Chapter 4
The screen of my tablet glowed with the high-definition feed of a rehearsal studio three miles away. On it, Mia Watkins was attempting a *grand jeté* sequence that I had designed to look like flight but feel like drowning. She landed heavy, her ankle wobbling just enough to ruin the line.
I didn't smile. I just uncapped my digital stylus and slashed a line of red ink across her torso on the frozen frame.
*"Technique is adequate. Soul is absent. The dancer looks like she is remembering the steps rather than feeling them. Fix the timing or cut the solo."*
I signed it with a single letter: **S**.
I hit send. Through the audio feed, I heard the *ping* of the notification on the studio floor. Mia grabbed her phone, her face contorting as she read the notes. She threw a towel at the mirror, her scream muted by my volume settings. She looked haunted, her eyes darting to the corners of the room as if the walls were whispering my name. She was dancing with a ghost, and the ghost was winning.
"She's cracking," a voice said from the doorway.
I lowered the tablet. Giovanni stood there, leaning against the doorframe of my study, his tie undone. He looked tired but victorious, the look of a predator who had just secured a perimeter.
"She knows the choreography is stolen," I said, my voice cool. "She just doesn't know the person critiquing her is the one she stole it from."
"That changes tonight," Giovanni said, walking over to pour two glasses of sparkling water. "Rebecca called. The producers want 'S' at the live finale. They’re begging."
My stomach tightened. For eight years, anonymity had been my shield. It was the armor that kept the pain of Damon’s betrayal from touching my skin. But hiding had a cost. It had allowed Damon to rewrite history, to paint himself as the victim and me as the failure.
"If I go out there," I whispered, looking at the city skyline, "there is no going back."
"Damon will be there as a guest judge," Giovanni said, placing the glass on my desk. The condensation left a ring on the mahogany. "He thinks he's walking into a coronation. I think he should walk into an execution."
I looked up at him. The fear was still there, a cold stone in my gut, but it was being eroded by a hotter, sharper feeling. Rage.
"Tell Rebecca I'm in," I said.
***
The boardroom of Griffin Capital was a fortress of glass and steel, suspended fifty stories above the chaos of Manhattan. I sat in a high-backed leather chair in the far corner, shrouded in the shadows of the late afternoon sun. To anyone entering in a hurry, I was invisible.
Damon Foster was in a hurry.
The double doors slammed open. Damon stormed in, his face flushed, sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill of the air conditioning. He wasn't wearing the mask of the charming media mogul today. He looked like a cornered animal.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Damon shouted, marching toward the head of the table. "Freezing my accounts? Calling in the agonizing loans? Do you have any idea who I am?"
Giovanni sat at the head of the table, calm as a frozen lake. He didn't look up from the file he was reading. He simply turned a page.
"I know exactly who you are, Mr. Foster," Giovanni said, his voice low and devoid of inflection. "You are a man with forty-eight hours of liquidity left before bankruptcy."
"This is illegal!" Damon slammed his hands on the table. "I’ll sue you for tortious interference!"
"You could," Giovanni finally looked up, his eyes dark and unyielding. "But lawyers cost money. And as of this morning, the bank that holds your operating line of credit... belongs to me."
Damon froze. The color drained from his face as the reality of the trap snapped shut around his ankle. He wasn't fighting a competitor; he was fighting the bank.
"Why?" Damon rasped. "Because of her? Because of Madeleine?"
"Because you threatened my daughter," Giovanni said. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "But I am a reasonable man. I’m offering you a deal."
Giovanni slid a single sheet of paper across the polished obsidian table.
"Drop the paternity suit. Sign a statement acknowledging you have no claim to Willa. Do that, and I will restructure your debt. You keep your company. You keep your pathetic little life."
Damon stared at the paper. His hands trembled, hovering over the document. It was a lifeline. It was survival. But then, his eyes narrowed. A twisted, arrogant smile crept onto his face.
"You're scared," Damon whispered, a laugh bubbling up in his throat. "You're terrified of that DNA test."
He straightened up, adjusting his jacket, his delusion hardening into a diamond-hard shield. "You're trying to buy me off because you know the truth. She's mine. And once that test proves it, I won't just have a daughter. I'll have leverage. I'll have a claim on everything."
He looked at Giovanni with a sneer. "I don't want your charity, Griffin. I want what's mine. I'll see you in court. And after I win, I'll be the one making offers."
Damon turned to leave, his stride regaining its bounce, fueled by the fantasy of a victory that would never come. He didn't see me in the corner. He didn't see the woman who knew exactly whose blood ran in Willa's veins.
As the doors swung shut behind him, I stepped out of the shadows.
"He signed his own death warrant," I said, the words tasting like ash and iron.
Giovanni picked up the unsigned contract and shredded it, the sound sharp and final.
"Then let him burn," he said.
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