At 8:45 AM, I walked into Russo's Café wearing the same red dress from yesterday and the last remnants of my pride. Lucas had wanted to come inside with me, but I'd convinced him to wait across the street where he could watch through the window.
The café was nearly empty—too early for the lunch crowd, too late for the breakfast rush. I ordered a coffee and sat at a corner table facing the door.
At exactly 9 AM, a woman walked in.
She was in her early fifties, elegant in a cream pantsuit, her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. I recognized her immediately from the society pages.
Victoria Castellano.
My blood ran cold.
She walked directly to my table and sat down without asking permission, a smile playing at her lips.
"Ms. Sterling. Thank you for coming."
"You're the one who's been sending me information," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
"Guilty." She gestured to the waiter. "Espresso, please." Then she turned back to me. "I imagine you have questions."
"Why?"
"Why am I helping you?" Victoria's smile widened. "Because Sienna Blackwood is destroying someone I care about. And I thought you might be interested in returning the favor."
"Sienna's working for you, isn't she? The Castellanos paid her to destroy Ashford Technologies."
"My, you are clever." Victoria didn't deny it. "Though 'working for me' is a bit of an oversimplification. Sienna and I have a mutually beneficial arrangement. I provide resources. She provides results."
"So you admit it. You're behind all of this."
"I'm behind Ashford Technologies' downfall, yes. But I'm not behind what Sienna did to you." Victoria leaned forward. "That was all her. The manipulation, the lies she told Damien about you, the way she convinced him you were a gold-digger—that was her personal touch. She enjoys breaking people."
"And you let her."
"I didn't hire her to be kind, Ms. Sterling. I hired her to be effective." Victoria accepted her espresso from the waiter. "But that's actually why I'm here. Because Sienna has become too effective. Too unpredictable. She was supposed to destroy Ashford Technologies and move on. Instead, she's become obsessed with Damien. And obsession makes people sloppy."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to offer you a job." Victoria pulled out a tablet and slid it across the table. On the screen was an employment contract. Chief Security Officer at Castellano Corporation. Salary: $800,000 annually.
I stared at it. "You want me to work for you."
"I want you to help me take down Sienna before she destroys everything I've built." Victoria took a sip of her espresso. "You see, Ms. Sterling, I've been very careful over the years to keep my hands clean. I hire people like Sienna to do the dirty work. But Sienna's been getting reckless. She's left evidence trails. She's made enemies. And sooner or later, she's going to get caught."
"And when she does, she'll expose you."
"Exactly." Victoria smiled. "So I need someone to... neutralize her. Someone with the technical skills to erase evidence. Someone with motivation to see Sienna destroyed. Someone who has nothing to lose."
"Someone like me."
"Someone exactly like you." Victoria leaned back. "Help me bury Sienna Blackwood, and I'll give you everything you need to rebuild your life. Money, connections, a fresh start away from Silvercrest City. You'll never have to see Damien Ashford again."
It was tempting. God, it was tempting.
"And Damien?" I asked. "What happens to him in all this?"
"Ashford Technologies fails. He loses everything his grandfather built. And he learns a valuable lesson about trusting the wrong people." Victoria's eyes were cold. "But he survives. Broken, but alive. Isn't that more than he gave you?"
I thought about last night. About signing those divorce papers while Damien watched, emotionless. About walking through the photographers while the world laughed at me. About three years of loving someone who saw me as nothing more than a contract.
Victoria was right. Damien had broken me without a second thought.
Why should I protect him now?
But then I thought about the evidence Lucas and I had found. About James Chen. About Sienna's pattern of destroying people. About Marcus Chen and whoever else she'd manipulated over the years.
This wasn't just about me and Damien. This was bigger.
"I need time to think about it," I said.
"You have seventy-two hours." Victoria stood up, leaving a business card on the table. "After that, the offer expires. And Ms. Sterling? Choose wisely. Because if you're not with me, you're against me. And you really don't want to be my enemy."
She walked out of the café, leaving me alone with a job offer that felt like a deal with the devil.
My phone buzzed. Lucas.
Did you get all that?
I'd forgotten about the wire he'd insisted I wear.
Every word, he texted back. She basically just confessed to corporate espionage. We've got her.
I texted back: Meet me at your car. We need to talk.
Lucas was waiting when I got outside, his expression grim.
"So the Castellanos are behind everything," he said as we drove away from the café. "What are you going to do?"
"I have no idea." I stared out the window at Silvercrest City passing by. "Victoria wants me to help her destroy Sienna. Part of me wants to. Sienna deserves it."
"But?"
"But if I help Victoria, Damien loses everything. And yeah, he hurt me. But does he deserve to lose his entire company? His legacy? Everything his family built?" I shook my head. "I don't know anymore."
"What if there was a third option?" Lucas pulled into a parking garage and turned off the car. "What if we exposed both of them? Sienna and Victoria?"
"How?"
"We have evidence of Victoria's involvement now. We have the contract between Sienna and Richard Ashford. We have James Chen's role in all of this." Lucas met my eyes. "What if we gave all of it to Damien? Let him decide what to do with it?"
"He wouldn't believe me. He thinks I'm a gold-digger, remember? Sienna made sure of that."
"Then we make him believe. We get proof so overwhelming he can't ignore it." Lucas pulled out his laptop. "I can hack into Sienna's emails, her phone records, her financial accounts. I can find every lie she's told, every person she's manipulated. And we present it all to Damien in a way he can't dismiss."
"And then what?"
"And then he has a choice. Destroy Sienna and save his company. Or let her destroy him." Lucas's expression was serious. "But either way, the choice is his. Not Victoria's. Not ours."
I thought about it. Part of me wanted to let Damien burn. Wanted him to feel even a fraction of the pain he'd caused me.
But another part—the part that had loved him for three years, that had believed in him even when he'd never believed in me—that part wanted him to have a chance.
"Okay," I said. "We get the evidence. We give it to Damien. And then we let him decide."