CHAPTER 2-COLD FEET
1564 Words
EVELYN POV
Evelyn McCommer hadn’t planned on ending up in a club on a Saturday night, especially not wrapped in a stupid dare that sounded like trouble dressed as fun. But here she was under dim lights, heels biting into her ankles, nerves humming just under the surface of her skin.
Her drink sat untouched.
Lexi leaned in with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”
Evelyn glanced at the window behind the bar. Her reflection stared back dark eyes, soft waves of hair pinned just enough to pretend she wasn’t trying too hard.
“Yeah,” Evelyn said, though even to her own ears it sounded like maybe. “It’s harmless.”
Lexi’s smile widened. “Ignore the billionaire and hurt his ego then walk away. Easy right.”
Evelyn scoffed under her breath. Easy? She’d spent most of the week watching numbers bleed red on company spreadsheets, pretending not to notice the eviction notices piling up on her parents’ office desk. Nothing about her life was easy.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered.
But the dare was already out in the world. Her friends were now half-drunk, expectant, hungry for something to talk about on the ride home. She felt their eyes like heat on her back.
Across the room, in the club’s exclusive lounge, he sat.
Adrian T. Larsen.
He looked like he belonged in a darker world, he wore a black suit,a man carved from cold steel and sharper intentions. He sat in a leather booth as if the entire club were his boardroom, his kingdom, his throne.
She’d heard the rumors. Who hadn’t?
He is heartless, unreachable and dangerous if crossed.
And yet, that was the dare.
Walk past him and don’t flinch, make him feel invisible.
So, she stood up and smoothed up her dress and walked with no hesitation, no eye contact. Just walk past his table close enough to smell the faint spice of his cologne, to hear the soft clink of ice in his glass.
She felt his eyes chase her all the way back.
And something in her something stupid thrilled at it.
At the table, Lexi clapped silently, her jaw dropped. “You did it,” she whispered. “You actually ignored Adrian Larsen.”
Evelyn let out a laugh. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Oh, honey,” Mariah grinned. “To his ego? That was an act of war.”
Evelyn rolled her eyes, but her stomach knotted with something tight and electric. Then she felt that he was staring.
Her head lifted instinctively, Adrian Larsen hadn’t moved but he was looking at her.
Something in her spine straightened. She looked away quickly, pulse jumping.
Monday morning, Evelyn stepped into her office, the door clicking shut behind her. The room smelled faintly of coffee.On her desk lay a single envelope plain, unmarked except for her name.
She paused. The secretary must’ve dropped it off earlier.
Frowning slightly, Eveline crossed the room and picked it up, her fingers brushing the crisp edge. Something about it felt unexpected, she broke the seal inside it was a single sheet.
Offer to Acquire McCommer Holdings – $10,000,000
Full ownership transferred to the buyer.
Condition: Sign within 72 hours. Noncompliance voids the offer permanently.
Evelyn read it twice, then again. The numbers didn’t make sense. Her company was worth a fraction of that if anything at all.
She picked up her phone, dialed her banker. “Has anyone shown interest in McCommer Holdings recently?”
“Nothing serious,” he said. “Your numbers scare people.”
She hung up without responding.
The lights in her office flickered once with cheap wiring,but the timing was wrong.
She’d been pushing for meetings all week, begging for partnerships, negotiating debt with people who didn’t even take her seriously.
And now this.
Sofia shoved the envelope aside and opened her laptop.
She pulled up the internal server and scanned old files. Something made her open a locked folder she hadn’t touched in years.
Her mother’s records.
She clicked through, fingers moving on instinct. Her mother’s death was ruled an accident. She’d been told it was a simple fire, an electrical short. But the settlement her father received afterward was large. Quietly accepted. Quietly buried.
Evelyn had been nineteen when she was young to ask the right questions,now someone had dug it up.
And wanted her company.
She stood and locked the office door.
Her phone buzzed,an unknown number with a single text.
“Tick-tock, Miss McCommer.”
