I didn't sleep that night.
Not because of Kai Louis, though he certainly didn't help but because the silence afterward felt wrong. The kind of wrong that buzzes under your skin, whispering that something just shifted and you can't quite see what.
By the time the clock hit two a.m., the flash drive was burning a hole in my desk drawer. I'd poured myself a glass of wine, opened it twice, and closed it twice. My laptop sat open to a blank email addressed to Cyrus, blinking like it was mocking me.
Of course I could just talk to him at home but I don't think I can.
I could almost hear his voice in my head: "You shouldn't have called him."
He was right, in his infuriating, calculated, morally superior way. But he didn't understand when you run an empire built on risks, you can't survive by playing it safe. Safe was for people with nothing left to lose.
And me? I had everything to lose.
I finally stood, crossing to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Rain slicked the streets below, lights bending and blurring in the reflections. The city never slept, and neither did its ghosts.
I unlocked the drawer and took out the flash drive. It was small, harmless-looking, almost delicate ridiculous for something that could bring an empire down. My thumb hovered over my laptop port. I hesitated. Once I opened it, there was no going back.
"Do it," I whispered to myself. "You wanted the truth."
The file opened to rows of documents — financial statements, transfers, coded spreadsheets, and contracts bearing names that made my stomach twist. Blackwood's signature appeared again and again, tied to accounts that looped back different company's name.
It was all there. Proof that he'd been using firm's to launder money through shell companies, buying influence behind everyones back. The amounts were staggering. The audacity even more so.
I leaned back, the weight of it pressing into my ribs. My pulse thudded like a drumbeat part fear, part fury.
"Damn it, Cyrus…" I murmured, rubbing my temples. He'd warned me something was off, but I thought he was being paranoid. Turns out, paranoia was just good business sense.
But my question was what was Kai gaining from all this? If he was truly the one behind Blackwood why would he want to bring him down from what I can tell he is gaining a lot.
I scrolled deeper, found one last file. Unlabeled. Encrypted. It took my best decryption software ten minutes to crack, and when it did — my breath hitched.
It wasn't numbers. It was surveillance footage.
Blackwood's private office. Late night. A date stamp from three weeks ago. And sitting across from him was Kai Louis.
My blood ran cold.
They were talking. Calmly. Almost friendly. Kai leaned forward, smiling that same easy smile he'd worn in my office, then handed Blackwood an envelope. The sound cut in for a second.
"…she'll take the bait."
The words came from Kai.
I froze. The wine glass slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor.
The bait.
I stared at the screen, trying to breathe through the slow rise of dread. My reflection looked back at me pale, shaking, furious.
He'd set me up.
The files, the flash drive, the meeting — all of it was orchestrated. He wanted me to think Blackwood was the threat. To isolate me. To make me need him.
"Son of a—"
The elevator dinged outside my office.
I flinched, closing the laptop so fast it nearly snapped. My heart leapt into my throat as I glanced at the clock 2:47 a.m. No one should've been here.
I moved quietly to the door, listening.
A faint click. Footsteps. Two of them. Steady, deliberate.
For one wild second, I thought it was Kai coming back — maybe because he realized I'd find the footage. My mind ran through the possibilities: grab the flash drive, call security, call Cyrus...
The door handle turned.
I reached for the nearest thing I could find the heavy glass paperweight on my desk. My pulse was hammering so loud it drowned out everything else.
"Sienna?"
The voice stopped me cold.
Cyrus.
I dropped the paperweight and exhaled, half relief, half fury. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
He stepped inside, his expression unreadable under the dim office lights. "I could ask you the same thing." His gaze swept the room the spilled wine, the closed laptop, my trembling hands. "You've been working."
"Trying to."
"Lying," he said simply.
My jaw tightened. "You're not supposed to be here."
"Oh am I not now."
We stared at each other for a long moment two stubborn people standing in the ruins of trust.
He took a step closer. "What did he give you?"
I hesitated, every instinct screaming to keep it to myself. But the image of Kai's smile, that phrase "she'll take the bait" replayed in my head.
I slid the flash drive across the desk. "Proof. Of a lot of things. None of them good."
Cyrus didn't move right away. Then, slowly, he picked it up. His thumb brushed the metal, his expression darkening by degrees.
"Louis?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And you believed him."
"I wanted to."
"Until now."
Our eyes met, and for the first time, there wasn't anger just something heavier. A shared understanding that the ground beneath us had shifted.
He pocketed the drive. "You should've called me."
"You would've said no."
"You're right," he admitted quietly. "But I would've said it here. With you."
Something in my chest twisted. I looked away first.
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think am going to add to your securit. "
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not arguing," he said, already turning for the door. "Blackwood won't be the only one watching now. And I don't plan on giving Louis a second chance."
I hesitated, then nodded. For once I didn't argue.
I couldn't shake the feeling that Kai's words were still echoing somewhere in the dark.
"She'll take the bait."