Maximilian Byron's phone rang, a sharp, intrusive sound that cut through the silence of his office. He didn't know it yet, but the war had just crossed from the boardroom into blood territory.
Max stared at the screen long after it went dark.
"Hello?" he said, his voice a low vibration, even though the line had already gone dead. Then, the screen lit up again. A text.
Unknown: You promised me our son would inherit the Byron fortune. You lied.
Max's jaw tightened, the muscles ticking beneath his skin. Slowly, deliberately, he locked the phone and slipped it into his pocket. He didn't look shaken; he looked like a predator that had finally caught a scent.
"So," he murmured to the empty, glass-walled room. "You're alive, Violet."
Before the thought could take root, his second phone, his encrypted security line, vibrated. He answered on the first ring. "Speak."
"Sir," the guard's voice was tight, strained. "There was an incident. Mr. Seron trapped Mrs. Byron in an elevator. It stalled for several minutes between floors."
The world around Max seemed to go still. He stopped walking, his silhouette framed against the city skyline like a statue of iron. "Is she hurt?"
The question wasn't asked with panic. It was asked with a lethal, quiet intent that was far more terrifying.
"No visible injuries, sir. She exited on her own strength. Mr. Seron was restrained on-site."
Max closed his eyes briefly, his hand tightening on the phone until the casing groaned. "Did he touch her?"
There was a pregnant pause. "We… we don't have visual confirmation of the time inside the elevator, sir. But there was physical contact, a struggle, the moment the doors opened."
"That's enough," Max said. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. "Increase her detail. Double it. No exceptions. If Seron Byron so much as breathes the same air as her again, I want him dealt with. Am I clear?"
"Yes, sir. Crystal."
The call ended. Max exhaled slowly, a controlled release of the violence simmering in his veins.
He knew Ruby. He had watched her stare down rooms full of corporate sharks and make them flinch. He knew she could handle herself, but knowing her strength didn't stop the dark, protective instinct clawing at his chest.
Seron had crossed a line he couldn't come back from. And somewhere in the shadows, a ghost had just revealed her hand.
Max turned toward the door, his coat snapping behind him. The games were over. It was time to remind everyone why the Byron fortune belonged to him, and why Ruby Emerald was the only thing in this world they were never allowed to touch.
Alex Emerald was exactly where Max expected him to be at a low-end casino on the outskirts of the city, where the air was thick with stale cigarette smoke and the heavy scent of desperation.
Alex, or the hollowed-out shell of what remained of him, jumped when Max pulled out a chair and sat across from him.
"You? What do you want?" Alex snapped, his brow already slick with sweat.
Max didn't answer with words. He placed a thick, heavy envelope on the felt table. Alex's eyes locked onto it with the raw hunger of a starving man.
"Open it," Max said, his voice a cool blade.
Alex obeyed. His hands shook as he fanned through the stacks of high-denomination bills. "What's this for?"
"To disappear," Max replied. "Tonight."
Alex let out a nervous, jagged laugh. "You think you can just buy me off? I'm a businessman, Max."
"You were a businessman," Max corrected flatly. "Now, you're a liability. And yes, I just bought you."
Alex swallowed hard, his greed warring with a flickering spark of paternal instinct. "What about Ruby? She's my daughter."
"She stopped being your concern the day you chose her dowry over her life," Max said, his voice never rising, which only made it more terrifying. Alex stiffened. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know you showed up at Byron Corporation begging Seron for money. I know you would sell Ruby again the moment the opportunity presented itself." Max leaned in, his shadow looming over the table. "So, here is how this works. You take that money. You leave the country. You never contact Ruby again. You never even whisper her name. If you do…"
Alex's breath hitched in his throat. "You won't get a warning. You'll simply cease to exist."
Alex nodded frantically, clutching the envelope to his chest. "I'll go. I swear. I'm gone, and my wife is in your care now."
"Good," Max said, standing up and buttoning his blazer. "Because this is the only mercy you will ever receive from me."
As Max turned to leave, Alex called out, his voice trembling. "Who was that person? The one who texted you?"
Max stopped. He didn't turn around. He didn't ask how Alex knew about the private messages, it didn't matter. Despite the man's failings, he was Ruby's father, and Max was a man of old-fashioned, lethal respect.
"She's a ghost," Max said. "And ghosts should stay buried."
Max arrived home to an empty house. Ruby wasn't back yet. He paced his study, resisting the urge to call her. He wanted to give her the freedom she had been denied for seven years, but the thought of Seron's hands on her, the thought of the struggle in that elevator, made his blood boil.
He stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass, the city lights stretching out like a sea of cold diamonds. He pulled out his phone and reread the text that was threatening his peace.
Our son.
Max's fingers hovered over the glass before he typed a single response:
Max: Why are you hiding? If you are who you claim to be, we should talk. Face to face.
Send.
Somewhere across the city, Ruby stood in the dark, stronger than she had ever been, unaware that her world was about to shift again. And somewhere in the shadows, a woman named Violet Brown smiled.
Violet had made the mistake of reminding Maximilian Byron why he was feared. The war was no longer a series of quiet corporate moves. It had a face now. And Max was ready to tear it down.
Ruby arrived home late, her designer heels dangling from her fingertips as she walked barefoot across the cold marble. Her body was still humming with the residual adrenaline of the day, her mind a frantic loop of the elevator, the baby, and Seron's pathetic face.
She heard movement before she saw him.
The home gym lights were blazing. Max was inside, shirtless, his sweat-slicked skin catching the overhead glow as he moved with the controlled precision of a predator. Every muscle in his back flexed with purpose, powerful and infuriatingly distracting. Ruby stopped in the doorway, the breath catching in her throat.
She stared. She couldn't help it.
Max didn't even turn around, his voice echoing in the quiet room as he finished a rep. "If you keep staring, Ruby, you'll bore a hole straight through me."