A Wrong Love

RACE AGAINST TIME

Chapter 12

Morning brought the second blow, sharper than the first. A message arrived on both their phones within minutes of each other, sent to their personal accounts by someone who clearly had access neither of them had accounted for. Attached were photographs, unmistakably from inside the safehouse the night before, timestamped, intimate, undeniable.

The message beneath them was short.

Cooperate quietly. Hand over whatever remains of Halcyon's research to the address below by midnight, or these go to every board member, every reporter, and every investor either of your companies has. Your choice.

"He's not bluffing," Damian said, reading it a second time, jaw tight. "He's been three steps ahead of us this entire time. He knew about the safehouse. He knew exactly when to be watching."

"Then he has someone close to you," Selena said. "Or close to your father's old contacts. That safehouse wasn't public knowledge, Damian, you said so yourself."

"I know." His voice was grim. "Which narrows the list of people who could have known considerably, and I don't like where that list leads."

Selena set the phone down, refusing to let her hands shake this time. "We don't cooperate. If we hand over Halcyon's research now, we lose the only leverage we have and he still releases the photos eventually anyway, once he's gotten what he wants and decided we're no longer useful to keep quiet."

"Agreed. So we stop playing his game entirely." Damian was already moving, pulling out his laptop, energy replacing exhaustion in every line of him. "We take everything we have straight to the district attorney, both boards, and a reporter who can't be bought off in the time it would take Reyes to spin this first. All at once. Before he has any room left to maneuver."

"That's reckless."

"So is standing still and letting him dictate every move we make," Selena said, moving to sit beside him, pulling up her own files. "Damian, Halcyon was something our fathers were building to protect people from this man. We finish it exactly the way they intended. All at once, in daylight, where he can't quietly make it disappear."

They spent the next six hours assembling everything, the ledger, the falsified security firm records, the driver's break in footage, financial trails connecting Reyes's shell companies back to funds quietly skimmed from both Cross Textiles and Vale Industries for over a decade. It wasn't simple corporate sabotage. It was theft on a scale that had slowly bled both their fathers' companies dry long before either family understood why their businesses kept failing.

"This is it," Damian said finally, staring at the full picture spread across his screen, understanding settling over his face like a physical weight. "Halcyon wasn't a secret project our fathers were hiding. It was the evidence file. They were building a case against Reyes together, right up until the day it cost your father everything and forced mine to bury what he knew just to survive."

"They didn't betray each other," Selena said quietly, the last piece of ten years' worth of grief finally shifting into place. "They protected each other. All the way to the end."

Her phone buzzed once more. A final message, shorter and colder than the rest.

Midnight was your deadline. You're choosing wrong.

Damian looked up from the screen, eyes meeting hers with a steadiness that steadied her in return. "Then we make sure we're not the only ones who know the truth by midnight. Let's go.