Chapter 5 - The Glass Shatters
Maya stepped back, the warmth of his coat suddenly feeling heavy and suffocating as a cold knot of dread tightened in her stomach.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, her voice trembling as she stared at his rigid posture. "Nathan, who is calling you like that at nine o'clock at night?"
Nathan silenced the phone by pressing the power button, letting the screen go black before slipping it back into his pocket. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, looking away across the dark water of the river for a long moment before bringing his dark eyes back to meet hers.
"The call was from Julian Vance," Nathan said, his voice hard as iron.
Maya blinked, racking her brain. "Vance? Like Vance Global Capital? The firm that’s been trying to execute a hostile takeover of Northstar for the past six months?"
"The same," Nathan replied grimly. "Julian Vance isn't just a rival corporate raider, Maya. He’s my stepbrother. And three years ago, when our father died and left controlling shares of Northstar to me instead of him, Julian swore he would destroy everything I built—starting with my reputation, and ending with anyone foolish enough to get close to me."
A cold shudder raced down Maya’s spine. "I don't understand. What does a corporate feud have to do with us?"
"Everything," Nathan said, taking a step toward her, his expression fraught with agonizing remorse. "When Julian’s private investigators discovered that the cold, untouchable CEO of Northstar had suddenly pulled out of a major acquisition to spend his lunch breaks eating turkey sandwiches with a junior data analyst in Logan Square... they didn't see a romance. They saw a weapon."
Maya’s breath hitched. "A weapon?"
"They’ve been tracking you for two weeks," Nathan confessed, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "They know about your apartment. They know where your parents live in Ohio. And thirty minutes ago, Julian sent me a dossier containing doctored financial records, forged insider trading reports, and fabricated compliance violations pointing directly to your employee ID."
The world seemed to tilt violently on its axis. Maya stared at him, her chest heaving as the terrifying reality of what she had walked into finally crashed down around her. "Insider trading? Forged violations? Nathan, I'm just an analyst! I don't even have access to executive ledgers!"
"You have my personal clearance code because I granted it to you so we could review the forecasting models," Nathan said, his jaw tightening into a hard line of fury. "Julian is using my affection for you to frame you for federal crimes. If I don't step down as CEO by Monday morning and hand voting control of Northstar over to him, his legal team will leak the fabricated indictments to the SEC, and you will spend the next ten years of your life in a federal penitentiary for a crime you didn't commit."
Maya stumbled backward, her knees trembling so violently she nearly collapsed onto the concrete pavement. The fairy tale vanished in a blinding flash of reality. She wasn't just dating a billionaire; she had inadvertently walked onto the front lines of an elite, ruthless corporate war where she was nothing more than a pawn designed to break a king.
"You used me," Maya whispered, the words tasting like poison on her tongue. Her voice cracked as hot, furious tears streamed down her cheeks. "All of it—the late nights, the conversations, the sweet words—was it all just a calculated risk? A vulnerability you handed to your enemies on a silver platter?"
"No!" Nathan roared, stepping forward and grabbing her by the shoulders, his grip fierce, desperate, and trembling with a raw, agonizing emotion. "Look at me, Maya! Look at my eyes and tell me if any of this was a game to me!"
Maya looked up into his face. She saw the dark circles under his eyes, the absolute terror hiding behind his rigid posture, and the profound, unbearable agony of a man who had finally found something real, only to watch it placed directly in the crosshairs of his worst enemy.
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"If you truly cared about me," Maya whispered, her voice breaking completely as she gently pulled herself out of his grip, "you would have kept me at a safe distance. You never should have let me cross that frosted glass."
Without waiting for his answer, Maya turned away, pulled Nathan’s heavy cashmere coat off her shoulders, dropped it onto the cold concrete bench, and ran blindly toward the nearest subway station, leaving the billionaire CEO standing alone in the dark Chicago wind.
