Chapter 4

POV: Charlotte

The live video had ended with the sound of splintering wood and boots on concrete.

On the phone screen, Bruno’s tactical team had smashed through the studio's reinforced back doors in less than four minutes. Jackson had scrambled out the rear alley like a sewer rat, dropping his lighter into the puddle outside.

An hour later, Bruno’s men carried three steel lockboxes into the penthouse bedroom. Inside were my mother’s original watercolor elevation sketches, dry and untouched.

Bruno had dropped the heavy binder into my lap, his gray eyes colder than winter.

"They’re safe," he had said, his voice flat and hard. "You stay in this room. My lawyers are handling the rest."

He thought that settled it. He thought I would sit on his plush sofa, drink his tea, and wait like an obedient doll while men in suits decided my fate.

He didn't understand.

Jackson hadn't attacked that studio just to torment me. He did it to keep me busy while he moved on the historic Maritime Pier.

The auction was set for two o'clock at the municipal trade hall. The pier was the only deep-water terminal adjacent to the Harbor Tower site. If Jackson bought it, he could legally reroute the heavy supply barges away from public inspection, burying his flawed foundation shortcuts under fifty feet of dark water before anyone could test the load limits.

I couldn't let him buy that dirt.

I waited until Bruno was called into an emergency syndicate briefing on the forty-first floor. I stripped off Bruno's oversized shirt, pulled on dark tailored trousers and a fitted black wool coat Mrs. Sarah had left in the closet, and slipped my physical State Architectural Board badge into my pocket. Jackson had cancelled my digital keycards, but my state license was registered to my name.

William Tower had four service elevator shafts, but only one connected to the subterranean heating tunnels built during the city’s industrial boom. I had studied the city’s civil plans for five years. I knew every blind spot in the concrete.

Ten minutes later, I walked out through a commercial delivery bay two blocks away, flagged a cab, and paid the driver with the emergency fifty-dollar bill folded inside my boot.

The municipal auction hall smelled of wet umbrellas, expensive cologne, and greed.

The ground floor was packed with hundreds of bankers, developers, and city councilmen, all gathered around the raised bidding stage. Television cameras lined the back wall.

I flashed my state architect's badge at the security turnstile and took the rear marble stairs up to the second-floor mezzanine. Up here, away from the reporters, private brass-railed balconies overlooked the entire floor.

I leaned against the cold railing, pulling my coat tight around my throat.

Down on the stage, the digital board lit up:

Lot 14: North Maritime Pier & Deep-Water Rights. Opening Bid: Fifteen Million Dollars.

"Did you come to watch me bury you, Charlotte?"

The voice hit me like dirty water.

I didn't flinch. I slowly turned my head.

Jackson stood four feet away. He wore an ivory designer suit with a gold silk tie, holding a crystal glass half-full of scotch. His hair was slicked back, but the skin around his eyes was tight and bloodshot. His knuckles were gray from gripping the glass.

"You smell like stale whiskey, Jackson," I said evenly. "Did you need liquid courage to face the cameras after running out the back door of my mother's studio?"

Jackson’s face darkened, the smug grin slipping from his lips. He took two heavy steps toward me, backing me against the polished brass railing.

"You think you won something because your billionaire keeper sent his muscle?" he sneered, his voice dropping to a harsh, venomous whisper. "Those sketches are worthless paper. Just like you. In ten minutes, this pier belongs to Sterling Holdings. My name goes on the city plaque. Elizabeth's family releases the maritime permits. And you're just a destitute ex-wife begging for table scraps across the street."

"You don't have the money for that pier," I replied, meeting his bloodshot stare without blinking. "You burned through your liquidity paying off Elizabeth’s father. If you bid on this lot, you have to draw from the Macau syndicate loan. High-interest blood money, Jackson. You’re putting a noose around your own neck."

Jackson’s eyes flared with manic fury. The fact that I knew about the offshore loans cracked whatever composure he had left.

He lunged forward.

Before I could raise my hands, his fingers clamped around my left forearm like steel jaws.

The pain was instant, a brutal, crushing pressure that drove the breath straight out of my chest. His fingernails dug through the wool of my coat, grinding against the bone.

I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted copper, refusing to give him a scream. I didn't pull away. I didn't beg. I looked him dead in the face, my jaw locked tight.

"Keep your voice down," Jackson hissed, jerking me forward until our faces were inches apart, his sour breath hot on my cheeks. "You think Bruno William gives a damn about you? You’re a toy to him, Charlotte. A piece of damaged goods he picked up off the street to irritate me. The second he gets what he wants from those files, he'll throw you right back into the gutter."

"Let go of me," I said, my voice steady, cold, and razor-sharp.

"Make me," he snarled, his fingers squeezing harder, twisting my flesh until a dark, ugly bruise bloomed beneath the cloth. "You're nothing without my name. You spent four years living off my family's legacy. I made you. And I will ruin you before I let you walk around this city like you matter."

"You didn't make me, Jackson," I whispered, holding his hateful gaze with pure defiance. "You rode my back to the top of this city. You stole my calculations. You stole my designs. You’re an empty, pathetic fraud who can't even stand on his own two feet without hiding behind a woman's work."

Jackson’s arm reared back, his face contorting into an ugly snarl, his free hand curling into a fist.

"I will put you in the dirt…"

"Take your hands off her, Jackson."

The voice didn't rise above a low, deadly baritone.

It cut through the humid air of the mezzanine like a serrated blade, heavy and suffocating. The low rumble of conversation on the auction floor below seemed to freeze instantly.

Jackson stopped mid-breath. His fist hovered in the air, his knuckles trembling.

The private double doors of the executive lift stood open behind us.

Bruno William stepped out onto the marble.

He wore a tailored black overcoat that swept past his knees, open over a dark suit that made his broad shoulders look massive. Behind him stood four stone-faced syndicate security operators in tactical suits, their coats parted, their hands resting loosely over concealed holsters.

Bruno didn't look at the auction stage below. He didn't look at the developers staring up from the floor.

His gray eyes were fixed entirely on Jackson’s hand gripping my bruised arm.

They were the eyes of an executioner who had just found a trespasser touching his personal property. Dark. Lethal. Utterly pitiless.

Bruno took three slow, deliberate strides across the marble floor. The heavy click of his leather shoes sounded like the cocking of a rifle in the dead silence.

He stopped two feet away, towering over Jackson with an aura of absolute violence.

"I won't say it a second time," Bruno said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Take your hands off her before I tear them off your body."