss Group occupy the top three floors of the tower with views that cost more than most people earn in a lifetime.

I've never once stopped to look at them.

Today is no different.

My desk is already buried.

Legal briefs. Merger projections. A neat stack of press clippings Richard had left without comment, Smart man. He knew when silence was the better choice.

I drop into my chair and reach for the first document.

Focus. Work.

The only two things that have never let me down.

This morning they're harder to find than usual.

I know why. I don't acknowledge it.

Richard appears in the doorway. "The board wants a briefing on the Laurent merger optics. And your uncle's office called. Again."

"Push the board to Thursday," I say. "Tell Victor's office I'll respond when I'm ready."

A pause. "They said it was urgent."

"Victor always says it's urgent," I reply. "It never is."

He nods and disappears.

I turn to the press clippings.

There she is. Front page. Three separate publications.

Sophia in that emerald silk gown, her chin lifted with that smile she wore like armor.

She was magnificent.

I push the clippings aside.

The real documents are underneath.

The marriage contract, fully executed. Twelve months. Mutual benefit. Clean exit clause.

I read through it the way I read every contract, searching for places things could unravel.

There were none.

The Laurent file is next.

Thicker than it should be for a routine review. I'd requested the full history, not just financials but the deeper background. The kind most people skip because they assume clean books tell the whole story.

They never do.

I open it.

The Laurent family history was complicated. Everyone in our circles knew the broad strokes. The poison scandal a decade ago. The collapse. The recovery built almost entirely on Sophia's back after her mother vanished from public life.

What I hadn't seen were the internal documents.

Correspondence between my father and Laurent executives from fifteen years ago.

I read slowly.

Then read again.

My jaw tightened.

There were decisions in these pages my father had never mentioned to me. Pressure applied in ways that went far beyond competition. A company not just rivaling Laurent Luxe but deliberately undermining it.

The poison scandal hadn't been entirely accidental.

I sat back.

Sophia's words from this morning came back without invitation.

"Your family destroyed mine. Don't think a few orgasms erase fifteen years of blood."

I'd deflected. The way I always deflected things that asked more from me than I was ready to give.

But these documents didn't deflect.

They just sat there. Patient. Factual. Damning.

How much did she know?

And more uncomfortably, how much had been done in my family's name without my knowledge?

I closed the file.

Walked to the window I never looked out of.

Manhattan stretched below, indifferent as always.

My phone buzzed.

Victor.

I let it ring.

Victor had been my father's closest ally and my most careful problem since the funeral. Always present. Always helpful in ways that cost something I couldn't immediately calculate.

Whatever he wanted today could wait.

I returned to the desk and opened the Laurent file again.

If there was something buried here that Sophia didn't know, something that could detonate this arrangement before either of us was prepared, I needed to find it first.

Not to hide it.

I told myself that clearly.

Not to hide it. To understand it.

Victor called again.

I set the phone face down.

And kept reading.