Chapter two
1193 Words
Free Fall Is Still Movement
I don’t leave the rooftop the way people expect women to leave moments like that.
There’s no dramatic sprint for the elevator. No tears streaking down my face. No cinematic pause where I look back and whisper something poetic.
I walk.
Heels steady. Spine straight. Head high.
Every step is an act of violence against the version of me they both thought they owned.
Behind me, I hear Julian say my name.
Once.
Twice.
I don’t turn.
The elevator doors slide open like nothing catastrophic just happened on the thirty-seventh floor of a billionaire’s life. I step in, press **G**, and watch the doors close on two men who once defined entire chapters of me.
My reflection stares back from the mirrored walls.
She looks… composed.
That scares me more than if I were shaking.
Because this—this stillness—means something has snapped cleanly, not cracked.
My phone buzzes again.
Ms. Thorne.
Then another notification.
Then another.
I silence it.
If I look now, I might break. And I don’t want to break in a box suspended between floors. I want answers. I want bloodless truth. I want to dismantle something.
The elevator dings.
The lobby smells like polished marble and money. A doorman smiles at me, professional, oblivious.
“Good evening, Ms. Rossi.”
“Good evening,” I say, because rage has manners now.
Outside, the city hits me full-force—horns, laughter, sirens, life moving on with obscene enthusiasm. I stand on the sidewalk for a moment, breathing in exhaust and cold air, grounding myself in the fact that I am still here.
Then I call a car.
My apartment feels wrong when I get back.
Too quiet. Too clean. Too curated.
Julian’s fingerprints are everywhere—subtle things I never noticed before. The smart lighting he insisted on installing. The wine he stocked because “you never know when you’ll need a good Bordeaux.” The damn orchid that somehow never dies.
I kick off my heels and walk straight to the kitchen.
I don’t pour wine.
I make coffee.
If I’m going to unravel my life, I want to be awake for it.
Laptop open. Phone face down. I sit at the island and finally return Ms. Thorne’s call.
“Sienna,” she answers immediately. “I was hoping you’d—”
“Start from the beginning,” I say. “Slow. Precise. No legal cushioning.”
There’s a pause. Then respect clicks into place.
“During due diligence, we ran a forensic audit on all data transfers connected to Phoenix Creative during the Chloe incident. One server flagged anomalous outbound packets. They were encrypted using Vance International’s highest-level executive authorization.”
My grip tightens around the mug.
“Julian told me he was investigating,” I say.
“Yes. He disclosed that.”
“Then why are you calling me like this is a bomb?”
“Because the packets weren’t just investigative,” she says carefully. “They were communicative.”
I close my eyes.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning information didn’t just go out and come back. It went out… and stayed active.”
My chest feels hollow.
“Who authorized it?”
A beat.
“Julian.”
Of course he did.
“Is that illegal?” I ask.
“It’s… strategic,” she replies. “And highly unethical given your personal involvement.”
I laugh softly. “You’re a lawyer. That was almost emotional.”
“Sienna,” she says, lowering her voice, “if you want to proceed with the merger, I need full disclosure from you. And if you don’t—”
“I don’t,” I say immediately.
Silence.
“I want copies of everything,” I continue. “Every transfer. Every timestamp. Every authorization trail.”
Another pause. Then, “I’ll send what I can.”
“Not what you can,” I correct. “What exists.”
When the call ends, I sit there staring at my dark screen, the coffee untouched.
Adrian’s words echo, uninvited.
He loves control.
I push the thought away.
No. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t excuse men because another man once lied worse.
I open my laptop and do something I haven’t done in a long time.
I dig.
The first thing I learn is that power leaves patterns.
Julian is meticulous—almost obsessive—in public. But private systems? He delegates. He trusts. He assumes loyalty is a renewable resource.
It isn’t.
By 3 a.m., my eyes burn and my kitchen looks like a conspiracy theorist’s lair—screens open, notes scribbled, timelines sketched.
By 4 a.m., something ugly starts to form.
The data packets don’t align with Chloe’s initial attack.
They predate it.
By days.
I sit back slowly.
“Before,” I whisper. “You moved before she did.”
I scroll again.
Another name appears in a financial sub-ledger I shouldn’t have access to.
E. Vance Trust
My stomach drops.
Elara.
Cold. Sharp. Smiling like she was always ten moves ahead and bored by the game.
Memories surface—her polite disdain, her passive-aggressive comments, the way she looked at me like I was a phase Adrian would outgrow.
I hear Julian’s voice in my head.
We are not the same man.
No.
But you share a playbook.
My phone lights up.
A message from Julian.
We need to talk. Please.
I don’t reply.
Instead, I do something reckless.
I call Leo Thorne.
It rings twice.
“Sienna,” he says. No surprise. Like he knew this call was inevitable. “It’s four in the morning. This better be good.”
“I think I’m being lied to on a corporate scale,” I say. “And possibly emotionally weaponized.”
A pause. Then, “Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he says. “Because I’m about to be very inconvenient.”
“I need an independent investigation,” I continue. “Off the books. No Vance interference.”
“Mm,” he hums. “You’re finally asking the right way.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes,” he says. “But you’re not going to like what we find.”
I smile grimly. “I don’t like what I already know.”
“Send me everything,” Leo says. “And Sienna?”
“Yes?”
“If you’re wrong, I’ll tell you. If you’re right—” He exhales. “—you don’t confront him alone.”
“I already did,” I say softly.
He swears.
“Then congratulations,” he replies. “You just walked off a cliff without checking for water.”
I look at the city beginning to pale with dawn.
“Free fall is still movement,” I say.
He snorts. “I’m going to regret liking you.”
The call ends.
I close my laptop and finally let myself feel it.
Not sadness.
Not love.
Betrayal, yes—but sharpened into something cleaner.
Resolve.
Julian thought breaking me would make me moldable.
He forgot one thing.
I build for a living.
And I’ve already survived demolition.
- Writer
