The chandeliers of the Grand Aurelian dripped with light like frozen waterfalls. Everyone who mattered in the city, the politicians, the heirs, the top people had gathered here tonight, drawn like moths to the annual Cross Foundation Gala.
Elena Sinclair did not exist.
She was a name printed on the invitation, a string of fabricated credentials on paper. Beneath the careful curls of her dark hair and the deep emerald gown tailored to show old money, she was someone else entirely. Someone with a hollow ache where her heart used to be, someone who had walked into this glittering ballroom with a single purpose, to find out what happened to her sister.
Her fingers tightened around her glass as she moved through the flock of people and their laughter. Eyes followed her as she walked, some with curiosity, others with calculation. She met each look with a practised smile, the one she had rehearsed in front of her bathroom mirror until it felt like part of her skin.
Behind the mask of Elena Sinclair, she was Ava. Ava, whose sister Lily had vanished after attending this very gala last year. Lily, whose last known image was caught on a security camera, was stepping into a black car with Damian Cross's driver. After that, nothing. She simply vanished.
The police investigation had withered under pressure. Witnesses recanted their words, files disappeared, and the case was closed without explanation. And Damian Cross, the untouchable billionaire, had moved on untouched, his empire gleaming brighter than ever.
Ava had not.
She had burned everything, her job, her apartment, the remnants of her reputation to slip into this new skin. Now, with falsified documents and nerves strung tighter than ever, she was finally here, inside his world.
And she would not leave without answers.
"Miss Sinclair," she heard a voice come from beside her, pulling her back to the present.
A man in a black tuxedo, sleek hair, and a predator's smile bowed slightly. She did not recognise him, but the gleam of his cufflinks and the way he was dressed screamed wealth. He extended a hand. "Julian Mercer. May I say you wear emerald as though it were created for you?"
Her lips curved into Elena's practised smile. "You may." She let him kiss her knuckles before slipping her hand away. He was watching her too closely, weighing her value. They all were. Before everything happened this was the last place she would ever be in.
But her gaze was already drifting, searching for the man at the centre of the storm.
Damian Cross.
He stood near the marble staircase, tall and cut from the shadows, his tuxedo was immaculate, his posture relaxed as though the gala belonged to him, which it did. His Dark hair swept back from his strong face, his mouth curved in the faintest smirk. But it was his eyes that froze her. It was sharp, fathomless, the kind of gaze that could dismantle a person in silence. He looked intimidating
The crowd bent around him, people drawn in by his gravity.
Whispers clung to his name. They were Ruthless, Cold, Brilliant and dangerous. Some said he had built his empire on cunning ways alone. Others said blood had paved the way.
Ava could still hear Lily's voice, her voice had been bright with excitement, from that night last year: "He looked at me, Ava. Damian Cross looked at me as though I wasn't invisible."
And then Lily had vanished.
A shiver crawled down Ava's spine.
She kept her distance at first, circling the ballroom like a hunter pretending to be prey. She took a sip from the champagne she was holding but couldn't taste it. she evenlaughed at jokes she didn't hear, and waited for her moment. When the string quartet shifted into a softer piece and the servers drifted toward the west wing with trays, that was when she finally slipped away.
She slipped Past the velvet curtains, past gilded doors. Her heels clinking against the marble floors that had not been polished for the public.
The air grew cooler and quieter as she walked, her heart thumping like crazy in her chest..
She knew from stolen blueprints that Damian's private study lay beyond the corridor. If she could reach it, if she could find even a scrap of evidence she would finally be closer to the truth.
Her heart hammered when she reached a locked door. This was it, his study
She knelt down in front of the door, her fingers trembling only slightly as she retrieved a thin pick from her clutch. Ava had practised this too, in silence, night after night. She forced her breathing to slow. Twist, lift, turn... she reminded herself, and did like she had practiced countless times.
The lock gave a faint click and she let out a sigh of relief. Ava looked behind her before she got up and she slipped inside the room.
The study was a place of glass and steel. There was a Floor-to-ceiling window that framed the city lights, bookshelves lined by the walls, and a heavy oak desk that dominated the centre. Everything gleamed with precision, no dust, no clutter.
Her eyes darted across the surfaces. They were file papers and drawers. She didn't waste any more time and yanked one open. Nothing. Another, contracts, legal jargon. She searched quickly, scanning for Lily's name, any trace of her. she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't notice the new presence in the room aside from her.
"Looking for something?"
The voice cut through the silence like a blade.
Ava froze completely and felt a lump form in her throat. "Sh*t" she cursed under her breath.
The study door clicked shut behind her, and she turned slowly.
Damian Cross leaned against the frame, his hands in his pockets, watching her with an expression that seemed completely unrattled. No anger. No surprise. Just an unreadable calm that was somehow more terrifying than rage.
Her pulse thundered in her throat when her eyes met with those cold ones.
"Forgive me," she managed to say, forcing Elena's mask back onto her face. "I was… lost."
He arched a brow and she knew he wasn't buying her words "Most people lose their way to the bar. Not my private study."
His voice was smooth, low, threaded with something that made her skin tighten.
Ava swallowed. "I wanted air. It was crowded."
Damian pushed off the frame and crossed the room with unhurried steps. He moved like a predator that knew the prey had nowhere to run.
"Air," he echoed softly. "And you thought breaking into a locked room would help you breathe?"
She tried to laugh, light and careless, but it sounded brittle. "I didn't realise it was locked."
A lie. And he knew it.
He stopped in front of her, close enough that she caught the clean scent of his cologne, dark and expensive. His gaze swept her face, lingering and dissecting her.
"You're new," he murmured. "I would have remembered you."
Her mouth went dry. "It's a large city."
"Not large enough."
For a moment, the silence stretched between them, it was electric and suffocating.
Then he smiled. It was a slow, deliberate curve of his lips, as though he had already read every page of the story she was trying to write.
"Be careful, Miss Sinclair," he said. "Some doors in this house are not meant to be opened."
She wasn't sure if it was A warning or a promise. Maybe both.
Ava forced her chin high, refusing to let him see the tremor in her hands. "Maybe I like locked doors."
His gaze sharpened, and for a heartbeat, his mask slipped, something darker and hungrier flashed in his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by cool amusement.
"Then perhaps," he murmured, his voice almost a caress, "you're exactly where you belong."
The gala's music drifted faintly through the walls, but in that moment the world had narrowed to the two of them: Ava wearing a mask of lies, and Damian Cross, who looked as though he already knew the truth.
And instead of throwing her out, he offered her his arm with disarming courtesy.
"Shall we return to the party, Miss Sinclair?"
Her pulse thundered. She had come here to hunt him.
But somehow, with one glance, one smile, Damian Cross had turned the game on her.
Ava slid her hand onto his arm, her mask fixed firmly in place.
"Of course," she said.
But inside, her vow burned hotter than ever.
She would not leave until she unearthed every secret he hid. Even if it destroyed her.