Her father’s estate stood untouched by time frozen in a decade-old haze of thick curtains, antique silence, and the scent of camphor and decay.
She stepped inside.
“Dad?” she called, her voice bouncing through the cold air.
She found him in the study, staring out the window in a faded sweater, fingers trembling on the armrest chair. He hadn’t shaved in days; a chessboard sat in front of him, half-played with only black pieces moved.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the settlement?” she asked.
He blinked slowly. “They told me not to.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer.
“I found the documents. About Mom. Why did you hide it from me?”
His jaw clenched. “They were watching you. Always watching. I did what I had to do.”
His voice cracked at the edges. The clarity was fading already.
“I need the truth. Just once,” she said, kneeling beside him.
He looked at her then. And for a second, something cut through the fog in his eyes.
“Your mother died for something she found. It was not fire or wiring. You dig long enough… they’ll come for you too.”
He gripped her hand.
“Watch the ones closest to you. The inside always rots first.”
Then he leaned back, staring at nothing again.
Back at her office, Sofia locked herself in her glass-walled corner.
She pulled up the access logs for internal documents.
Her mother’s file had been opened three nights ago. Not by her. Not from her laptop.
She checked the IP.
Mira’s.
Her best friend. Her second-in-command. The only person who’d stood by her when the company was collapsing.
Evelyn didn’t want to believe it.
She stormed out of her office and found Mira in the operations room.
“We need to talk. Now.”
Mira raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
“You opened a confidential archive from my mother’s file.”
Mira didn’t flinch. “No, I didn’t.”
“The system says otherwise.”
“Well, maybe the system’s wrong,” she said too fast.
Evelyn's stomach dropped.
They stared at each other in silence. Years of trust strained in seconds.
“I need to know if you’re the one leaking information,” Evelyn said quietly.
“I would never” Mira started, but Sofia was already turning away.
Back in her office, she clicked the video surveillance archive. The footage from that night was missing.
Only two people had the clearance to wipe it.
Herself.
And Mira.
The silence between them stretched into the next morning.
Mira hadn’t shown up for work. Evelyn stood at her office window, watching the city blur beneath a pale sky. Her father’s warning echoed in her head:
Watch the ones closest to you.
Evelyn opened the system logs again. The access to her mother’s file hadn’t been a one-time slip. Mira had entered the archives three separate times—each deeper than the last.
Emails, old court files, financial records.
Why?
Evelyn needed answers. Real ones.
She left the office and drove across town to Mira’s apartment.
No answer when she knocked.
She was about to leave when the door creaked open, unlocked.
Inside was chaos.
Drawers half-opened. Clothes on the floor. Laptop missing. The air reeked of fear and haste.
Something happened here and not long ago.
Evelyn stepped carefully around broken glass near the kitchen. A shattered picture frame. She bent down, heart stuttering.
A photo of the two of them. Smiling. Before things changed.
Pinned under the glass was a note, scribbled in Mira’s rushed handwriting:
“I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I thought I could fix it. Don’t trust anyone. They're watching everything.”
Evelyn backed out of the apartment, pulse hammering.
She drove back to her office. Sat down. Locked her door. And started digging into Mira’s recent activity every contract, email, hidden file.
And she found it.
A shell company, quietly funnelling money into McCommer Holdings. Small amounts, split between weeks, disguised as vendor payments.
The sender?
Redacted.
The bank trail stopped in the Cayman Islands.
Evelyn stared at the screen, jaw tight.
Mira had been laundering money into her own company... or covering for someone else who was.
Whoever they were, they had access.
And they had Mira running scared.
Ethan Cross rested his glass on the table, the amber liquid catching the low light of his penthouse. He stared out over the city, a quiet smile tugging at his lips. Another wire transfer had cleared today clean and unnoticed. Just the way he liked it.
Ethan wasn’t just a businessman. He was a master at hiding in plain sight, playing his cards close. And right now, everything was falling into place.
- Writer
