The Fire

The Fire
TRISTAN WOLFE

I could hear her heels tapping across the wooden floor—sharp, measured, echoing off the walls of my tiny apartment like she was already walking toward the cameras. Hazel Wolfe was a born actress, even when no one was watching. She always looks like a ideal daughter every businessmen would want.

I stayed by the kitchen counter, coffee in hand, pretending not to stare. I was dressed an hour ago.

She looked too perfect for a place like this. My place had peeling paint, a creaky bathroom door, and a view of a rusted fire escape. She looked like she belonged in front of marble columns and velvet curtains. Not in a borrowed suit jacket under my flickering hallway light. I was fed up of this apartment and could not wait to move out of here.

“Does this look powerful enough?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

Her back was straight. Hair twisted into something elegant. Eyes rimmed with sharp black liner. I wondered if she’d even blink at Victor’s camera crew later or if she’d let herself look human.

“You look like someone Victor handpicked to fool a boardroom,” I said, sipping slowly as I watched her.

“Good,” she muttered, turning back to the mirror. “Because that’s exactly what I am.”

There was a pause as she adjusted her earrings. I smirked as I looked at her. It seems that she was too invested in this conference.

I hadn’t asked how she was holding up. It didn’t feel like my place anymore. Not since she’d been paraded in front of the media as the ‘new face’ of the company. Not since she stopped meeting my eyes after phone calls with Victor.

I was just the guy who stood two feet behind her. The guy who kept guns in the drawer and eyes on the exits.

“Your car’s ready downstairs,” I said. “Armored.”

She gave a single nod.

Hazel didn’t need comfort. Or encouragement. She needed silence and protection, and I’d become decent at providing both.

“I’ll speak second,” she said absently, flipping through Victor’s talking points. “He wants to set the stage, then I follow up with the corporate mission statement. Smile. Nod. Fake assurance.”

“You’ve practiced,” I said.

“Survival depends on it.”

She reached for her clutch and paused when her fingers brushed the table. Her hand trembled just a little. Barely noticeable.

But I noticed.

Hazel wasn’t scared. She was angry. Tired. Cornered.

“Victor said this will ‘stabilize the market,’” she said with air quotes. “He means it’ll make him look like he’s still in control.”

I took a step forward, keeping my voice low. “You don’t have to mean the words. Just say them.”

She looked at me then—really looked.

There wasn’t warmth in her eyes. Not softness. Just that razor-edged resilience I’d seen too many times since Eleanor’s death. The same expression she wore at the funeral. The same one she had when she walked into Victor’s office and signed away her silence.

“You think I don’t know that?” she whispered. “You think I don’t know exactly what this is?”

I held her gaze. “I think it still costs something.”

Hazel scoffed and turned away. “Everything costs something. I’m just lucky I had something left to give.”

The silence stretched between us, heavy and unspoken.

I wanted to say something. Apologize for being the one she ended up stuck with. Apologize for not being able to protect her from this in the first place.

But instead, I checked my watch.

“We need to leave in ten,” I said. “Press will be there before Victor.”

She nodded, gathering her things, slipping into that role again—that mask she wore better than most.

I opened the door for her and stepped aside.

She paused on the threshold. “Do I look like someone who belongs at a podium?”

I studied her—chin up, shoulders squared, heart probably beating too loud inside her chest.

“No,” I said quietly. “You look like someone they shouldn’t underestimate.”

She said nothing as she walked past me.

And I followed—just a shadow behind the girl playing queen.

…

The conference room looked nothing like a war zone—but that’s exactly what it was.

Glass walls, white marble floors, polished oak table… everything was spotless, gleaming, almost too sterile. Like it had been scrubbed clean of blood, betrayal, and backroom deals. But I could smell it. The tension. The lies.

And Victor Voss stood right in the middle of it all, adjusting his cufflinks like he still owned the world.

Hazel didn’t falter. She tilted her head up as she walked ahead.

Her heels clicked beside me in perfect rhythm as we walked in, shoulder to shoulder, husband and wife by law—strangers by everything else.

Victor’s eyes flicked up.

He barely concealed the contempt curling around his mouth like smoke. “Ah,” he said, voice clipped. “The newlyweds have arrived.”

I felt Hazel tense beside me.

She didn’t look at him. Not at first. She placed her clutch down on the table, unbothered, calm, like she hadn’t been strong-armed into a marriage with her own bodyguard just to keep the company from collapsing.

“father,” she greeted coolly. Anyone with proper functioning eyes could tell that they did not have a good relationship.

He chuckled humorlessly, walking toward us with the confidence of a man who’d spent decades never being told no. I hate this man with every bit of my existence.

I stepped forward instinctively, just half a step, enough to place myself slightly in front of Hazel—habit. Old instinct. One I hadn’t broken yet, even though we were supposedly equals now.

Husband. Wife. Partners.

It felt like a title I hadn’t earned.

Victor stopped a few feet from us, eyeing me like a stain he couldn’t scrub out.

“You clean up well, Mr. Black,” he said dryly. “How are you enjoying your promotion from watch dog to... business tycoon?”

I smiled, but
it didn’t reach my eyes. “I enjoy doing what’s necessary. Even when it’s inconvenient.”

Victor’s jaw twitched.