Her ID badge still smelled of new plastic. Temporary Assistant – Research & PR.
Zara clipped it onto her blazer and stepped onto the twenty-second floor of ValeCorp. Polished floors. Minimalist design. Expensive silence. She moved through it with the precision of someone who belonged—but just enough to remain unseen.
"Your desk is here," Lila said. A junior assistant with a fake accent and real attitude. "You'll mostly do filing, calendar updates, and coffee runs."
"Got it," Zara replied with a pleasant smile, already calculating her surroundings.
Every screen. Every whispered conversation. Every misplaced post-it.
It wasn't a job. It was intelligence gathering.
By noon, she'd memorized two floor plans, identified five weak links, and spotted the corporate ladder's fault lines.
And at exactly 1:14 PM, she saw him.
Ethan Blackwell.
Taller. Sharper. Still smug. Her ex-fiancé. The man who'd abandoned her during the scandal and helped bury her father with his testimony.
He walked past without a glance.
Of course he didn't recognize her. He'd helped kill Zara Raine.
But her hands tightened around the coffee tray, knuckles pale.
Not today. Not yet. But soon.
Back at her desk, she slid on a discreet earpiece and opened a shared drive Lila had lazily added her to.
Internal memos. Calendar logs. One folder labeled M&A-PRIVATE.
Password-protected. Not encrypted.
Child's play.
She inserted the tiny flash drive hidden in her blazer's lining and began copying data. Just enough to understand ValeCorp's inner workings. Just enough to dig her first crack.
Her first cut.
She was about to log off when a shadow loomed.
She looked up.
Lucien Vale.
Power in a suit. Danger in human form. And this time—he was looking at her.
His gaze lingered. Badge. Screen. Face.
"New?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. Zara Winters."
He didn't answer immediately. Calculating.
"Welcome," he said finally. "ValeCorp only keeps the useful ones. Hope you're planning to be... useful."
A slow smile. And then he walked away.
Her heart didn't flutter.
It burned.