The elevator smelled faintly of bleach and polished steel. Cold light. Nowhere to drift.
Ghost had done his homework.
Edgar Thorne was a widower. One daughter—Emily—is studying ballet in Lausanne. Her last serious leg surgery, and the rehab that followed, had been paid through a Swiss trust with ties back to StarRing Capital.
Riva stepped in behind him as the doors slid shut.
On the day of her verdict, she'd watched a shareholder chart get "cleaned up" for the jury—boxes and arrows turned into something simple, convincing, wrong.
StarRing Capital sat three shells deep: on paper, a European distribution partner; in reality, a drain for Prism's profit. Edgar's name showed up where it counted—authorizations, signatures, approvals.
The elevator started down.
Riva watched the floor numbers descend. Then she spoke, flat as a billing statement.
"Mr. Thorne. How's Emily doing in Lausanne?"
Edgar went still. The color ran out of his face.
"Ms… Ms. Lane, I don't—"
Riva dismissed the excuse with a sharp flick of her wrist.
He stopped.
"You don't have to," she said. "Relax, Edgar. I'm not Marcus."
He swallowed. The elevator hummed. Too quiet.
"He doesn't care if your daughter ever dances again," Riva said. "He cares if that StarRing invoice gets noticed once Lighthouse starts sniffing around."
She let the silence do its job.
"And I care about something else," she said, catching his eyes in the mirrored wall. "How far a father will go. And what he does when it's time to pick a side."
Edgar's mouth opened, then closed. He looked like a man trying to keep his balance without moving.
Riva took out a plain business card—no logo, no shine. She stepped in, straightened the edge of his lapel with two fingers, and slid the card into his breast pocket like it belonged there.
A Zurich sports-injury rehab specialist on top. And a handwritten address underneath.
"Remember this," she said, low. "Marcus is offering you two roles—accomplice or fall guy."
The numbers over the door ticked down again.
"I'm offering you a choice that actually matters," Riva said. "Be the father who protects her future. Or be the one who ruins it."
Edgar's breath caught. Sweat shined along his hairline.
Riva tipped her chin toward the security camera in the corner, then back to him—just enough to remind him the clean version was always the one on record.
"When it's time to choose," she said, "contact me."
Ding.
The doors slid open.
Riva stepped out without looking back.
Edgar stayed inside, hand hovering over the card in his pocket like it might burn through the fabric.
Riva went to the post-production center next.
They were in final color on Silent Echoes, the kind of prestige drama people started whispering about the second anyone said "Oscars."
She didn't announce herself. She slipped into the back of the grading suite and stayed in the shadows behind the colorist, watching the footage roll across the big monitors.
He'd been stuck on the same dusk scene for what felt like forever—a moment meant to hold the lead's private grief. He pushed the warmth and it went soft, almost corny. He pulled it back and the frame went flat. He ran a hand through his hair, jaw tight, trapped in that dead zone where nothing works.
Riva waited until he stopped, fingers hovering over the controls.
Then she spoke, calm and even.
"Drop the saturation five to seven percent," she said. "And add a touch of indigo in the shadows. She isn't falling apart here—she's holding it together. Too much warmth steals the detail in her eyes. The blue will let the loneliness sit there without turning it into a speech."
The colorist held still for a beat, then did it.
A few quick moves. A slider down. Shadows cooled a tiny bit.
When the image came back up, the room went quiet. Someone behind them let out a breath they'd been holding.
It still looked expensive. But now it hit. The performance didn't get buried under the grade—it came forward.
The lead's face sharpened, and every small shift in her expression read clean.
"Jesus," the colorist said, turning toward the dark. "Ms. Lane—you're right. That's it."
Word moved through Prism fast. Quiet at first. Then everywhere.
Ms. Lane wasn't just a producer with an actress's past—she knew what she was doing.
Marcus lived in the numbers. Riva had her hands on the work.
By the end of the afternoon, the building felt different.
And people were already choosing sides.
A few days later, the Mackin & White team showed up—quietly, brought in through Lighthouse International. They set up inside Prism Pictures and started what they called a "Comprehensive Risk Assessment."
Marcus tried to play it off as routine. Nobody bought it.
The mood in the building shifted anyway—especially in Finance. They could feel the scrub coming, and it put a sheen of sweat on everything.
That night, alone in her own place, Riva opened her laptop. The cursor blinked at her like it had all the time in the world. She typed:
MOONSTONE CAPITAL — FOUNDING PLAN
She'd taken the name from her last life. Back in that narrow cell, the only light she ever got was moonlight slipping through a small window set too high to reach.
It wasn't warm. It didn't comfort you. It just showed you what was there.
This would be hers. A shelter for talent the industry liked to miss—the real kind, the kind that didn't come prepackaged.
And underneath that, something tougher: a base she built from scratch, with no Marcus on it.
She was deep into the outline when her private inbox pinged.
A digital invitation. Minimal. A watermark you only noticed when you tilted the screen.
Karl Winters.
The only heir to the Winters media empire. Hollywood's strangest shark—sharp-eyed, hard to impress, impossible to ignore.
After a year in Europe scouting projects, he was back in L.A. This Saturday night, he was hosting an ultra-private dinner on the penthouse level of the Belvedere Hills.
Perfect timing.