Chapter 13: The Phantom Partner
The revelation hit them like a physical blow. Harrison. The quiet, grandfatherly board member who had been with Sterling Enterprises since Richard Sterling founded it. He had watched Julian grow up. He had cried at Arabella’s memorial service twenty-four years ago.
And he had funded her kidnapping.
“We have to call the police,” Maya said, pacing the length of Julian’s executive office, her white heels clicking against the hardwood floor. “We just sat in a room with him! We need to have him arrested right now.”
“We can’t,” Julian said grimly, running a hand through his dark hair. “The account is a shell company nested inside five other shell companies in the Cayman Islands. My team only found the link through an old, encrypted server Arthur left behind. It’s enough to raise suspicions, but it won’t hold up in court. Any decent lawyer will claim Arthur set Harrison up as a fall guy.”
“So what do we do? Just let him sit on the board while he plots to finish the job Arthur started?”
“No,” Julian’s eyes turned lethal. “We smoke him out. If Harrison knows we’re auditing the company, he’s going to panic. He’ll try to move the rest of his hidden assets, or worse, he’ll try to silence us. We watch his every move. We wait for him to make a mistake, and then we crush him.”
For the next week, Maya and Julian worked relentlessly. Maya moved into Julian’s penthouse permanently, the sprawling apartment becoming their war room. Late at night, surrounded by financial documents and takeout boxes, the lines between their corporate partnership and their romantic relationship blurred into a fiery, undeniable passion.
One evening, as rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows, Julian found Maya asleep on the sofa, a highlighter still clutched in her hand. He gently took the marker from her, lifted her into his arms, and carried her to his bedroom.
As he laid her down, Maya stirred, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down with her. “Did we catch him yet?” she murmured sleepily.
“We will,” Julian whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her face. He looked at her with such profound intensity that it stole her breath. “I promise you, Maya. I will burn this city to the ground before I let anyone hurt you again.”
Maya pulled him closer, her lips meeting his in a desperate, searing kiss. In that moment, the billionaires, the hitmen, and the boardroom politics vanished. There was only Julian, his touch an anchor in the chaotic storm of her new life.
The next afternoon, reality came crashing back in the most violent way possible.
Maya was scheduled to attend a private luncheon with a charity organization Eleanor sponsored. Julian was stuck in a meeting with the SEC, so he sent Maya in his armored Maybach with two of his most trusted security guards.
As the Maybach cruised down FDR Drive, the driver suddenly cursed loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Maya asked from the backseat, looking up from her tablet.
“The brakes, ma'am,” the driver said, his voice rising in panic as he furiously pumped the pedal. “They’re not responding. The pedal is completely dead.”
Maya’s blood ran cold. She looked at the speedometer. They were doing sixty miles an hour, and traffic was backing up rapidly ahead of them.
“Use the emergency brake!” the passenger-seat bodyguard yelled.
May you like
“It’s jammed! The whole system is overridden!” the driver shouted. “Hold on!”
The massive car swerved violently to avoid a delivery truck, careening toward the concrete median. Maya screamed, bracing her arms against the leather seat as the Maybach smashed into the barrier. The screech of tearing metal was deafening. Sparks flew as the car scraped along the concrete, the impact violently shaking the cabin before it finally spun out and slammed into a light pole, coming to a smoking, devastating halt.
