Ava made it halfway to Drake Enterprises before her phone rang. Not her work phone—her personal cell, the one with the tracking app that had supposedly been disabled. Lucien's name flashed across the screen, and her stomach dropped with the certainty that he already knew.
She considered not answering, but that felt cowardly. She'd made her choice when she'd taken Alexander's folder. Might as well face the consequences directly.
"Hello?"
"Where are you?" His voice was tight, controlled in a way that suggested barely leashed fury.
"Walking back to the office." She kept her tone steady, refusing to sound guilty or defensive. "I had a meeting after work."
"A meeting." He repeated the words as if tasting them, finding them inadequate. "With Alexander Vance."
Not a question. A statement of fact that confirmed he'd been monitoring her somehow despite his promises about the tracking app. Ava felt anger flash hot and bright in her chest.
"You said you disabled the tracking—"
"I disabled the app on your phone. I didn't disable every other security measure I have in place." His voice was getting quieter, more dangerous. "Don't move. Stay exactly where you are. I'm coming to you."
"Lucien, I don't need—"
But he'd already hung up. Ava stared at her phone, torn between the urge to run and a strange, traitorous curiosity about what would happen when he arrived. She'd seen Lucien angry before, had felt the edge of his controlled fury. But something in his voice just now had been different—raw and primal in a way that suggested control was slipping.
She should leave. Should go home or to her mother's hospital or anywhere that wasn't standing on a Manhattan street corner waiting for the confrontation that was about to explode. But her feet remained rooted to the spot, the folder from Alexander Vance clutched against her chest like evidence in a trial.
A black car screeched to a stop at the curb less than three minutes later—not the usual Town Car with James driving, but Lucien's personal vehicle with him behind the wheel. He emerged like a storm, his perfect business attire disheveled in a way she'd never seen, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his eyes burning with an intensity that made her take an involuntary step backward.
"Get in the car," he said, his voice deadly quiet.
"I can explain—"
"Get. In. The car." Each word was precisely enunciated, carrying a weight of command that made her knees weak despite her determination to stand her ground.
"No." The word came out stronger than she'd expected. "Not until you tell me how you knew where I was. You said the tracking was disabled."
"I lied." His expression didn't change, didn't show even a flicker of shame or regret. "Or rather, I told you part of the truth. The app on your phone is disabled. But your phone itself pings cell towers, which can be tracked if you have the right connections and motivation."
"You're tracking my phone even without the app?" The violation of privacy was stunning in its completeness.
"I'm tracking everything about you because men like Alexander Vance are dangerous, and you're apparently too naive to recognize a trap when you walk directly into it!" His voice was rising now, control slipping as fury broke through. "Do you have any idea what he wants from you? What he's really after?"
"Information about my father. About what your family did to him."
"Information he can use to destroy me," Lucien corrected harshly. "Information he'll twist and manipulate and weaponize regardless of how it affects you or your mother or anyone else he damages in the process."
"Maybe I want him to destroy you." The words came out before she could stop them, fueled by months of manipulation and control. "Maybe I think you deserve to face consequences for what your family did."
Something flickered in his eyes—pain, perhaps, or just recognition that she meant it. But before he could respond, a voice interrupted from behind her.
"Is there a problem here?"
Ava turned to find Alexander Vance approaching from the direction of The Landmark Tavern, his expression concerned and deceptively innocent. He must have followed her when she left, must have been watching to see what would happen when Lucien inevitably appeared.
"No problem," Ava started to say, but Lucien's response drowned her out.
"Stay away from her, Vance." His voice had gone beyond anger into something cold and lethal. "Whatever game you think you're playing, it ends now."
"Game?" Alexander's smile was sharp. "I'm not playing games, Drake. I'm offering Miss Lane information she deserves to have. Information about how her father really died."
"Information you plan to use to damage my company," Lucien countered. "Don't pretend this is about justice or helping Ava. You want to destroy Drake Enterprises, and you're using her to do it."
"And what are you using her for?" Alexander shot back. "Control? Penance? Some twisted way of working through your guilt about what your father did?"
