Megan swallowed hard, looking genuinely pained. “And Vanessa… she’s been up here, too.”
I closed my eyes, a wave of nausea washing over me. The sheer, unadulterated cruelty of the human species is a bottomless chasm.
Megan hooked her arm through mine, aggressively steering me toward a vacant, soundproofed conference room. She shoved a steaming cup of black coffee into my hands and began delivering the intelligence briefing.
Ryan had unilaterally started injecting himself into high-level senior leadership briefings, despite the fact that his official HR title was merely Regional Director of Sales. Worse, Vanessa had been cornering senior logistics managers, casually discussing structural reorganizations and aggressive “modernization” strategies, acting as though she were the newly crowned Empress of the board.
They were moving with terrifying velocity. It was too fast, too aggressive. They operated like thieves sprinting out of a bank, terrified that if they stopped running, the illusion would shatter.
That specific observation stuck in my mind like a jagged splinter. Why the rush? When I finally gathered the nerve to approach Daniel’s corner office, my courage almost evaporated.
I pushed the heavy oak door open. The sensory assault was immediate. The room still smelled fiercely of him: rich cedarwood cologne, the crisp scent of fresh printer paper, and the biting chill of the Chicago wind seeping through the partially cracked window blinds. His framed degree from Northwestern hung proudly on the wall, flanking photographs of him smiling at various children’s charity galas. The massive mahogany desk remained impeccably uncluttered, a testament to Daniel’s belief that a messy workspace indicated a chaotic, weak mind.
But a profound corruption had infected the room.
Ryan was sitting in my dead brother’s ergonomic leather chair. He was hunched over my dead brother’s desk. And he was still wearing my dead brother’s navy cashmere coat indoors.
The visual cocktail of disrespect made my stomach violently twist.
Ryan glanced up from a glowing Excel spreadsheet. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look ashamed. He offered a casual, relaxed smile, as if this scenario were the most natural progression in the world.
“Emily,” he said smoothly, his voice dripping with faux-managerial patience. “You really should have pinged my assistant before coming up here.”
I stared at him, my jaw practically unhinged. “What, exactly, are you doing behind that desk?”
“Working.” He spread his hands innocently. “Nature abhors a vacuum, Em. Somebody has to step up and man the helm.”
The sheer, unbridled arrogance of the statement knocked the wind out of me.
Ryan leaned back, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “To be completely candid, the infrastructure here requires an anchor of stability right now. The lower-level employees are getting spooked by the transition.”
“You are a regional sales rep, Ryan. You are not the Chief Executive Officer.”
“Titles are fluid during a crisis.”
I forced my eyes to sweep the surface of the desk. Beside his elbow sat three heavily redacted folders: Quarterly Financial Disclosures, Liquid Asset Portfolios, and Prospective Acquisition Targets. He was already excavating the financial bedrock of the company.
“Did Daniel legally authorize you to review restricted documents?” I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous hush.
Ryan let out a patronizing scoff. “Daniel is gone, Emily.”
The absolute lack of reverence in his delivery—cold, utilitarian, deeply inconvenienced by the concept of grief—triggered a permanent, tectonic shift in my psyche.
In that precise second, the cryptic voicemail from the grave finally decoded itself in my brain.
Do not trust anyone until Richard Lawson reads the will. Daniel hadn’t said be careful. He hadn’t said watch your back. He explicitly instructed me to trust no one.
Ryan stood up, pacing slowly around the perimeter of the desk, projecting dominance. “Listen to me. You are fragile right now. You need to focus entirely on your emotional healing journey. Let the adults who actually understand corporate leverage handle the heavy lifting.”
A month ago, that suffocating condescension would have reduced me to angry, defensive tears. Today, it only sharpened my vision into high definition.
“Fascinating,” I murmured, tilting my head. “What exactly fuels this sudden delusion that this corporation belongs to you?”
His expression twitched. It was microscopic, a fleeting glitch in the matrix, but I caught it.
Fear. It sparked in his pupils and vanished just as quickly.
Ryan aggressively crossed his arms over his chest. “Vanessa inherited Daniel’s estate. End of story.”
There it is. The foundational assumption supporting his entire paper castle. He firmly believed Vanessa was the sole heir to the Carter fortune. And by infiltrating Vanessa’s bed, he believed he had effectively bypassed the corporate ladder to inherit the throne.
I nodded slowly, chewing on the inside of my cheek as though evaluating a brilliant business proposal. Then, I dropped a match into the gasoline.
“Did Daniel know about your affair before the accident?”
The muscles in Ryan’s jaw tightened so violently I thought his teeth might shatter. “That is entirely irrelevant to the operational status of this firm.”
“That was not the question I asked.”
The silence that stretched across the mahogany desk was lethal. Ryan broke eye contact first, staring out the window at the skyline.
Fascinating. Before he could attempt to regain control of the narrative, three sharp knocks echoed against the doorframe.
Richard Lawson stepped into the office.