Beneath The Billionaire's lies.

Chapter Six: Whispers in the Boardroom

The invitation came wrapped in gold-embossed vellum, sealed with a wax insignia Elena didn’t recognize.

But Jaxon did.

“This is from the Dominion Circle,” he said, flipping it over with a frown. “It’s not just a charity gala—it’s a front. Only the wealthiest, most influential stakeholders get invited. CEOs, politicians, offshore banking elites.”

“And the man with the crescent tattoo?” Elena asked.

Jaxon nodded slowly. “If he's part of the inner ring, he’ll be there.”

Adrian stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of Jaxon’s penthouse, arms crossed. “Then we need to go in with a plan. You’ll be watched, Elena. Maybe not by him directly, but his people. They’ll want to know how much you know.”

Elena tapped her nails against the marble counter, her mind racing. “Then I’ll give them something to see—an heiress finally ready to return to the social scene, with her billionaire fiancé at her side.”

Jaxon looked over sharply.

“You want to play fiancée?” he asked.

She met his gaze without flinching. “You asked if I trusted you. Now I need to ask the same of you. Can you play the part convincingly enough to get me inside?”

A pause.

Then Jaxon smirked. “I don’t do halfway, Elena.”

---

The gala was held at The Orpheum Club, a neo-Gothic cathedral converted into a private estate for the elite. Its marble staircases glittered beneath crystal chandeliers, and every guest sparkled with calculated perfection.

Elena entered on Jaxon’s arm, dressed in a fitted black velvet gown that clung to her curves and revealed just enough to command attention. A single blood-red sapphire pendant hung from her neck—the only color in her outfit.

Heads turned.

Cameras clicked, even though the event was supposed to be media-free.

Whispers followed her.

“Is that Elena Waverly?”

“I thought she disappeared.”

“She’s back—with Jaxon Cade.”

“Elena,” Jaxon murmured beside her as they entered the ballroom, “you’re making an entrance even I’d be jealous of.”

“Good,” she whispered back. “Let them talk.”

They were ushered to a private table near the orchestra, where wine flowed like water and servers moved like shadows. It was opulence polished to a blade’s edge.

Adrian had given her a tiny earpiece, hidden behind a wave of auburn hair.

“Just say the word,” his voice crackled softly. “I’ve hacked the guest list. I’ll ping you if I find anyone linked to the flash drive.”

Elena nodded subtly.

Across the room, she caught sight of Cameron Voss, a man her father once called “too clean to trust.” He smiled at her from behind a flute of champagne, his gold cufflinks gleaming under the lights.

Behind him stood a figure in the shadows.

A tall man with a silver cuff and an unmistakable tattoo peeking from beneath it.

The crescent.

Her breath caught—but she didn’t look away.

He was real.

Not a ghost. Not a memory.

He was watching her. Studying.

And then, almost imperceptibly, he smiled.

It wasn’t warm.

It was a warning.

“Elena,” Adrian said through her earpiece, urgency in his voice, “he’s not just part of the consortium. He funds it. His name is Samuel Roarke. Offshore banker. Discreet investor in surveillance tech and… mercenary groups.”

Elena turned slightly, pretending to adjust her pendant. “Does he know who I am?”

“Absolutely,” Adrian said. “But he’s not running. He wants you to come to him. Be careful.”

As if summoned by her defiance, Samuel Roarke stepped forward from the shadows and began weaving through the crowd toward her.

Jaxon saw him too. His hand subtly slid around her waist.

“He’s coming,” Elena whispered.

“Smile,” Jaxon said through gritted teeth. “And don’t show fear.”

As Roarke reached them, his voice was like silk dipped in poison.

“Miss Waverly. Or should I say… Miss Thorn in My Side?”

He extended his hand.

Elena placed hers in it—cool, steady, calculated.

“Mr. Roarke. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

His smile widened. “Oh, but I expected you. You wear your father’s fire in your eyes.”

“And you wear his blood on your hands,” she replied, just loud enough for him to hear.

His eyes glittered. “Careful, my dear. Fire consumes, even the one who holds it.”

Before she could respond, a server passed between them, and Roarke vanished into the crowd.

“Elena,” Adrian said quickly in her ear, “get out of there. I just intercepted a signal—he’s activated facial tracking across the room. He knows who you’re here with. You’ve got ten minutes before your faces are tagged and sent to someone dangerous.”

Elena turned to Jaxon. “Time to leave?”

He nodded, offering her his arm again.

But as they walked toward the exit, a hand brushed Elena’s shoulder.