The accuracy of the accusation seemed to hit Lucien like a physical blow. Ava watched his jaw clench, watched his hands curl into fists at his sides, watched him struggle to maintain the control that was clearly slipping away.
"My relationship with Ava is none of your concern," he said quietly, but there was violence beneath the words.
"It becomes my concern when I see a woman being systematically isolated and controlled by a man with a documented history of manipulation." Alexander turned to Ava, his green eyes earnest and concerned. "You don't have to go with him. You have choices here."
"She has nothing with you," Lucien snarled, taking a step forward that brought him into Alexander's space in a clear physical threat. "You're a rival CEO using a tragic situation to gain leverage. Don't act like you're some kind of savior."
"And what are you?" Alexander didn't back down, matching Lucien's aggressive posture. "The man who pays her salary and her mother's medical bills so she can't say no? The man who monitors her every movement and controls every aspect of her life? That's not protection, Drake. That's ownership."
Ava watched them squaring off, two powerful men arguing about her as if she weren't standing right there. The folder from Alexander felt like it was burning in her hands—evidence that one of them might be lying, that the other might be telling the truth, that she was caught between impossible choices with no good options.
"You think you know what's best for her?" Lucien's voice was getting quieter, more dangerous. "You met her once at a business function and sent her an expensive gift to establish contact. I've been protecting her for months, ensuring her mother gets the best possible care, building a life where she doesn't have to struggle—"
"A life where she's completely dependent on you," Alexander interrupted. "Where she can't make a single decision without considering how it will affect her mother's treatment or her own financial security. That's not generosity, Drake. That's a trap."
The words hung in the air between them, and Ava saw Lucien's control finally snap. He moved forward with predatory speed, grabbing Alexander by the collar of his shirt and slamming him back against a nearby wall. The sudden violence was shocking, completely at odds with the controlled CEO who conducted business with cool precision.
"You know nothing about what I've built with her," Lucien hissed, his face inches from Alexander's. "Nothing about the choices I've made or the reasons behind them. So take your righteous indignation and your manipulative offers of 'help' and get the hell away from us."
Alexander didn't struggle, just met Lucien's furious gaze with unsettling calm. "Ask yourself, Drake—why are you so afraid of her learning the truth? What are you really protecting—her, or yourself?"
The question seemed to hit harder than any physical blow could have. Ava watched Lucien's expression shift from fury to something more complex—guilt, fear, and a desperate need to maintain control that was clearly slipping away.
For a moment, she thought he might actually throw a punch. The tension between them was that volatile, that charged with masculine aggression and territorial possession. But then Lucien seemed to realize where they were—on a public street with pedestrians slowing down to watch, with phones probably recording every moment of the confrontation.
He released Alexander with a force that made the other man stumble, then turned to Ava with eyes that were dark with barely controlled violence.
"We're leaving. Now."
It wasn't a request or even a command. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the absolute certainty that she would comply. And the terrifying part was that she wanted to. Despite everything—the manipulation, the lies, the systematic destruction of her autonomy—part of her still responded to that dominant certainty, still wanted to follow him into his car and let him handle the situation.
"Ava," Alexander called out, straightening his shirt where Lucien had grabbed him. "You don't have to go with him. I can give you a safe place to stay while you figure things out. You have options."
She looked between them—Alexander with his concerned expression and promises of safety, Lucien with his barely leashed fury and complicated history. Two men offering her different versions of the same thing: protection that came with strings attached, help that required surrender of different kinds of freedom.
"I'm sorry," she said to Alexander, surprising herself. "But I need to deal with this on my own terms."
She walked toward Lucien's car, feeling both men's eyes on her. Alexander's gaze felt like disappointment—as if she'd failed some test of independence he'd been hoping she would pass. Lucien's felt like possession—as if he'd won some contest she hadn't realized they were having.
But before she could reach the passenger door, Lucien was there, his hand closing around her upper arm in a grip that was just short of painful. He practically dragged her around to the passenger side, opened the door with his free hand, and shoved her into the seat with enough force to make her gasp.
