Chapter 41
Two people stood by the open doorway, barely a foot apart, their faces lit by the warm, sleepy glow of the corridor's wall lamp.
But behind the half‑closed fire door at the end of the hall, a man with a greasy mustache crouched in the shadows, clutching a DSLR with a long‑range lens. The barrel of the camera poked through the narrow gap, angled directly toward Isabella's suite.
He was the underground paparazzo Charlotte had paid a small fortune to hire.
Late at night. A man and a woman. The woman in silk sleepwear, the man in casual clothes that screamed 'off the clock.'
To him, it was a gift from above.
Isabella and Joseph were merely exchanging a flash drive at her door. But through the compressed perspective of a long lens, under dim hallway lighting, and from the intentionally chosen high‑angle, off‑center position…
In the paparazzo's viewfinder, Joseph's hand extending the drive looked like a man reaching to brush a woman's cheek.
And Isabella, tilting her head slightly as she reached for it, appeared to be leaning in for a kiss.
The faint click of the shutter fired again and again behind the fire door.
With these photos, all he needed was a sensational headline about Northstar Architecture's director seducing her boss in the middle of the night to climb the ladder. The moment those pictures hit the internet tomorrow, Isabella would be done at the summit.
And Charlotte's promised three‑hundred‑thousand‑dollar payout would land cleanly in his pocket.
"Jackpot," he muttered, already preparing to pull back the lens and vanish.
"What are you shooting?"
The voice hit him like a gunshot. His whole body spasmed, the camera nearly slipping from his hands.
Under the harsh emergency lighting of the stairwell stood a tall, broad‑shouldered man, still as stone and radiating the kind of cold fury that seemed capable of ending lives.
James hadn't meant to come inside. He had driven here because his nerves were shredded, because his instinct tugged him toward Isabella even though he knew she didn't want him near her. So he stayed hidden in the stairwell, burning through cigarette after cigarette like a man trying to smother the jealous animal clawing at his ribs.
He only wanted a glimpse. Even from far away.
He never expected to find a rat trying to ruin her.
James's expression was lethal, his eyes bloodshot and wild, his jaw set with a violence that made the air around him feel colder. His right hand—still wrapped in simple bandages from where it had been cut during the gala—snapped forward like a steel trap and seized the paparazzo by the back of his collar, lifting him clean off the floor, camera and all.
"I—I was just… just taking some nature shots…"
The man's voice strangled as his feet kicked helplessly in the air, his face darkening to a bruised purple.
James didn't bother listening. His free hand ripped the camera out of the man's grip with brutal efficiency.
He pressed the playback button.
The screen lit up.
There was Isabella in her silk sleepwear, Joseph standing close, their positions twisted by the lens into something intimate and compromising.
Joseph's shadow seemed to swallow her. Isabella's posture looked like surrender.
"Using garbage tactics like this to hurt her?" James's voice dropped lower, more dangerous. "Who gave you that courage?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
He raised the expensive camera high above his head and brought it crashing down against the concrete step.
The impact exploded through the stairwell. The camera split open instantly, the long‑range lens shattering. Fragments of glass and metal sprayed across the stairs like glittering shrapnel.
"My camera—!" The paparazzo screamed, his voice cracking in terror. "You're lucky it's only your camera," James growled. "And not your skull."
He tossed the trembling man onto the glass‑strewn steps like he weighed nothing.
Then, slowly and with chilling precision, James took a white handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his right hand as if ridding himself of something toxic.
Downstairs, Chase and several security men sprinted up the stairs. "Mr. Sinclair!"
"Take him," James said without looking at the man on the floor. His voice was flat steel. "Break him open. Find out who hired him. When you do, strip him of every device he owns and hand him over to the Tech Harbor police. File for felony charges—corporate theft, malicious invasion of privacy. I want him to rot."
"Yes, Mr. Sinclair." The guards hauled the man away, muffling his pleas as they dragged him down the stairwell.
Silence settled in the aftermath, broken only by the soft crunch of shattered glass.
James leaned toward the crack in the fire door, watching the far end of the hall.
Isabella had clearly heard the noise. She frowned and leaned slightly out of her doorway, peering toward the stairwell.
"What was that?" Joseph asked, following her gaze.
"Nothing. Probably the hotel moving something heavy," she said, unconcerned. She checked her watch. "It's late. We've got rehearsal at seven. You should get some rest, Joseph."
"Alright. Goodnight. Tomorrow's stage is yours," he said with a warm smile before heading toward the elevators.
"Goodnight," she replied.
A soft click followed as she closed her suite door.
The sound cut straight through James.
He sagged back against the cold concrete wall, his breath leaving him in a sharp, painful rush. His chest felt crushed, as if someone had reached inside and squeezed until his bones might crack.
He had destroyed the threat. He had the rage, the money, the power to eliminate anything that tried to touch her.
But he couldn't walk through that fire door. He couldn't stand outside her room. He couldn't knock.
The woman who once hid behind him, eyes wet, waiting for him to come home… had grown into someone who could stand beside another man and speak with the confidence of a peer.
Someone who didn't need him anymore.
The next morning, outside Tech Harbor Convention Center—a colossal structure of steel and glass—luxury cars flooded the entrance. Camera flashes burst like white fireworks.
The Golden Arch Summit, the most prestigious event in the architecture world and the crown jewel of the Amber District, was about to begin.