Chapter 121
Chapter 121:
He groaned, rubbing his temples. Why was negotiating a billion-dollar merger easier than writing a ten-word note?
His phone buzzed. A notification from Apex.
Phoenix: Depends. Are you prepared to lose?
He re-read his own message he had sent earlier.
S: The summit is approaching. Are you ready for the main event?
Elias stared at the screen. A slow smile spread across his face.
He took a new card. He wrote in his sharp, angular handwriting:
A tool for every strategy. -E
It was cryptic. It was logical. It was perfect.
He placed the card in the main box.
Then he stood up and walked to the wall safe hidden behind a painting of a storm-tossed ship. He spun the dial. The heavy steel doors swung open.
Inside were blueprints for a new fusion reactor, the deed to a diamond mine, and a stack of bearer bonds.
Elias shoved the blueprints aside.
He carefully stacked the boxes of lipstick and the Kelly bag inside the safe.
He closed the door and spun the lock.
Click.
Safe.
Outside the door, Leo was listening with a glass pressed to the wood.
“He’s locking it up,” Leo whispered to himself. “It’s definitely not an acquisition. It’s a woman p>
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Leo grinned. This was going to be the best weekend ever.
It was not just rain; it was a deluge. The Atlantic Ocean seemed to rise up and hammer the coast. Lightning fractured the sky, turning the night into a strobe light of purple and black.
Aurora sat in the window seat of her bedroom, wrapped in a silk robe. The clock on her nightstand read 11:11 PM.
Her birthday.
She had spent the day with her grandfather, which was lovely. On the small table beside her sat the ancient herbal manuscript Elias had given her days ago. Earlier that afternoon, a courier had braved the pre-storm winds to deliver a custom-made, humidity-controlled display case for it, along with a set of translation notes Elias had commissioned from a linguistics professor. She ran her hand over the smooth glass of the case, touched by the excessive thoughtfulness.
But as the minutes ticked away toward midnight, a familiar hollow ache settled in her chest.
Nineteen years lost. A marriage that was a lie. A life that was a battlefield.
“Happy birthday to me,” she whispered, pressing her hand against the cold glass.
Across the high hedges, in the study of Thorne Manor, Elias was pacing.
He checked the weather radar on his tablet. A red blob was sitting directly over them.