Chapter 4 - The Audit of BetrayalAt 10:00 a.m. that morning, the executive penthouse suite of the Galleria Hotel was thrown open with a thunderous, violent crash.
Claire Barrett stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, wearing a silk robe, sipping espresso, enjoying what she believed was her absolute, permanent victory over me.
She turned around, expecting Luke to walk through the door with an apology or a second night of passion.
Instead, stepping into the room, flanked by four broad-shouldered operators in tactical gear, was Luke Delaney.
His gray eyes were cold, hollowed-out, and burning with a dark, apocalyptic fury that made Claire stumble backward against the glass window, dropping her coffee cup onto the carpet floorboards, where it shattered into fragments.
"L-Luke...?" Claire stammered, her voice cracking into a high, panic-stricken pitch. "What's wrong? Did Paige cause a scene?!"
Luke walked slowly across the carpet. He didn't yell. He didn't draw a weapon. His mere presence radiated a terrifying, heavy authority that dropped the air pressure in the room to zero.
He tossed a thick Manila folder flat onto the glass table.
"Page seventy-two, Claire," Luke spoke softly, every word dropped like a slab of cold iron.
Claire looked down at the document. It was a certified bank wire record from October 2011, showing a three-million-dollar transfer from an off-ledger syndicate account straight into her private Zurich account—signed by her late lover, Viktor Vance, two days after her father's death.
Claire’s face turned an ugly, paper-white shade of green. Her lips trembled as sweat broke out across her forehead. "Where... where did you get this?!"
"Paige gave me the trail," Luke revealed, taking a step closer, his voice dropping into a deadly baritone. "You didn't just ruin Thomas Barrett, Claire. You tried to destroy my father's company, you sold syndicate secrets to our rivals, and then you brought me a altered file seventeen hours ago to trick me into abandoning my pregnant wife."
"NO! LUKE! LISTEN TO ME!" Claire shrieked, falling onto her knees on the carpet, reaching out to clutch his trousers. "I did it for us! Paige was never right for you! She’s weak! She was investigating you!"
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Luke kicked her hands away with cold, weightless disdain.
"Paige protected me from my own family's corruption for three years," Luke growled, tears of pure, agonizing remorse finally breaking through his hard features. "And I traded her love for a viper's lie."
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