Chapter 207: The Devil’s Woman Can Play Too

Up on the sixty-fourth floor, the all-hands executive meeting was barely five minutes underway.

?Clara had slipped into the back of the glass-walled amphitheater with barely thirty seconds to spare, clutching her tablet, her chest still heaving from the sprint up the private lifts.

?At the head of the colossal marble table, Damian sat like a dark god carved from obsidian. He hadn’t spoken a single word since the session opened. He simply radiated an icy, suffocating pressure that kept the presenting directors sweating through their stiff collars.

?Bzzzt.

?The encrypted phone on the polished wood beside Damian’s right hand vibrated once.

?It wasn’t a call. It was a priority alert from his lead personal detail on street level.

?Damian’s dark, hooded eyes flicked downward. Without moving a muscle in his broad frame, his thumb swiped across the glass.

?SecurityDetail 1 [Street Grid]:

Ms Anastasia has parted ways with Clara Vance at 39th. Walking toward the third-party logistics annex alone. Detail is shadowing on foot and via secondary perimeter. Visual contact maintained.

?Damian’s jaw locked with an audible, sharp grind.

?Alone.

?His obsidian gaze snapped up from the screen, cutting through the dimmed lighting of the boardroom with lethal precision. Across the tiered rows, his eyes pinned Clara dead to her seat.

?Clara froze. The blood drained from her face so fast she felt dizzy. The message in Damian’s arctic glare was unmistakable... Why is she on the street, and why aren’t you with her?

?Damian didn’t wait for an answer. He looked past Clara, out toward the colossal panoramic windows behind her.

?The Manhattan sky had bruised into an ominous, violent shade of charcoal. The wind was lashing against the reinforced glass in hollow, low groans. It wasn’t just overcast anymore... the clouds were swelling, bloated with a freezing autumn deluge that looked ready to split open any second.

?Her body had barely cleared the toxic fumes forty-eight hours ago. Her lungs were fragile. Her immune system was hanging by a thread.

?And she was wandering down a drafty cross street, running errands like an errand girl.

?Damian pushed his chair back by two inches. The sharp, mechanical rasp cut clean through the presenter’s voice, silencing the room in an instant.

?Ignoring the paralyzed room of forty senior directors, Damian tapped Anastasia’s contact and brought the phone to his ear.

?The line rang.

?One ring.

?Two rings.

?Three.

?Voicemail.

?The tendon in Damian’s throat corded. He didn’t blink. He hit redial instantly.

?Ring.

?Ring.

?Ring.

?Click... The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.

?She had tapped the red decline button with her thumb. He knew the distinct, abrupt drop of the carrier tone better than anyone.

?She hung up on him.

?A lethal, simmering quiet descended over Damian’s side of the table. He hit the dial button a third time, his grip on the titanium frame tightening until his knuckles turned stark white, the metal creaking under the raw, suppressed violence of his fist.

?Straight to voicemail.

?She wasn’t missing the calls because of the bustling traffic. She had deliberately silenced the phone, stuffed it into her wool coat, and ignored him.

?A low, dark scoff tore from the back of Damian’s throat... a raspy, venomous rumble that raised the tiny hairs on the neck of the vice president seated to his left.

?"Fucking brat," Damian cursed under his breath, the words rough and coated in pure acid.

?She was playing games. She was flexing her tiny, fragile illusion of independence, throwing his own surveillance detail in his face, testing the boundaries of the leash he had temporarily loosened.

She thought that because she had called herself an "employee" on the thirty-fourth floor, she was suddenly beyond his reach.

?She thought she could defy him.

?I refused it, his mind snarled back, cold and absolute. I will never allow it.

?A sharp, violent crack of thunder rattled the heavy exterior glass, followed by the sudden, deafening drumming of heavy rain violently battering the sixty-fourth floor.

?The skies had completely opened.

?Damian stood up in one fluid, imposing motion.

?The heavy executive chair rolled back, colliding with the walnut credenza behind him with a dull thud. He didn’t glance at the projector. He didn’t look at Clara, nor did he offer a dismissal to the room full of executives holding their breath.

?He snatched his charcoal coat off the armrest, his eyes pitch-black and burning with a terrifying, predatory promise.

?The game was over. The leash was snapping shut.

*****************

Inside the dry, brightly lit dispatch office of the logistics annex, Anastasia smoothly capped her pen.

?She slid the signed regional manifests into a waterproof plastic sleeve, tucking the folder securely under her arm. A quiet, triumphant smile curved the corner of her lips... not because the courier codes had cleared without a hitch, but because of the small, glowing screen resting beside her bag.

?Three missed calls. All logged within ninety seconds of each other.

?The caller ID hadn’t needed a name; the single, cold initial D was burned into her memory. And she had let every single one ring out, deliberately tapping the red decline bar on the third attempt before stuffing the phone into her pocket.

?A soft, breathless giggle escaped her throat. She bit her lower lip, pressing her knuckles to her mouth to suppress the laugh bubbling up in her chest.

?She could vividly picture the scene sixty-four floors up. Damian Sterling, the untouchable titan of Wall Street, sitting at the head of a multi-billion-dollar boardroom, practically vibrating with suppressed violence because a simple girl from Pennsylvania had dared to send him straight to voicemail.

?Did he smash a glass? She wondered with a wicked, fleeting thrill. Maybe he threw a chair across the marble. Now that would be absolute cinema.

?The petty victory tasted sweet... a tiny, stolen breath of rebellion against a man who claimed to own every beat of her heart.

?Tucking the folder tighter, Ana pushed through the heavy glass doors of the annex and stepped onto the pavement.

?The wind hit her like a wet towel. The temperature on the street had cratered, and the sky had bruised into an ominous, churning black. Fat, freezing mist was already drifting through the air, warning that the clouds overhead were about to rupture.

?Ana pulled her camel coat tight around her collar, frowning up at the gloom. Her chest still felt sensitive from the clinic, and getting soaked in an autumn squall was a medical risk she genuinely couldn’t afford.

?Besides, she wasn’t in any rush to walk back into the dragon’s lair.

?There’s a small bakery across the avenue, Ana reasoned, her eyes darting toward the warm, amber glow of a coffee shop two doors down. I can order a hot chamomile, read through the freight codes, and let the downpour pass. Damian can stew in his own rage until four.

?Bzzzt.

?The device in her pocket vibrated with a sharp, demanding buzz.

?Ana rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. She pulled the phone out, fully prepared to see a wall of icy, legalistic threats from Damian reminding her of her contract, her debt, or the tracking detail currently shadowing her from the curb.

?She unlocked the screen.

?It wasn’t Damian.

?It was Clara.

?Clara:

ANA GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW.

He walked into the review looking like a walking war crime. He just pinned me with a death glare that shaved ten years off my life.

HE KNOWS I LEFT YOU ON THE STREET.

Come back this second or I swear my badge is getting incinerated before three. I cannot save my job if you stay out there.