The rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Dominic's penthouse office, each drop like a bullet against glass. Alyssa stood with her back to him, studying the city lights that blurred into abstract streaks through the water. She hadn't spoken in ten minutes, and the silence was more dangerous than any weapon she'd ever pointed at him.
"You're going to wear a hole in my Persian rug if you keep pacing like that," Dominic said, not looking up from the documents spread across his mahogany desk. Bank transfers, shell company registrations, encrypted communications all the evidence Alyssa had thrown at him an hour ago like grenades with pulled pins.
She turned, and the fury in her green eyes could have melted steel. "Don't. Don't you dare act like this is casual conversation over coffee. Your company your signature is on transactions that funded arms deals in Eastern Europe. Viktor Volkov's arms deals."
"I told you "
"You told me nothing!" She slammed her palm against his desk, making the whiskey glass jump. "Hayes Industries has seventeen subsidiary companies, twelve of which operate under names that don't exist in any legitimate business registry. Money flows through them like water through a sieve, and somehow somehow it ends up in the hands of the most dangerous arms dealer in the world. And you want me to believe you had no idea?"
Dominic finally looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her breath catch despite her rage. He stood slowly, his six-foot-three frame unfolding like a predator preparing to strike. But when he spoke, his voice was deadly quiet.
"What I want is for you to stop acting like you know everything about my business when you've spent all of three weeks investigating it." He moved around the desk, each step calculated. "What I want is for you to explain why a former intelligence operative turned journalist is so interested in destroying me specifically."
"Because you're guilty."
"Of what, exactly?" He was close now, close enough that she could smell his cologne, see the slight scar above his left eyebrow that she'd noticed their first night together. Before everything went to hell. "Of building a tech empire? Of employing fifteen thousand people across six continents? Of trying to make enough money to forget that my father died in debt to men like Viktor Volkov?"
The words hit her like a physical blow. "What did you just say?"
"You heard me." Dominic's jaw tightened. "You want to talk about connections to crime syndicates? My father borrowed money from Volkov's organization twenty years ago to keep his construction company afloat. When he couldn't pay it back, they killed him. Made it look like an accident. I was nineteen, Alyssa. Nineteen and suddenly responsible for my mother's medical bills and my sister's education."
"That doesn't explain "
"It explains everything." He turned away, running a hand through his dark hair. "I built Haynes Industries to be untouchable. Powerful enough that men like Volkov could never destroy my family again. And yes, sometimes that meant making deals with people who lived in gray areas. Sometimes it meant not asking too many questions about where certain investments came from."
Alyssa stared at him, her mind racing. The documents on his desk suddenly looked different, less like evidence of guilt and more like breadcrumbs leading to something much darker. "The subsidiary companies... they're fronts."
"Some of them." He met her eyes again. "But not for what you think. They're buffers. Ways to move money and assets without leaving a clear trail back to me or my family. Insurance policies against men who think they can use financial leverage to control me."
"Then why is money flowing to Volkov's operations?"
"Because someone is using my company as a pipeline without my knowledge." The admission seemed to cost him something. "Someone with access to my financial networks, my passwords, my trust. Someone who knows that I'd never willingly do business with the man who killed my father."
The rain outside intensified, and Alyssa felt the first crack in her certainty. She'd been tracking money trails for three weeks, following every lead, building what she thought was an airtight case. But what if she'd been looking at this all wrong? What if Dominic wasn't the predator what if he was the prey?
"Who has that level of access?" she asked quietly.
"That's what I've been trying to figure out." He moved to his safe, entering a long code before pulling out a tablet. "Julian runs my security protocols. Marcus oversees my physical protection. My CFO handles day-to-day finances, but the big movements? The subsidiary transfers? Those require my personal authorization."
"Which means?"
"Which means either someone has compromised my systems so completely that they can forge my digital signature, or..." He paused, the implications hanging in the air like smoke.
"Or someone you trust is betraying you."
"Yes."
Alyssa studied his face, looking for tells, for signs that this was all an elaborate performance. But Dominic Hayes, for all his faults, had never been a good liar. His anger was real. His pain over his father's death was real. And his fear barely contained beneath his controlled exterior was definitely real.
"Show me," she said finally.
"What?"
"The access logs. The security protocols. The financial authorizations. If someone is using your company to fund Volkov's operations, there will be traces. Digital fingerprints. Show me everything, and I'll help you find them."
Dominic stared at her for a long moment. "Why would you do that? An hour ago you were ready to publish an exposé that would destroy me."
"Because an hour ago I thought you were the villain." She moved closer, her anger replaced by something that felt dangerously like hope. "But if you're not if someone is setting you up then we have a bigger problem. Volkov doesn't just deal arms, Dominic. He's building something. A network. And if he's using your company as a financial backbone..."
"Then he's planning something that requires massive funding and complete deniability." Dominic's expression darkened. "Something that could start a war."
"Or end one. On his terms."
They stood facing each other in the dim light of his office, rain still pounding against the windows like urgent morse code. The tension between them had shifted, evolved from adversarial to something more complex. More dangerous.
"This is insane," Alyssa said quietly. "If we're wrong if you're lying to me "
"I'm not."
"If you are, this partnership makes me complicit in whatever Volkov is planning. And if you're not..." She paused, the full weight of the situation settling on her shoulders. "If you're not, then we're both in more danger than we realized. Because whoever is using your company knows we're getting close to the truth."
As if summoned by her words, Dominic's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and his face went pale.
"What is it?" Alyssa asked.
"Security breach at my Geneva office. Forty minutes ago." He was already moving, grabbing his jacket from the chair. "Someone accessed the servers remotely and downloaded everything. Financial records, employee data, security protocols."
"Everything?"
"Everything." He met her eyes, and she saw her own fear reflected there. "Including this conversation. My office is monitored for security purposes. If someone has access to those servers..."
"They know we're working together now." Alyssa felt ice in her veins. "They know we're onto them."
Dominic's phone buzzed again. This time it was a text from an unknown number: *You have 24 hours to stop digging, or the girl dies. We know where you are.*
"What girl?" Alyssa asked, reading over his shoulder.
Dominic's face went white. "Isabella. My sister. She's supposed to be at a conference in Geneva."
The penthouse suddenly felt like a trap. The rain against the windows sounded like footsteps. And Alyssa realized that in trying to expose Dominic Hayes, she might have just signed both their death warrants.
"We need to move," she said, already mentally cataloging weapons and exit strategies. "Now."
"Where can we go? If they have my financial records, they have my safe houses, my resources "
"Then we go off the grid." Alyssa was already moving toward the door. "No credit cards, no phones, no digital trail. And we find your sister before they do."
"You don't understand. Isabella isn't just my sister she's a biochemical engineer. If Volkov has her..."
"Then he has someone who can weaponize whatever he's planning." Alyssa felt the familiar surge of adrenaline that came before a mission. "Which means we don't have twenty-four hours. We have maybe six before she becomes a liability they can't afford to keep alive."
Dominic grabbed a go-bag from behind his desk apparently even billionaire tech moguls planned for the worst-case scenario. "There's something else you need to know. About why I really built this company. About what my father was working on when Volkov killed him."
"Tell me in the car." Alyssa was already at the door, hand on the handle. "Right now, we run. We survive. And then we make them pay."
As they stepped into the hallway, the lights went out.
In the darkness, Alyssa heard Dominic's voice, barely a whisper: "Too late."
And then the elevator doors opened, and armed figures in tactical gear poured into the hallway like shadows made flesh.