Charles’s men were already inside the penthouse. Julian pushed Ava into a hidden service stairwell and locked the steel panel behind them. Footsteps thundered overhead. In the dark, the billionaire who treated three million dollars like pocket change counted every breath Ava took and kept his body between hers and every opening door.
“Give me Noah’s file,” he said. “If they catch us, they search me first.”
“And if you disappear with it?”
Julian pressed the diamond on her finger against his chest. “Then use the ring to destroy me. It opens every account connected to our contract.” Before Ava could decide whether to trust him, the stairwell door below burst open.
They escaped through a hotel kitchen and straight into a charity gala crowded with cameras. Charles’s men followed in staff uniforms. Julian had nowhere left to hide, so he pulled Ava beneath the chandeliers and kissed her in front of two hundred reporters.
The kiss should have felt like clause thirteen—public affection performed for witnesses. Instead Julian’s control broke the moment Ava grabbed his collar. His arm locked around her waist. Flashbulbs exploded. The men hunting them could not drag away the city’s newest celebrity couple without doing it live.
By sunrise, their kiss covered every financial site in the country. Cross Medical shares climbed six percent. Charles publicly welcomed Ava to the family and privately sent a video to her phone.
Noah was strapped to a hospital bed, pounding against a locked door. A masked nurse lifted a syringe filled with silver liquid. Beneath the video was one demand: BRING ME JULIAN’S EVIDENCE BY NOON, OR YOUR BROTHER RECEIVES THE FIRST DOSE.
Ava looked up from the screen. Julian was gone—and so was Noah’s file.