A VOW FOR VENGEANCE

Chapter Seventeen: Come Alone

Hanna's POV

Meridian Hotel. Rooftop. Tomorrow, nine o'clock. Come alone, or do not come at all.

I read the message four times before I let myself believe what my gut had already decided. The lack of a name should have worried me more than it did. Instead I found myself oddly calm, turning the phone over in my hand the way I might turn over a familiar handwriting I could not quite place. An unknown number. No name attached. But nobody outside of Stefan knew that hotel, and only one person had a reason to summon me somewhere instead of simply calling.

Still, I did not let my doubt go along with the number.

Isla had a photograph of me outside that same hotel. Isla had eyes on me for two weeks straight. A message like this could just as easily be a trap dressed up as an invitation, something designed to see how fast I would run toward a stranger the moment nobody was watching.

I did not reply. I did not need to. If it was truly Stefan, he would be there whether I confirmed it or not. If it was not, showing up quietly, on my own terms, cost me nothing.

I waited until the house was clear before I went, partly to settle my own nerves, mostly because arriving too quickly after Isla had cornered me with that photograph would have told her exactly where I had run off to.

The drive there felt longer than it should have. I checked my mirrors twice at every red light, watching the cars behind me for anything that lingered a beat too long. A dark sedan stayed two cars back through three lights in a row, and my pulse climbed steadily until it finally turned off toward a gas station and disappeared from my rearview entirely. Nothing else followed. Still, I took the longer route through the financial district before doubling back toward the hotel, just to be certain nobody else had picked up where the sedan left off.

The rooftop was quiet when I stepped off the elevator, string lights strung low across the bar, only a handful of guests scattered near the far corner. I scanned the space twice before I found him, leaning against the railing with his back half turned, looking out over the city.

I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.

Stefan turned at the sound of my heels on the tile, and whatever he saw on my face made him raise an eyebrow.

"Any problem, wife?" He straightened up, amused. "You look like you were expecting someone else to be standing here."

"I was not sure who to expect." I crossed the last few feet toward him. "You did not exactly sign the message."

"Where is the fun in that?"

"I could have done without the mystery."

"Could you?" He tilted his head. "You did not seem to mind mystery when you proposed to me with an envelope and thirty seconds to

convince me."

I let that one go, mostly because he was not wrong.

"You went to see my brother," he said, before I could steer the conversation anywhere else.

"I did."

"Alone."

"I did not think I needed an escort." I held his gaze. "Is that what tonight is actually about?"

"Tonight is about a lot of things." He studied me a moment longer, like he was deciding how hard to push. "What did he tell you?"

"Less than I wanted." I kept my voice even. "More than he probably meant to."

Stefan did not chase it further, though something behind his calm told me the subject was not closed, only postponed.

"We need to talk about making this public," I said instead. "Properly. An engagement announcement, not gossip leaking sideways through Isla's dinner parties."

"About that." He turned to face me fully, arms crossed over the railing. "I think I should meet your mother first. Sit across from her, let her look me over. you know, make this feel like something real instead of something that dropped on her out of nowhere."

"No."

"Just like that."

"Just like that." I shook my head. "Isla does not accept things. She manages them."

"So what, we just do not tell her?"

"We tell everyone else first." I met his eyes. "The press. Every gossip column, every blog that covers families like ours. If this breaks publicly, loudly, before Isla ever gets the chance to manage it privately, she loses the only weapon she actually has."

"Which is?"

"Narrative." I stepped closer, lowering my voice even though nobody around us seemed to be listening. "If she hears it from me first, in her own living room, she gets days to build a story. A rebound. A mistake. Something to explain away to the board and the family friends before anyone else can ask questions. But if it breaks in a headline she never saw coming, she has to react to a story that is already written. She does not get to shape it. She only gets to respond to it."

Stefan studied me for a long moment, something calculating behind the usual carelessness in his eyes.

"You have thought about this a great deal," he said.

"I do not want to make any mistakes."

"And if the story does not land the way you want it to? If the press decides to run with something uglier than a wedding announcement?"

"Then we control what they have to work with." I lifted my chin slightly. "We give them a story so complete there is no room left for them to invent one of their own."

He was quiet for a second, turning it over.

"Fine," he said finally. "Press first. Isla finds out with everyone else."

"We control when this becomes public," I said, satisfaction settling into my voice for the first time all night. "Nobody gets to move faster than us on this. Not Isla. Not anyone."

Stefan held out his hand across the small distance between us, an odd, almost formal gesture for two people who had already signed a contract together weeks ago.

"Partners in this, then," he said. "Properly, this time."

I shook it slowly, and for one strange second the whole rooftop felt warm.

A flash went off behind me, quickly and disappeared immediately.

I spun around, my heart beating fast, and caught the shape of someone lowering a phone at the far end of the rooftop, already turning to slip through the door to the stairwell before I could see a face.

"Stefan," I said, shaking. My voice was barely above a whisper.

He had already seen it too. His whole posture had changed.

"Someone just took a picture of us. Hanna, stay here," he said, already running to stop whoever that was.