From Cliffside Betrayal to Unbreakable Love

thouse in a perpetual twilight. The gray light filtered through the massive windows, painting stripes across

riosity, and a desperate need to understand my captor, pulled me from the bed. My leg, now encas

creen, a video call in progress. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit, but his tie

out of nowhere with a counter-offer that anticipates our every m

strategy is... unconventional. It's aggressive, almost reckless, b

al warfare disguised as finance, the way it preyed on an opponent's ego and forced them into a corner. It was Mark's signature

ours. He saw me as a "tool." But a tool was useless if it couldn't be wield

from the pocket of my ruined coat. In the clear morning light, I examined it more closely. It was a nightingale, its head cocked

wood in minuscule script was a sequence of numbers and letters. It looked like a password, or maybe coordinates. A code. A secret th

alled room that overlooked the stormy bay. He had just ended his call and was standing with h

t is baiting

and then annoyance. "I don't have time for gam

into the room. The scent of coffee and something clean, like ozone from the storm, filled the air. "He's no

ech is the only prize worth having. He'll let you win a bidding war for the patents, bankrupting your liquid assets in the process. Then, at the last minute, a shell corporation he

ing in his eyes-not belief, not yet, but a crack in his certainty. He was a brilliant man, but Mark's specialty was exploiting the blind spots o

ow that?" he asked, his vo

I said simply. "I know how he thinks. I know he be

d. He was simultaneously impressed and deeply, profoundly suspicious. I had just laid bare

His desperation was fighting his d

I'd need to pull our offer for the patents and redirect everything to the debt acquis

es proof of a similar existential threat in the past. There was one... years ago. A cor

only person who ever outplayed me," he said, his voice thick with a bi

air rushed from my lungs. My blood turne

the data, the strategies, the backdoors. He'd flattered me, praised my intelligence, made me feel like a brilliant partner in his ascent. He'd gaslit me into believing it was all

saw my stricken face. The color had drained from my cheeks.

spicion returning full force. "Yo

my throat. My past and present were colliding in this sterile,

h his. The whisper that escaped my lip

one you called Nigh