"Lucien—"
"Not a word." His voice was shaking with barely controlled rage. "Not one goddamn word until we get somewhere private."
He slammed the door and stalked around to the driver's side, his movements jerky and aggressive in a way that suggested violence barely contained. Ava caught a glimpse of Alexander still standing on the sidewalk, watching with an expression that looked like genuine concern mixed with calculated interest.
Then Lucien was in the car, starting the engine with more force than necessary, pulling away from the curb with a squeal of tires that made several pedestrians jump. They drove in silence for three blocks, tension filling the car like pressure before a storm.
Ava clutched the folder from Alexander against her chest, aware that it was the source of much of his fury. Evidence from his rival, information he'd explicitly warned her not to seek, proof that she'd directly defied his attempts to control the narrative about her father.
Finally, unable to bear the silence anymore, she spoke: "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere we can talk without your new friend intervening," he bit out, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
"He's not my friend. He's someone who claims to have information about my father."
"He's someone who's using your father's death to manipulate you into betraying me," Lucien corrected harshly. "And apparently it's working."
"Maybe I want to betray you!" The words exploded from her, fueled by months of suppressed anger. "Maybe I'm tired of having every decision made for me, every piece of information carefully curated, every aspect of my life controlled by someone who thinks his money gives him the right to own people!"
Lucien pulled the car over suddenly, jerking to a stop in a parking lot that was deserted at this hour. He turned to face her, and the expression on his face was more raw and unguarded than she'd ever seen it.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" His voice was trembling with emotion—anger, yes, but also fear and something that looked like heartbreak. "Meeting with Vance, taking information from him, walking directly into a trap that could destroy everything I've been trying to protect?"
"Maybe I don't want your protection anymore," she shot back. "Maybe I'd rather have the truth, even if it's dangerous."
"The truth will destroy you," he said flatly. "Not just damage you or hurt you—it will fundamentally destroy who you are. And I won't let that happen, even if you hate me for it."
They stared at each other in the dim interior of the car, both breathing hard, the folder from Alexander lying between them like a weapon waiting to be deployed. Outside, Manhattan continued its evening rhythm—people walking to dinner, couples holding hands, life going on as if the world wasn't falling apart in the front seat of a luxury sedan.
"What are you so afraid of?" Ava asked quietly. "What could possibly be so terrible that you'd rather control every aspect of my life than let me learn it?"
Lucien looked at her for a long moment, and she saw genuine fear in his dark eyes. Not fear of her leaving or fear of losing control, but fear of something much deeper and more profound.
"The truth isn't just that my father destroyed yours," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's worse than that. Much worse. And once you know, you'll never be able to unknow it. You'll never be able to look at me without seeing the full weight of what my family has done."
The confession hung between them, loaded with implications Ava wasn't sure she wanted to understand. But she'd come too far, learned too much, to back down now.
"Then tell me," she said, her voice steady despite her racing heart. "Tell me everything. No more carefully curated information, no more protecting me from truths you think I can't handle. Tell me what really happened to my father."
Lucien's laugh was bitter, broken. "You don't understand what you're asking for."
"Then explain it to me." She placed her hand on his arm, feeling the tension thrumming through his muscles. "Please, Lucien. I'm tired of fighting you. I'm tired of being manipulated by both you and people like Alexander Vance. I just want the truth."
For a long moment, he said nothing. Just stared at her hand on his arm as if it were the most precious and most damaging thing he'd ever seen. When he finally spoke, his voice was raw with emotion she'd never heard from him before.
"If I tell you everything, you'll leave. You'll take your mother and disappear, and I'll never see you again. And despite everything—despite the manipulation and the control and all the terrible things I've done—I'm not ready to lose you."
The confession was perhaps the most honest thing he'd ever said to her. Not a justification or an excuse, just a simple acknowledgment that he was choosing his own emotional survival over her right to the truth.
And somehow, that vulnerability was more terrifying than any of his previous displays of dominance had been.
End of Chapter 29