“Five minutes,” he said, “is enough.”
Nora pressed a hand against her mouth.
This was no longer a strange lunch with a dangerous man.
This was a frame job.
Her fingerprints had been arranged around a crime like flowers around a grave.
And Celeste’s invitation had not been family guilt.
It had been bait.
Adrian’s driver took her back to the office, but Nora barely saw the city through the tinted window. Her mind was already inside the accounting system, pulling apart logins, IP addresses, approval chains, vendor histories.
Fear was still there.
But beneath it, something cleaner was beginning to rise.
Anger.
Not loud anger.
Not reckless anger.
Precise anger.
The kind that made her hands stop shaking.
“You said you’re trying to dismantle what your father built,” she said.
Adrian turned from the window.
“Yes.”
“Are these payments connected to that?”
His eyes held hers for a long moment.
“They’re connected to the people who don’t want me to succeed.”
Nora understood then.
This was bigger than Celeste.
Her cousin might have been cruel enough to mock her, use her, and smile while doing it, but Celeste was not smart enough to build this kind of machinery alone.
Someone with money had moved the pieces.
Someone with access to Adrian’s world and Nora’s.
When the car stopped in front of her office building, Adrian did not open the door.
“Do not confront anyone yet.”
“I’m not reckless.”
“No,” he said. “You are brave when caution would be safer.”
Nora laughed once, dry and nervous.
“You barely know me.”
“I know you offered to pay me monthly installments for a ruined seven-thousand-dollar jacket because you believed it was the right thing to do.”
“That wasn’t bravery. That was panic with a spreadsheet.”
His mouth curved slightly.
“Same family.”
She hated that she smiled.
Inside the office, everyone pretended not to stare.
Her boss, Helena Ward, called her name before Nora reached her desk. Helena stood behind the glass wall of her office with her arms folded and her lips pressed into a hard line.
Helena had always liked Nora best when Nora was quiet and useful.
Today, quiet did not seem to be enough.
“Nora. My office. Now.”
Nora stepped inside and closed the door.
Helena did not ask why Adrian Cross’s car had dropped her off.
She did not ask whether Nora was safe.
She held up a printed compliance alert and said, “Your credentials have been flagged for unusual activity.”
Nora’s heart dropped.
Her face stayed still.
Numbers first.
Fear later.
“What activity?”
“Late-night vendor approvals.”
Nora reached for the paper.
Helena pulled it back.
“This is under review.”
“Then I should be included. It’s my login.”
“That,” Helena said quietly, “is exactly why you are not included.”
The sentence hit like a slap.
Nora had worked at the firm for four years. She had stayed late, corrected other people’s mistakes, trained interns who later got promoted above her, and covered audits no one else wanted.
One suspicious email appeared, and suddenly her own name had become a locked door.
“I didn’t approve anything.”
Helena lowered her voice.
“Then I suggest you think very carefully before you say another word.”
That was when Nora realized her boss was frightened.
Not of Nora.
Of someone else.
Helena Ward had once corrected a senior partner in front of a room full of clients without blinking. Now she could not meet Nora’s eyes.
Nora left her office with her pulse pounding.
At her desk, her password no longer worked.
Her access had been suspended.
Her coworkers pretended to type.
No one asked what had happened.
That was how a person disappeared in a professional building.
Not with handcuffs.
Not with screaming.
Just a locked login, a closed office door, and everyone deciding your innocence was too risky to stand near.
Nora picked up her bag and walked out.
She made it to the elevator before her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
The message contained one sentence.
Stop digging, Nora, or your cat will be easier to find than your alibi.
For three seconds, she could not move.
Then the elevator doors opened.
And Nora ran.
She did not call Adrian first.
She called Mrs. Bellamy from the apartment downstairs, because Miso trusted her, and because powerful men could not teleport into apartment buildings no matter how expensive their suits were.
Mrs. Bellamy answered on the second ring.
Nora’s voice came out too high.
“Can you check my apartment?”
A pause.
Then Mrs. Bellamy said, “Your door is open.”
The world tilted.
Nora reached the sidewalk almost falling over her own shoes.
Adrian’s car was still parked across the street.
His driver stepped out the second he saw her face.
“Miss Vale?”
“My cat,” Nora said. “They threatened my cat.”
That was all she managed before he opened the door.