A woman—elegant, older, eyes sharp as glass—slipped something into her clutch and whispered:

> “If you want to save your friend… come alone to the observatory at midnight.”

Then she melted into the crowd.

Jaxon leaned in. “What was that?”

Elena’s fingers trembled as she opened the clutch and saw what had been slipped inside:

A photo.

Camilla.

Blindfolded. Alive.

And a small card with a location and a time.

She looked up at Jaxon.

“I’m going alone,” she said.

His face went cold. “The hell you are.”

“Elena, be serious,” Jaxon hissed as they stepped through the marble arches of the gala exit, now outside in the chill of midnight air. The driver opened the door of the black town car, but she didn’t move to enter.

“I’m not arguing,” she said flatly, her eyes fixed on the skyline. “If I don’t go, they’ll kill Camilla.”

“You don’t know that—”

“I do,” she snapped, turning to him. “Because they left her picture, blindfolded and shaking. That woman knew my name. She knew where to find me. They’ve been watching us.”

Jaxon ran his hand through his hair, clearly battling fury and fear. “I won’t let you go alone.”

“You can’t come,” she insisted. “If you do, they’ll vanish before I even get close. Adrian will track me from the earpiece.”

From the other side of the car, Adrian’s voice came through a concealed speaker: “I’m not thrilled about this either, but she’s right. If we want intel, we can’t spook them. I’ll patch into traffic cameras and the observatory’s security grid.”

Jaxon clenched his jaw.

“I’ll wait nearby,” he said finally. “If you’re not out in twenty minutes, I’m coming in, guns blazing.”

Elena reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Twenty minutes.”

He didn’t let go.

“Elena,” he said softly, his voice low and raw, “don’t be reckless. Not for me. Not for Camilla. Promise me you’ll come back.”

Her gaze held his. “I don’t break promises.”

---

The observatory sat high on the cliffs overlooking the city—a quiet, haunting silhouette bathed in moonlight. Elena moved silently past the rusting gates, her heels crunching on gravel.

It was eerily still.

Inside, the air was cold and dry. Dust motes floated through fractured moonbeams that spilled across ancient telescope equipment and long-forgotten star charts.

Then, she heard it.

A whisper of a breath.

“Elena Waverly,” a voice echoed from above.

She turned sharply.

The woman from the gala stood on the spiral staircase, now cloaked in shadows. Her face was sharp, every line etched by years of knowing too much.

“You came,” she said.

“Where is Camilla?” Elena demanded.

“She’s safe. For now.”

Elena took a step forward. “Who are you?”

The woman descended slowly, each step deliberate. “My name is Mireille Danton. I worked for your father once. Before he died. Before they betrayed him.”

The name rang a bell—her father’s encrypted journal had mentioned a ‘D’ who handled offshore records and wiped clean entire ledgers.

“Then help me,” Elena said. “Help me bring them down.”

Mireille studied her. “Your father had secrets. He wasn’t perfect. But he didn’t deserve what they did. Samuel Roarke orchestrated his fall. But he wasn’t alone. There’s someone even closer to you—someone feeding him information.”

A cold chill rippled through Elena.

“What do you mean?”

Mireille handed her a flash drive. “This contains everything. Financial trails, names, safe houses. But be warned: once you open this, there’s no going back.”

“I crossed that line the day I buried my father,” Elena whispered, fingers closing around the drive.

Just then, a sound shattered the silence—a sharp clink, like metal on stone.

Mireille froze.

From the shadows, two men stepped into view. One carried a pistol. The other wore a comm earpiece.

“Elena Waverly,” the man with the gun said, “you’ve been warned before.”

Mireille stepped in front of her, defiant.

The man raised the gun.

“No!” Elena shouted.

A shot rang out.

Mireille collapsed.

Elena screamed and dropped to the floor behind the old telescope as chaos erupted.

Sirens in the distance.

A spotlight from a helicopter blazed through the dome.

Adrian’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “Jaxon sent me. I’m in the system. Sending backup—now!”

Elena crawled across the floor, dragging the flash drive with her, heart pounding.

She didn’t look back at Mireille’s still body.

She couldn’t.

All she could think about was the truth Mireille had whispered with her dying breath:

> “The betrayal… it’s someone you trust.”

The sirens howled louder, growing closer with every second. Elena ducked behind the telescope base, her hands trembling as she pressed the bloodied flash drive against her chest. Mireille’s body lay motionless a few feet away—lifeless, cold, and unjustly silenced.

“Get her,” the man with the pistol barked, stepping closer.

But before his foot hit the floor again, a sharp crack split the air.

