The message came in encrypted.

No sender.

Just a subject line:
“If you’re the storm, this is the flood.”

Attached: one video file. No metadata. No name. Just a timestamp—7 years ago.

Aria didn’t want to open it.

But she did.

The footage was low-res. Grainy, like it had been captured on a security feed—or hidden camera. The audio was warped, but clear enough to make out voices.

Dominic’s voice.

Sitting at a conference table, younger, sharper, colder. Next to him: Marcus Hale.

HALE: “You understand the terms?”

DOMINIC: “I take the loss. You get the patent. She doesn’t know.”

HALE: “Exactly. You walk away, she gets the payout. She thinks it was her win.”

Aria froze.

The patent.

Seven years ago, she’d landed a contract with a boutique hotel chain. It skyrocketed Vale’s name—and the design concept had been based on a prototype from her early student sketches.

She thought she'd pitched it.

She thought she’d won it.

She thought Dominic had stepped away to avoid a conflict of interest.

But now she saw the truth.

Dominic gave it to her.

He pulled his own company from the bidding, handed the project to Hale in exchange for Hale pretending to "lose" it to Vale Interiors.

Dominic made her first big break happen—without her ever knowing.

And worse?

He’d lied about it ever since.

She slammed the laptop shut, bile rising in her throat.

He had been there for her. Backed her. Believed in her. But he’d also manipulated her entire foundation. Made her success into a hidden favor.

A string.

A deal.

A lie.

Her phone buzzed. Dominic.

She didn’t answer.

It buzzed again.

She powered it off.

Then stood. Grabbed her keys. Walked into the night.

Because after everything—after courtrooms, burn sites, betrayal—this was the crack in the foundation she hadn’t prepared for.

And it wasn’t Hale who made it.

It was him.