Isabella POV
I stayed in my office until three in the morning, long after the federal agents had finished their search and the building had emptied of everyone except security guards and my own stubborn refusal to surrender. The city stretched out below me through floor-to-ceiling windows, millions of lights representing millions of lives that would continue regardless of whether Sterling Industries survived the night.
Why am I fighting so hard to save something that's already dead?
The question had been circling my mind for hours, growing louder with each piece of evidence that someone was orchestrating our destruction from within. The leaked financial reports, the perfectly timed SEC raid, the board's sudden eagerness to remove me, t all pointed to a conspiracy that went far deeper than Damien's quest for revenge.
My phone had been silent since his last message, but I could feel his presence like a phantom touch. He was out there somewhere, probably watching the news coverage of the raid, waiting to see if I would finally accept the escape route he'd offered.
The trap is closing, bella. Last chance to get out before it's too late.
I'd deleted the message, but I couldn't delete the way my heart had jumped at seeing my old nickname. Bella. Beautiful. The name he'd whispered against my skin when we were young and stupid and believed love could conquer anything.
Maybe it still can.
The thought was dangerous, seductive, and completely at odds with everything I'd been raised to believe about duty and responsibility. But as I sat alone in my father's office, surrounded by the remnants of an empire built on lies and maintained through betrayal, I couldn't escape the growing certainty that Damien had been right.
Some legacies weren't worth preserving. Some prisons needed to be burned down before their inmates could be free.
A soft knock on my door interrupted my spiraling thoughts. I looked up to see Marcus Chen standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee and an expression that suggested he'd been wrestling with demons of his own.
"Thought you might need this," he said, settling into the chair across from my desk and sliding one of the cups toward me.
I accepted the coffee gratefully, wrapping my hands around the warm ceramic and breathing in the familiar comfort of caffeine and routine.
"Shouldn't you be home with your family?" I asked.
"Shouldn't you?" he countered. "Isabella, it's three in the morning. The federal agents are gone, the reporters have packed up for the night, and whatever crisis you're trying to solve by sitting here alone isn't going to be solved by morning."
He was right, but going home felt like surrender. As long as I was here, in my father's chair, I could pretend I still had some control over the situation.
"The board wants me to resign," I said quietly.
"I know. Henry called me after their emergency meeting." Marcus took a sip of his coffee, studying my face with the careful attention of a lawyer who'd learned to read between the lines. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." The admission felt like failure, but I was too exhausted to maintain the facade of corporate confidence. "Marcus, what if they're right? What if I am too emotionally compromised to lead this company?"
"Because of Damien Cross?"
The question hung between us like a loaded gun. Marcus knew about my past with Damien, he'd been the one to help me research Cross Enterprises, had seen the way my composure cracked when I'd first realized who was targeting us.
"Among other things," I said carefully.
"Isabella, I've worked with you for three years. I've seen you handle impossible negotiations, navigate hostile board meetings, and make decisions that saved this company millions of dollars. If you're emotionally compromised, it's not because you're weak, t's because you're human."
Human. Such a simple word, but it felt revolutionary after a lifetime of being expected to embody Sterling perfection.
"The board thinks my judgment is clouded," I said.
"The board is scared," Marcus replied bluntly. "They're looking for someone to blame for thirty years of questionable business practices finally catching up with them. Your father made a lot of enemies, Isabella. This isn't all about Damien Cross."
Your father made a lot of enemies.
The words hit me like a revelation. I'd been so focused on Damien's revenge, so consumed with the personal nature of his attacks, that I'd missed the bigger picture. Someone else was pulling strings, using Damien's vendetta as cover for their own agenda.
"Who else wanted to destroy Sterling Industries?" I asked suddenly.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "That's a long list. Your father wasn't exactly known for his collaborative approach to business. But if you're asking who has the resources and connections to orchestrate what happened tonight..."
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through something, his expression growing grim.
"I did some digging after the SEC raid. The anonymous tip that triggered the investigation came through a law firm that specializes in white-collar crime. Blackwood, Sterling & Associates."
Blackwood.
The name hit me like ice water. I knew that name from board meetings and industry functions, from the kind of whispered conversations that suggested power and influence that operated outside normal channels.
"Marcus Blackwood," I said quietly.
"The same. Old money, older connections, and a reputation for acquiring distressed companies through... creative means." Marcus set down his coffee cup with deliberate precision. "Isabella, I think we've been playing the wrong game. This isn't just about Damien Cross wanting revenge. Someone's been using his vendetta as cover for a much more sophisticated attack."
The pieces clicked into place with devastating clarity. The perfectly timed contract cancellations, the media leaks, the federal investigation, all of it orchestrated to force Sterling Industries into exactly the kind of distressed sale that someone like Marcus Blackwood could exploit.
"Damien's not the real enemy," I said, more to myself than to Marcus.
"No, I don't think he is. I think he's been played just as much as we have." Marcus leaned forward, his expression intense. "Isabella, if I'm right about this, then resigning tomorrow would be exactly what Blackwood wants. He needs Sterling Industries to be vulnerable, leaderless, desperate enough to accept whatever offer he makes."
And Damien's been trying to warn me.
The anonymous phone call about the SEC raid, the text messages urging me to get out before it was too late, he'd been trying to protect me from a trap he'd probably just figured out himself.
Which means his offer at dinner wasn't just about personal revenge. It was about saving me from something worse.
"I need to talk to him," I said suddenly, standing so abruptly that my chair rolled backward. "I need to talk to Damien."
