The man who stepped from the elevator looked like he belonged to the night—tall, sharp lines beneath a soaked coat, the rain sliding from him as though it didn’t dare touch his skin. Every instinct screamed danger.

Nicolas moved before I could speak, placing himself between me and the intruder.

You’re trespassing, he said, voice low and lethal.

The stranger’s eyes, gray, flat, unreadable, flicked to me and lingered just long enough to chill my blood.

Not trespassing, he said. Delivering a warning.

Nicolas’s posture hardened. If this is about business, you made a mistake coming here.

The man’s thin smile curved like a knife.

Everything is business, Mr. Hale. Including her.

My pulse spiked. Nicolas took a step forward, every movement controlled, but his hand found the small of my back, protective, anchoring, a silent don’t move.

Say what you came to say, Nicolas said.

The stranger tilted his head. There are people watching. Powerful people. The kind who don’t forgive alliances like this.

His gaze sliced toward me again.

Walk away, Ms. Marlowe. Before what’s left of your father’s company becomes collateral.

A sick twist coiled in my stomach.

My father’s company? I forced the words past dry lips. What do you know about it?

Enough to know that Hale Investments isn’t the safe harbor you believe it to be, the man said softly. Some debts can’t be hidden behind glass towers and velvet walls.

I felt Nicolas tense beside me, a storm barely contained.

You’re finished, Nicolas said, voice like a threat wrapped in silk. Leave before you can’t.

The stranger’s eyes gleamed, amused.

Not finished. Just beginning.

He slipped a folded card from his coat and set it on the marble counter, the white rectangle stark against the dark stone. Call that number if you value the truth over whatever fantasy you two are selling each other.

Then he turned and walked back into the elevator as calmly as he’d arrived. The doors closed with a quiet chime that sounded like a gunshot.

Silence stretched, heavy as the rain against the windows.

I stared at the card, its edges sharp, a simple number scrawled in black ink.

What was that? My voice cracked. Who was he?

Nicolas didn’t answer. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair, the mask of control slipping just enough for me to glimpse something fierce and afraid.

Nicolas, I stepped closer. Tell me.

His eyes met mine, dark and burning.

Someone I’ve been trying to keep far away from you, he said. But it seems the game just changed.

Before I could ask more, my phone buzzed again. The same unknown number flashed across the screen. This time, there was no message, only a live image.

A photograph. Of me. Standing in Nicolas’s penthouse. The phone slid from my trembling hand. Nicolas caught it mid-air, his expression turning to stone. They’re inside the building, he said. The lights flickered. Somewhere deep in the tower, an alarm began to wail.