The Daughter He Threw Away

Chapter 6: On My Terms

Avery hated a lot of things.

She hated waiting. She hated dishonesty. She hated the way Sierra smiled with her whole face while her eyes stayed dead.

But nothing — nothing — lit a fuse inside her faster than being threatened.

Declan watched her turn. Watched her face. And whatever he saw there made him raise one dark eyebrow, his voice dropping into the cadence of a man who considered himself the most dangerous thing in any room he occupied.

"And if it is a threat?" He let the question hang, precise and deliberate, like a scalpel. "The only thing that matters is what you do

next. Bend — or don't."

The word bend landed in her chest like a lit match.

Her fists clenched at her sides. For one savage, electric second, she wanted to level him. Wanted to say every true and blistering

thing that had been building behind her teeth since the moment she walked back into this city.

But she didn't.

Because Declan Voss wasn't bluffing. She knew it the way she knew her own heartbeat — he had the reach, the resources, and the

cold, systematic patience to bury the name Vela so quietly that no one would even notice the grave. Ember & Stone still operated under Apex Group. The shares that should have been hers were still Sierra's. If Avery wanted to reclaim what her mother had built,

she couldn't burn the bridge before she'd crossed it.

Sometimes you swallow the fire to win the war.

The silence stretched. Something shifted in Declan's expression — the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth, the look of a man

who'd already started counting this as a victory.

"Have you made a decision?" he asked.

Avery exhaled. Slow. Controlled. Then she lifted her chin and looked him dead in the eye.

"I have one condition."

The almost-smile vanished. "Don't push your luck."

"It's non-negotiable." She kept her voice even, clinical almost, because she knew that calm was its own kind of weapon. "My

designs. My creative direction for Ember and Stone. No interference, no oversight committees, no one breathing down my neck

second-guessing every choice." She held his gaze without flinching. "I do my job. Nobody touches my process. That's the deal."

Declan stared at her for a long moment. Long enough that she could hear her own pulse.

Then he gave one curt, measured nod.

* * * * * * * *

The contract took eleven minutes to draft and sign.

Avery set the pen down, flexed her fingers, and then — almost as an afterthought — looked up at him.

"One more thing."

His eyes narrowed. "What."

It wasn't a question. It was a warning dressed as a word.

She smiled anyway, sweet enough to sting. "Make sure your staff at Ember and Stone knows I'm coming. I'd really hate a repeat of

yesterday — being mistaken for a nobody, nearly thrown out of my own building." She tilted her head. "That kind of thing tends to

put me in a mood."

She picked up her bag, turned on her heel, and walked out of Declan Voss's office without looking back.

* * * * * * * *

She felt his stare between her shoulder blades all the way to the elevator.

Behind her, she knew — knew — he was sitting at that desk frowning at the door like it had personally offended him. No woman had

spoken to him like that. She could feel it. The whole exchange had the charged, disorienting quality of something that had never

happened to him before.

Good.

Let him sit with it.

* * * * * * * *

Forty minutes later, Avery walked back into Ember & Stone.

The receptionist looked up, recognition igniting instant alarm on her face. Her hand shot toward the phone — and then froze.

Because her own phone had already rung. And whatever Declan's voice had said on the other end had apparently rearranged her

understanding of the universe, because she lowered the receiver slowly and watched Avery stride toward the elevator with the

expression of someone recalibrating everything they thought they knew.

Avery didn't stop. Didn't explain. Didn't spare her a glance.

She went straight to the top floor.

Sierra's office door was open. Sierra stood at her window with a coffee cup in hand, and the moment she registered who was in her

doorway, the cup stopped halfway to her lips.

"Are you serious—"

"Didn't he call you?" Avery leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, the very picture of ease. "I figured he would've led with that."

Sierra's phone rang. She snatched it up, turned away — and Avery watched the color drain from the back of her neck as the voice on

the other end confirmed what Sierra had clearly been praying was a nightmare.

When Sierra turned back around, her face was a masterpiece of controlled fury wearing a costume of composure.

"Elena." Her voice was silk stretched over gravel. "There must have been some misunderstanding. If you wanted to come back to

Ember and Stone, you could have just come to me. There was no reason to drag Damien— to drag Declan into this."

Avery stepped into the office, letting her gaze travel slowly around the room — the framed covers, the awards on the shelf, the things

that should have been hers. "Well. Since Declan's the one with the authority to bring me back, I went to the source." She met Sierra's

eyes, warm as frost. "If you'd just stayed out of my way yesterday, none of this would've been necessary. But you couldn't help

yourself, could you?"

Sierra's mask cracked at the seams. A vein of raw, ugly fury surfaced beneath the polish.

Avery tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and glanced around the office one last time.

"This space is going to need some changes," she said, almost to herself. "But that's a conversation for another day. I won't take up

any more of your time, Sierra."

She walked out without a backward glance.

She was three steps down the hall when she heard it — the shattering cascade of everything on Sierra's desk hitting the floor at once.

Then Sierra's voice, low and vicious, hissing into her phone.

Avery kept walking.

* * * * * * * *

Her new office was smaller than Sierra's and smelled faintly of someone else's ambition. She didn't mind. She'd built empires in

worse rooms.

The design portfolios were stacked on the desk — six years of Ember & Stone's creative output, bound in glossy folders that

promised more than they delivered. She opened the first one.

Then the second.

By the third, she pushed all of them to the edge of the desk and pressed her fingers to her temples.

"What in the world have they been doing?" she muttered.

The junior designer hovering near the door shifted uncomfortably. "Ms. Vela — Ms. Cole insisted we stick to the established

aesthetic. She said deviation was a risk."

"Deviation." Avery picked up one of the sketches — a lifeless rehash of a 2015 trend — and held it at arm's length like it had

offended her personally. "These aren't designs. They're photocopies of photocopies." She set it down. "Your Ms. Cole fired every

creative voice in this building and filled the seats with people who wouldn't challenge her. And now the company is bleeding out and

wondering why." She shook her head. "You can go."

The door clicked shut.

Avery stood, swept the entire stack of portfolios off the desk, and dropped them directly into the trash without ceremony.

She was already composing the first real collection Ember & Stone had seen in half a decade when a shadow filled the doorway.

She looked up.

Declan Voss stood at the threshold of her office — jacket still perfect, expression unreadable, amber eyes tracking her with that same

maddening precision he'd had in the lobby yesterday. Like she was a code he intended to c***k.

Avery leaned back in her chair, the picture of unbothered.

"Mr. Voss." Her voice was dry as a Chicago January. "Don't you have an empire to run?"