Chapter Ten: Glass Walls Break Too
779 Words
Amara didn’t wait until morning.
She walked into Vale International just past midnight, dressed in black jeans, boots, and the kind of rage you don’t learn — you inherit. Security barely blinked when she flashed her old clearance badge. Nobody questioned the woman who carried herself like she still belonged there.
Because technically, she did.
Lucien’s private floor was dim, his glass-walled office glowing with that cold white light that always made it feel like morning came early here.
She didn’t knock.
He looked up from his desk, startled but not surprised. “I figured it’d be you.”
Amara stepped inside. “Don’t play calm now.”
He rose slowly, one hand braced on the desk. “Something happened.”
“I spoke to my father.”
Lucien's jaw flexed.
“He told me about the 2019 Valencia fund,” she said. “The one scrubbed from records. The one your legal team buried under three layers of offshore accounts and silence.”
Lucien didn’t speak.
“Tell me he’s lying, Lucien.”
Still, nothing.
“Tell me!”
He moved around the desk, slow and deliberate. “Your father was laundering money through that fund. High-level. Global players. I knew if it leaked, it would torch everything.”
“So you bought the silence.”
“I protected the company.”
“You protected your empire,” she snapped. “You used me to keep that secret. My name. My access. My silence.”
Lucien exhaled hard, looking suddenly very, very tired. “I never used you.”
“You kept me close.”
“I wanted you close.”
“That’s not the same thing,” she whispered. “You don’t get to want someone while feeding off what they’re worth.”
He moved closer. “Amara…”
“No.” She backed up. “You don’t get to say my name like that. Like it still means something to you.”
“I never stopped caring—”
“You never started with the truth!”
The air cracked between them. The glass walls of the office reflected two people who no longer recognized themselves. The man in the dark suit with the world in his hands, and the woman with her back against the wall, finally seeing everything clearly.
Lucien shoved a hand through his hair. “I didn’t plan for any of this. Not you. Not this. I was rebuilding a company from ashes. And then you walked in like a wildfire.”
She blinked. “That’s what I am to you? A wildfire?”
“No,” he said, softer now. “You're the thing I couldn’t contain. Couldn’t control. And somewhere between cleaning up your father’s mess and saving mine… I forgot how to tell you the truth.”
Amara looked down, hands trembling. “You still haven’t.”
He stepped forward again, close now, voice low. “I’m not proud of what I did, but I never lied about what I felt. That night at the cabin—”
“That night was real,” she cut in. “Which is why it hurts like hell.”
Lucien didn’t touch her.
He just stood there, looking at her like if he blinked, she’d vanish.
“Do you want revenge?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I want the truth.”
“Then here it is.” He swallowed hard. “Your father hid more than just dirty money. He built entire shadow accounts connected to shell corporations in Spain, Dubai, and Geneva. One of those corporations? Was listed under your name. Your future was tied to it whether you knew it or not.”
Amara’s chest caved in.
“You weren’t just a witness,” Lucien added. “You were leverage.”
She sat down slowly, like her knees had finally given out.
“I tried to erase the trail,” he continued. “Not to manipulate you—but to free you from it. I didn’t want you walking around with a ticking time bomb under your feet.”
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them back. “So this was never just about us.”
Lucien crouched beside her. “It started that way. It didn’t stay that way.”
She looked at him, really looked—saw the guilt, the exhaustion, and something else too. Fear. Not of losing the company. But of losing her.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she whispered.
“I’ll earn it,” he said, voice rough. “One truth at a time.”
She didn’t answer.
But she didn’t walk out either.
- Writer
