Chapter 58: Loose Ends

The phone buzzed again against the wood of the nightstand.

Victoria’s eyes opened. She didn’t look tired anymore; whatever sleep had been coming for her was gone, leaving her expression flat and sharp in the dim blue light coming off the river.

She rolled onto her side, picked up the phone, and flipped it over.

"It’s the lead detective," she said quietly.

She pressed the speaker button once.

"Sterling," she said.

"Sorry to call this late, Ms. Sterling," the detective’s voice rasped through the small speaker, thin and tired. "We pulled the toll cameras on I-95 south. The black SUV Ellstrom was driving was abandoned at a rest stop on Route 1, south of Wilmington. State troopers found it empty thirty minutes ago. He’s on foot or switched vehicles."

Victoria didn’t flinch.

"Is the wire transfer still secure?" she asked.

"Still frozen. Delaware has his plate and his photo out, but if he had cash put away or a second car waiting, he’s buying himself time." The detective paused. "We’ll have deputies stationed outside your building until morning just in case he tries anything stupid."

"Thank you, Detective," Victoria said. "Call me if he surfaces."

She ended the call and set the phone face down on the nightstand. She turned her face toward Lucas, her hand resting flat against his chest.

"He’s running blind," she said. "He can’t touch the money, and Cole is in a cell. He has nowhere to go."

"Then he’ll keep moving until he runs out of road," Lucas said. "Men like that don’t stop on their own."

Victoria was quiet for a second, her fingers tracing the edge of his collarbone.

"You told Camilla you would call her tonight," she said.

It wasn’t a question.

"I did," Lucas replied.

Victoria looked up at him, her dark eyes unreadable in the shadow.

"Go," she said softly. "Call her from the living room. And don’t whisper on my account."

Lucas got out of bed, pulled on his trousers and walked barefoot across the pale wood floor out into the dark living room. The rain had slowed to a steady, rhythmic mist against the floor-to-ceiling glass.

He found his phone in his jacket pocket on the hallway floor, looked at Camilla’s name for a second, and dialed.

It rang twice before a sharp, clear voice picked up.

"If you’re calling to tell me you’re still at Vertex, save your breath," Camilla said.

She didn’t sound angry. She sounded like a woman who had spent four hours answering questions from state troopers and local detectives while her lawyers tried to rewrite three years of corporate filings in the back of a car.

"I’m not at Vertex," Lucas said.

A brief silence hung on the line.

"You’re with her," Camilla stated.

"Yes."

Another silence, longer this time. He could hear the faint sound of traffic in the background on her end; she was still in the car, on her way home.

"You’re honest," Camilla said, dry as paper. "I suppose I’m meant to appreciate that instead of finding it irritating."

"You would hate it if I lied," Lucas said.

"I would know you were lying," she corrected him. "Which is worse."

She let out a slow, tired breath. For a moment she didn’t say anything. He waited, and didn’t fill the silence. Anything he said now would sound like an excuse.

"I’m not going to pretend I like it," she said finally. "I’m also not going to pretend I didn’t see it coming. I watched her look at you in that conference room."

"Camilla."

"Don’t." Not sharp. Just tired. "I’m not twenty-five, Lucas. I don’t need you to explain yourself, and I don’t want you to apologize for being honest. I’d only hold the apology against you."

"Cole is locked down," Camilla said, moving on in the way she always did, briskly, before anyone could see what it cost. "The police have the original and Morgan’s report. My bank has its report number. The story is ours, at least until tomorrow. We survived the day, Lucas."

"You did more than survive," Lucas said. "You outplayed them."

"We outplayed them," she corrected gently. "Don’t sell yourself short. You’re the one who told us to walk into the fire instead of hiding behind it."

She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was lower.

"Come see me tomorrow afternoon," Camilla said. "After the board calls are finished and the lawyers stop screaming. I’ll clear an hour myself." A short, humorless breath. "I don’t have an assistant at the moment."

"I’ll be there," Lucas said.

"Goodnight, Lucas."

The line clicked dead.

Lucas stood by the window for a moment, looking out at the dark expanse of the river, before turning back toward the bedroom.

When he stepped back inside, Victoria was propped up on one elbow against the gray pillows. The hallway lamp laid a thin amber line across her shoulder and hip.

"Did you call her?" Victoria asked.

"I did."

"What did she say?"

"She told me to come see her tomorrow after her board calls," Lucas said honestly.

Victoria gave a short, humorless smile, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"She has nerve," Victoria murmured. "I’ll give her that."

"Are you going to ask me to choose?"

Victoria looked at him for a long moment.

"No," she said. "I don’t ask questions I don’t want answered tonight."

"She thinks the same about you."

She shifted back against the sheets and held out her hand. There was nothing tired in the look she gave him now.

[Target Arousal Rising.]

[Target State: Focused. Intentional. Seeking control on her own terms.]