"Isabella, it's three in the morning, "
"Then it's the perfect time for a conversation that can't wait until morning."
I was already reaching for my purse, my mind racing with possibilities and plans that had nothing to do with board meetings or corporate protocol. If Marcus Blackwood was orchestrating our destruction, then Damien and I were on the same side whether we realized it or not.
The enemy of my enemy is my lover.
The thought should have been sobering. Instead, it sent a thrill of something that felt dangerously like hope through my veins.
"Where are you going?" Marcus called after me as I headed for the door.
"To make a deal with the devil," I said. "And hopefully save us all in the process."
The elevator ride down to the parking garage felt like an eternity, but it gave me time to think about what I was really doing. I was about to show up at Damien Cross's door at three in the morning, probably looking like hell, definitely emotional compromised, and completely at his mercy.
Just like he's always wanted.
But this time, I wasn't going as a victim or a supplicant. I was going as an equal who'd finally figured out the rules of the game we were all playing.
The drive through empty city streets gave me more time to think, to prepare for a conversation that could change everything or destroy what was left of my carefully constructed life. By the time I pulled up to the exclusive high-rise that housed Damien's penthouse, I'd made peace with the possibility that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
Or the smartest decision you've ever made.
The doorman recognized me, money and breeding opened doors everywhere in this city, and discretely informed Mr. Cross that Ms. Sterling was requesting to see him. I waited in the marble lobby, surrounded by abstract art and fresh flowers that probably cost more than most people's monthly salary, while he decided whether to let me come up.
Please, Damien. Let me explain. Let me try to fix this.
The elevator that arrived to take me to the penthouse was private, accessible only with a key card the doorman had given me. As the floors flew by, I caught glimpses of my reflection in the polished doors, rumpled clothes, smeared makeup, eyes that held too much pain and too much hope.
He's going to take one look at you and know exactly how desperate you are.
Good. Maybe it was time for both of us to stop pretending we were anything other than desperate for each other.
The elevator opened directly into Damien's penthouse, and I stepped into a space that was everything I'd expected and nothing I was prepared for. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of the city that rivaled my father's office, but where Sterling Tower felt like a monument to the past, this space felt like a glimpse of the future, clean lines, modern art, and an understated luxury that spoke of taste rather than tradition.
Damien was waiting for me in the living area, wearing nothing but black pajama pants and seven years of carefully controlled desire. His hair was mussed as if he'd been running his hands through it, and his gray eyes held a mixture of surprise and something that looked dangerously like relief.
"Isabella," he said quietly. "It's three in the morning."
"I know what time it is," I replied, stepping further into his space with as much confidence as I could muster. "We need to talk."
"About what? Your decision to choose duty over desire? Your commitment to preserving your father's toxic legacy?" His voice was carefully neutral, but I could see the hurt underneath. "I think you made your position pretty clear at dinner."
"My position has changed," I said simply. "I think we're being played, Damien. Both of us."
Something flickered in his expression, nterest, maybe, or recognition.
"Explain."
"Marcus Blackwood. He's been orchestrating this whole thing, using your vendetta as cover for a hostile acquisition of his own." I moved closer, close enough to see the way his pupils dilated when I stepped into his personal space. "The SEC raid, the media leaks, even the board's sudden desire to remove me, t's all designed to force Sterling Industries into a distressed sale."
"And you think I'm innocent in all this?" he asked, but there was something in his voice that suggested he'd already reached the same conclusion.
"I think you're as much a victim as I am," I said quietly. "I think someone's been manipulating both of us, playing on our history to create the perfect cover for corporate theft."
For a long moment, we stood there staring at each other, two people who'd been enemies and lovers and everything in between, finally seeing the bigger picture that had been hidden behind our personal war.
"So what do you want, Isabella?" he asked finally. "An alliance? A temporary truce while we deal with the real threat?"
"I want what you offered me at dinner," I said, my heart pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. "I want to choose you. I want to choose us. I want to burn down my father's legacy and build something new with the only man who's ever understood what that legacy cost us both."
I want to come home to you.
The words hung between us like a bridge over an abyss, terrifying and beautiful and utterly final. Because I knew that if Damien rejected me now, if he decided that seven years of hatred couldn't be overcome by one moment of desperate honesty, there would be no going back.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice rough with an emotion I couldn't quite identify. "Because if you walk through that door, if you choose me over everything else, there's no going back. Sterling Industries dies, your board gets what they want, and Isabella Sterling becomes someone else entirely."
"Good," I said, stepping close enough to touch him, to feel the heat radiating from his skin. "Because Isabella Sterling was never really me anyway. She was a performance, a costume I wore to make my father proud. Maybe it's time to find out who I really am."
"And who do you think that is?" he asked, his hands coming up to frame my face with a gentleness that made my heart ache.
"Someone who's brave enough to choose love over fear," I whispered. "Someone who's smart enough to know that some prisons can only be escaped by burning them down. Someone who's finally ready to stop apologizing for wanting things that aren't part of the plan."
"What do you want, bella?" he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone with reverent precision.
"You," I said simply. "I want you. All of you. The boy who taught me what desire felt like and the man who's spent seven years becoming everything my father feared you could be. I want to destroy everything that stands between us and build something that's ours alone."
For a heartbeat that felt like eternity, Damien just looked at me. Then he was kissing me with seven years of suppressed longing and desperate relief, his hands tangling in my hair as he pulled me against the hard heat of his body.
Finally.
Finally, I was home.