Chapter 63
Emily Windsor's POV
On the third day after I moved back to my apartment, the storm finally broke.
When my phone rang, I was reviewing an acquisition proposal for community healthcare licensing.
A name flashed across the screen—one of the younger project managers. I answered, and was immediately hit with a chaotic rush of background noise and a voice thick with barely suppressed panic.
"Miss Windsor! We have a situation! The West Side Logistics Center is on fire!"
My stomach dropped. My fingers tightened around the phone.
West Side Logistics Center. The first project under my restructuring plan was to go live. We'd taken a half-abandoned warehouse that used to belong to Hank's operations and transformed it into a state-of-the-art distribution hub with fully automated sorting systems.
Equipment testing had wrapped up yesterday. And today, this.
"Stay calm," I said, my voice unnaturally steady as I shifted into crisis mode. "Did you call 911? Are there casualties? Is the fire contained?"
"Fire department's on the way. We don't know about injuries yet. It started in Warehouse Three—right where all the new core equipment is installed!"
I hung up, grabbed my coat and keys, and bolted for the door. The brief sensation of weightlessness as the elevator descended mirrored the sinking feeling in my chest.
This was Hank. Or rather, whoever was pulling Hank's strings. They'd just fired the opening shot—direct, brutal, unmistakable. A declaration of war against me. Against Luke.
---
By the time I arrived, several fire trucks were already on scene, high-pressure hoses trained on Warehouse Three as thick plumes of smoke continued billowing into the sky.
The air reeked of charred materials and the acrid stench of burning chemicals.
Beyond the police tape, shaken employees clustered in groups while several executives tore into the security chief who'd just shown up.
I strode straight toward the perimeter.
A young officer stepped into my path. "Ma'am, it's not safe. You'll need to stay behind the line."
"I'm legal counsel for Victor Group and the project lead for this facility." I flashed my credentials, my gaze locked on the wreckage beyond him. "I need to assess the situation."
The officer hesitated. A cold, familiar voice cut through behind me.
"Let her through."
My spine stiffened. I didn't turn around.
Luke had arrived. He wore a sharply tailored black overcoat, cutting a commanding figure even amidst the chaos.
Behind him stood Andy and several senior executives, every one of them stone-faced.
He walked past me without so much as a glance, as if I were just another subordinate. He headed straight for the fire chief.
The executives' eyes followed me now, their expressions newly complicated.
Pity. Schadenfreude. I ignored them all. Accepting a hard hat from Andy, I was the first to step through the perimeter once clearance was given, boots splashing through pools of foam and ash-darkened water.
---
The fire was mostly under control, but the scene inside was devastating.
Blackened steel frames. Melted conveyor belts. The expensive German-engineered robotic sorting arms—cutting-edge automation equipment we'd imported at considerable cost—now reduced to twisted scrap metal. Millions of dollars in losses.
I picked my way past them, moving toward the point of origin. My heels clicked against the wet concrete as I navigated through the debris.
Crouching down, I examined what remained of the floor carefully.
No chemical accelerant residue. But several burn points clustered too tightly, too deliberately. This wasn't random.
Luke finished conferring with the fire chief and approached. He stopped a few feet behind me, looking down with an unreadable expression.
"Miss Windsor," he said evenly. "What do you see?"
I stood, brushing off my hands and maintained a professional distance. My tone matched his. "What did the fire chief say?"
"Preliminary assessment is faulty wiring. Electrical short." One of the managers jumped in eagerly.
"Impossible." I didn't hesitate. "All the wiring was installed last week to the highest safety standards. And more importantly—" I pointed upward. "When the fire started, the automatic sprinkler system never activated. The security system didn't trigger any fire alarms. That's not normal."
"The fire probably damaged the system—"
I cut him off with a sharp look. "The fire damaged the endpoints. But system logs are stored on cloud servers. Andy," I turned to where he stood silently behind Luke, "I need IT to pull all backend operation logs from the security system between 10 PM last night and 3 AM this morning. Raw data. Warehouse Three only."
"On it." Andy didn't hesitate, already pulling out his phone.
The manager paled and fell silent.
Luke's gaze lingered on my face for several seconds, something dark and assessing in those eyes. I met it head-on, no flinching, no excess emotion.
"Go on," he said.
"The intruders didn't use the main entrance." I moved to the northwest corner of the warehouse, where a loading bay door sat behind its security shutter. The shutter looked intact at first glance. "This door uses a biometric fingerprint lock with keypad backup. Forcing it would trigger the highest-level alarm. But look here—"
I indicated an almost invisible scratch near the base of the lock mechanism. "Fresh scoring marks. They didn't force it. They used professional tools to bypass the internal architecture. That requires intimate knowledge of both the lock design and vulnerabilities in our security protocols."
My analysis rang through the cavernous space, pulling every eye to me.
"Their objective was precise. Destroy the new automation equipment. They didn't waste time on anything else—they came straight for this. They knew how to avoid primary surveillance. They knew how to access the service entrance without detection. They even knew how to disable the fire suppression system through software manipulation rather than physical sabotage."
I paused, letting my gaze sweep across the assembled executives—reading the guilt and fear in various expressions—before returning to Luke.
"This was arson. Premeditated. Coordinated. And we have a mole. Someone with high-level access to core security data and facility blueprints."
Dead silence.
My words hit like a bomb.
Everyone immediately looked at the people around them, suspicion blooming in every glance.
Luke hadn't said a word throughout my entire analysis. Now, a cold smile finally touched his lips—one that promised violence.
"Excellent." His voice was quiet but carried the weight of a coming storm. "Andy, lock down the entire facility immediately. No one leaves. Contact HR and Legal—starting now, we conduct individual interrogations of every employee with access to West Side project files or security clearances. Anyone who was on shift last night—security, IT, all of them—gets escorted to headquarters and held in separate rooms for questioning."
The orders came rapid-fire, precise and ruthless. He'd adopted my entire analysis without hesitation.
"Mr. Victor," the security chief stammered, face chalk-white, "isn't that... extreme? It'll cause panic..."
Luke's gaze could have cut glass. "If the rats have left their holes, they're not crawling back in."
He turned, eyes landing on me once more. "Miss Windsor, you're responsible for assessing project losses and compiling all evidence for legal proceedings."
"That's my job," I replied with a slight nod, my tone distant.
Luke pivoted and strode out, his team falling in behind him to handle the fallout.
I remained, directing my project team to coordinate with the insurance adjusters and equipment suppliers, taking charge of the cleanup operation.
As we passed each other, so briefly no one else would notice, his hand—hanging loose at his side—brushed against mine. His fingertip traced a quick, deliberate line across my knuckles.
The touch vanished in an instant, but it hit me like an electric shock.
His told me that you did well.
I watched his retreating figure, that unyielding set to his shoulders, and felt something crack in the carefully frozen corner of my heart I'd walled off for this performance. Warmth flooded through the fissure.
The game was on. Our enemies had made their move.
And we'd just begun our counterstrike.
This was going to get interesting.