She reached out, her fingers catching the front of his trousers and pulling him down onto the bed before he could speak.

This time, there was no rush of adrenaline, no frantic edge of survival.

Victoria rolled over him, pinning his shoulders against the mattress with a quiet, calculated strength. Her dark hair fell forward in a loose curtain, brushing against his chest as she looked down at him.

"You gave her the phone call," Victoria said, her voice low and steady. "The rest of tonight is mine."

She didn’t wait for an answer.

She lowered her mouth to his, kissing him with a slow, deliberate heat that felt entirely different from their first encounter. It wasn’t about losing control; it was about taking it back on her own terms. Her hands traced the lines of his chest and ribs, learning every contour with a possessive intensity.

Lucas let her set the pace.

He raised his hands to her hips, his fingers pressing into the warm skin of her waist as she shifted her weight upward. Her skin was hot under his palms.

Victoria broke the kiss, trailing her lips down his throat, pausing over his collarbone until he let out a sharp breath. She moved down his body with slow, deliberate strokes, her tongue warm and finding every place that made his breath catch, and lingering there until his hips lifted off the bed.

"Look at me," she commanded softly, rising back up to hover over him.

Lucas opened his eyes. Her face was flushed, her dark eyes locked onto his with absolute clarity.

She took him inside her in one slow, unbroken descent.

Both of them stopped breathing for a second. The friction was deep and intense, the room around them narrowing down to the sound of their breathing and the wet slide of skin against skin.

Victoria didn’t rush. She moved with a measured, hypnotic cadence, her hands flat against his chest, her fingers curling into his skin every time she rose and sank back down.

[Target Escalation: Sustained High Synchronicity.]

[Sensory Feedback Maximized.]

"Victoria," he murmured, his hands gripping her thighs as he matched her rhythm, pushing upward to meet every slow, devastating stroke.

She bit her lower lip, her head falling back as a long, trembling gasp tore through her throat. The walls inside her clenched tightly around him.

The composure she wore like armor was gone, but her focus remained absolute.

"Don’t look away," she whispered, her eyes flashing down at him.

When she came, she didn’t close her eyes. She stared right into his face, her whole body going rigid, her inner muscles convulsing around him in a deep, prolonged wave that forced a ragged groan from his chest.

Lucas followed her over the edge a heartbeat later, buried deep inside her, his hands tight on her hips as it went through both of them.

They collapsed together onto the gray sheets, tangled in each other’s arms. Outside, the rain had thinned to a light drizzle.

[Target: Victoria Sterling.]

[Bond Deepened: The target chose to trust the Host while fully in control.]

[Reward: 150 AP.]

[Current AP Balance: 850.]

Lucas lay looking at the ceiling, her warmth against his side, until her breathing slowed into sleep.

He must have slept too, because when he opened his eyes the window had gone from black to a dull pewter gray. Early morning. The bridge lights had switched off.

Then, sharp and sudden against the wood of the nightstand, Lucas’s own phone began to ring.

Victoria didn’t move, but her eyes opened.

Lucas reached over and flipped his phone face up. The screen glowed with the name of the lead detective.

He tapped accept and held the phone to his ear.

"Detective," Lucas said quietly.

"Ms. Verman gave us this number in case we needed you," the detective said, fast and clipped. "You’ll want to hear this." "We picked up Ellstrom twenty minutes ago at a roadside motel outside Dover. He didn’t even try to run."

"And the money?" Lucas asked.

"The wire’s frozen, so he’s broke," the detective said. "But he’s singing. He’s trying to cut a deal with the state prosecutor already."

Lucas sat up slowly. Beside him, Victoria pushed herself up on one elbow.

"What is he saying?"

"He’s giving up everyone," the detective said. "He claims Northshore wasn’t only Cole’s work. He says someone inside Vertex changed the account numbers on page forty-seven of the zoning agreement on the morning it was signed. And he says he has the server logs to prove it."

Lucas kept his face still.

Victoria was watching him. In the gray light, her eyes were clear and very awake.

"Is he in custody now?" Lucas asked.

"Holding cell in Dover. We’re bringing him up this morning. The prosecutor will want to talk to everyone who was near that contract." A pause. "That includes you."

"Of course," Lucas said. "Whatever you need."

He ended the call.

[Warning: Exposure Risk Detected.]

[A third party claims evidence of the page 47 alteration.]

[Recommended Action: Verify the claim before it reaches the prosecutor.]

Server logs.

Mads had worked across the hall from the people who handled that contract. If he had kept anything, he had kept it on purpose.

"Lucas," Victoria said quietly. "What was that about?"

He looked at her, sitting up in the sheets with her hair falling over one shoulder, the most dangerous person he could possibly lie to.

"Mads is talking," he said. "He’s trying to drag Vertex in with him."

It was true.

It just wasn’t all of it.