The man staggered back, blood blossoming from his shoulder. Screams erupted.

From the opposite side of the observatory, Jaxon stormed in—gun drawn, face like steel.

“I told you twenty minutes,” he growled, firing another warning shot that sent the second man diving behind a pillar.

“Elena!” he shouted.

She stood quickly, scrambling toward him as he ran to cover her, pulling her behind a marble pedestal. Adrian’s voice buzzed through both their earpieces.

“Got visual. Local police are five minutes out. I’ve locked the perimeter gates. You’ve got one exit point—northwest hallway. Go. Now.”

Jaxon grabbed Elena’s hand and they ran—dodging debris, broken glass, and the bullets that ricocheted off the ancient dome. They burst into the hallway, then down the staircase, hearts pounding in rhythm.

Outside, the night was alive with red and blue lights. Jaxon yanked open the town car’s back door, shoving Elena inside and sliding in behind her.

They sped off before she could breathe again.

Inside the car, the silence was deafening. Jaxon stared out the window, hands clenched, jaw ticking with restrained rage.

Elena turned to him, still clutching the flash drive. “She died for this.”

He didn’t reply.

“I saw her die, Jaxon.”

Still silence.

“She said the betrayal came from someone close to me.” Her voice cracked, the weight of it all finally hitting her.

This wasn’t just a revenge plot anymore.

It was a war.

And she had just lost her first ally.

Jaxon finally turned to face her, his eyes softer now, shadows of grief lingering behind their usual steel. “Then we find out who it is. And we burn them down, Elena. Together.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks.

She didn’t resist when he pulled her into his arms.

In that moment, beneath the weight of bloodshed, betrayal, and truths she hadn’t even uncovered yet—Elena Waverly realized that she wasn’t alone in this fight anymore.

Not completely.

But the flash drive in her palm still pulsed with danger.

And it held answers she wasn’t sure she was ready to face.

The car sped through the streets of Manhattan, weaving through midnight traffic as though the night itself were fleeing with them. Elena sat in stunned silence, her fingers clenched around the small bloodstained flash drive.

Jaxon hadn’t let go of her hand since they got in the car.

“I didn’t expect it to be that brutal,” she whispered at last.

“No one ever does,” Jaxon replied, voice low. “You step into this world thinking you can still live by rules. But there are none—not here.”

Elena turned toward him, searching his face. “Whoever did this… they’ve been inside my life. Watching. Feeding Roarke information.”

His jaw tensed. “You’re not wrong. Mireille was right—there’s a mole. And it’s someone we’d never suspect.”

She looked down at the flash drive in her palm. “Whatever’s on this… it got her killed.”

“But it can also save you,” Jaxon said. “And expose the people behind your father’s death.”

Elena nodded slowly, her expression hardening. The pain of Mireille’s murder still gnawed at her chest, but beneath it, something colder and more dangerous was rising.

Determination.

Resolve.

“You’re going to need help,” Jaxon added. “Someone to walk into hell with you. And I’m not walking away.”

She looked up at him. “Even if it means burning your reputation? Your company?”

He leaned in closer, his voice quiet but firm. “I’ve already risked everything for you, Elena. What’s a little fire?”

They arrived at Jaxon’s penthouse moments later, security already tightened. Adrian was waiting by the door, tablet in hand, files open.

“I decrypted the first layer of the drive,” he said without pleasantries. “It’s not just offshore accounts. This thing is laced with audio recordings—conversations between Roarke and others. Contracts. Timelines. Including a transfer of ten million dollars to an account tied to—” he paused, “—someone in your father’s old firm.”

Elena’s chest tightened. “Who?”

Adrian hesitated, then looked at her straight. “Daniel Crest.”

Her blood ran cold.

“Daniel? He was like family. He took over after my father died. He… he helped raise me.”

Jaxon placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

Adrian continued, “He’s been working both sides. Roarke used him to manipulate the will, the estate—your inheritance. And he’s likely the one who tipped them off about Mireille.”

The betrayal sliced deeper than Elena had expected. Daniel had been at her graduation. Sent her birthday cards. He had been the one who told her that her father’s death was a suicide.

All lies.

Her voice trembled, but her spine straightened. “Then he’s going to pay.”

She turned to Adrian. “I want everything on him. Emails. Phone calls. Every cent he’s moved.”

Jaxon stepped beside her. “This isn’t just about revenge anymore, is it?”

Elena met his gaze with fire in her eyes.

“No,” she said. “This is about justice.”

Outside, the wind howled against the glass, as if warning them of the storm to come.

But Elena Waverly had stopped being afraid.