CHAPTER 149 - ASSET PROTECTION

ASSET PROTECTION

Alex's POV

The phone had been on the table. The photo glowed like a small accusation. Bella had sent it to me, a close-up of the photographer’s lens and, in the corner, the tail of his jacket. Her message was three words. He had a long lens.

I met her in the study. The city lights cut the blinds into stripes. I had a folder open on the desk. Coffee gone cold. A hard drive sat like a stone next to the whiskey decanter.

She shut the door behind her and leaned with both hands on the back of a chair. Her eyes were raw. "You got it back?" she asked.

"I did," I said. My voice felt like someone else's. "From an old server. From before we had legal in the loop."

She stepped closer. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"I told myself it was salvageable," I said. I set the folder between us and spread out the printouts. "I thought I could fix the damage without making it a war."

She read the header of an email and then looked up. "This is from your old buyer list. These are Sterling clients."

"They are," I said. "She handed them over. She created a second set of proposals and fed them to James. She gave him our rates. She warned him when we tendered."

"Why?" Her voice had a smallness that hurt.

"Because she was angry," I said. "Because ingrained need became greed. Because she wanted what she wanted and would burn us to get it."

She touched the paper with a finger. The ink left a small smear. "This is deliberate."

"It was deliberate." I pushed a printout toward her. "Look at the timestamps. She called a vendor the night before our opening and told them to delay shipment. She arranged a phantom meeting that pulled our artist away. She leaked a memo about our acquisition plan the week we were looking for investors."

Her breath hitched. "You knew this and still let her have access?"

"I loved her once," I said. "I trusted her more than I trusted my own instincts. When the first client left I blamed the market. When three left, I blamed price. When five left, I should have looked closer. But she had ways to be invisible in the room and loud in the right ear. She was inside everything."

"Inside you," she said. It was not a question.

I laughed, and it came out like a crack. "Yes."

She folded the edge of the printout. "Did you get proof? Audio? Transfers?"

I pulled the hard drive closer. "We recovered an old encrypted folder. It had invoices showing transfers to a shell company. It had contracts dated the same day we sent our bids to clients but signed by others. There is a recorded call where she asked a contractor to 'be sure Blackwood didn't get that room.'"

She swallowed. Her fingers trembled. "Who did she work with?"

"James Sterling was the beneficiary. He didn't do it alone. There was a conduit, a third party we didn't suspect. The shell company had accounts that matched payments listed in a hospitality consulting firm owned by one of Victoria's known associates."

"She betrayed you for money," she said, image small on her face.

"It was not only money," I said. "It was power. She wanted to rewrite the story so that she could be the woman who rebuilt what she claimed had been lost. She wanted me to lose everything and then pick the bones."

She laughed then. It was sharp. "You let her pick the bones."

"I didn't see the claws," I said. "And that is the part that kills me. I brought her into rooms that should have been locked. I gave her keys."

She looked down at the hard drive. "What do we do with this?"

"We protect assets," I said. The phrase tasted like metal. "We file. We notify counsel. We build a paper trail so when the board asks we have answers. We tell the right people and we don't tell the ones who will leak."

Her eyes found mine. "Will this bring more trouble?"

"It could," I said. "But letting it lay meant slower, more corrosive trouble. Sterling used her access to build leverage. If we do nothing, he wins more than a client. He wins narrative."

She sat on the edge of the desk and I noticed the way the fabric of her skirt creased. My hands wanted to smooth it. I did not. I slid the drive toward her instead.

"Why does this feel like revenge," she said, "not justice?"

"Because revenge is a neat thing," I said. "Justice is messy. Justice takes deposits and calls and patience. Revenge is a single blow."

She tapped the drive with a fingernail. "Do you think she would send men to watch me? To try and scare me into silence?"

I watched her. Her jaw set. The photo on my phone was still open in my mind. "She always used people," I said. "But I will not let that continue."

The phone on the desk buzzed. Sandra's name flashed. My security team had been moving. I swallowed the next words.

"Sir," Sandra said when I answered, "we found activity. A van matched the one Cal flagged. It was near Martinez's tonight. Also, Ruiz just picked up a second photographer two blocks from your penthouse. They are both active."

My palms flattened on the desk. The room shrank. "Active how?"

"They were mobile. Following separate targets. One tracked a woman leaving Martinez's. The other picked up a man leaving the boardroom."

Bella's hand went to my arm. She looked small in the lamplight. "Do you mean me and you?"

"Yes," I said. The word came out steady and cold. "They were following both of us."

Her breath left her like a small wind. "Alex."

"Pack a bag," I said. I did not mean the sentence to cut through the air the way it did, but it did. "We are moving to secure custody. Short term. Protective measures."

She looked at me like I was both a savior and an architect of the storm. "You always made it feel like you could hold storms."

"Not always," I said. "But tonight I will try."

Sandra's voice returned faster. "Also, sir, a post went up. The photograph from the lot is live."

My phone buzzed again. A comment scrolled across the screen. People peering. People hungry. I closed my hand on the device until the light went out.

We did not speak for a beat. The city outside the window sounded like someone breathing. Then Bella said, "What if this is the beginning?"

"It might be," I said. "Or it might be the moment we find out whose hands move the strings."

Ruiz knocked and came in with a tablet. He held up a live map. Pins blinked where two profiles had been tracked. One was moving closer to the Martinez restaurant.

My mouth had gone dry. I thought of Victoria smiling at Roberto like a cat, of the napkin and the glint. I thought of the drive on the desk, the emails, the recorded call.

"Bring them to me," I said. "All of it. Every frame. Every receipt."

Ruiz nodded. He left the room like a man closing a casket.

The last ping came from Sandra. "They just uploaded a new image," she said. "Different angle. Same night. Different timestamp."

My chest tightened. "Send it."

She sent it.

The image opened and there, in a small corner, was Bella leaving the restaurant, hair catching the streetlight. And further back, a second silhouette, hunched, camera up. The world turned thin and very loud.