By nightfall, the storm had broken over the facility — rain lashing the windows like claws, the wind howling through the cracks in the old walls.
And inside me, it felt no different.
The board meeting loomed at midnight. Hale’s warning echoed in my skull like a gunshot.
One misstep, and everything I’d built — my career, my shield, my carefully constructed lies — would shatter.
But worst of all was him.
Asher Beaumont.
He’d made his move, and I knew what the next one would be.
A final, crushing checkmate.
The question was: would I run… or would I meet him in the dark?
My body moved before my mind caught up.
Down the stairs. Through the empty corridors.
Past the guards who barely glanced my way — they thought I still had control here.
But I didn’t.
Not anymore.
I keyed into the
