The door slammed behind them, shutting out the interrogation room's sterile chill. Lena didn't stop walking. She wanted air, space, something that didn't stink of polished tables and Adrian's smugness.
Nathaniel's stride matched hers, controlled and precise, but there was an edge to him a storm tethered only by willpower.
"Lena." His voice cut sharp.
She kept moving. "Don't. Not yet."
They pushed out of the glass corridor into the underground parking deck, their footsteps echoing off concrete. Only when Lena reached her car did she turn, arms folded tight, chin lifted.
"You shouldn't be here," she said flatly.
Nathaniel's jaw tightened. "You think I was going to sit back while Adrian tried to tear you apart?"
"You walked in at the end, Nathaniel." Her voice was calm, but her pulse still hammered. "I already had him cornered."
That landed. His eyes flicked, just for a second, as though recalibrating the image he'd carried of her needing rescue.
Then his mouth curved, not in amusement, but in recognition. "So you did."
Silence stretched. The hum of the city above pressed down.
For a moment, it almost felt like the old rhythm between them two predators circling, testing, respecting the bite.
But the memory of betrayal clung like smoke.
"You're in more danger than you realize," Nathaniel said, voice low. "Adrian won't stop. He'll twist this into something bigger drag the media, the board, anyone he needs. He's not just aiming to destroy you, Lena. He's aiming to bury you so deep, no one will remember your name."
Lena's laugh was short, humorless. "Funny. That's exactly what Isabella promised me the last time she smiled in my face."
Nathaniel's eyes hardened at the name. "She's behind this."
"Of course she is," Lena said. "She never had the patience to fight me head-on. Adrian's her scalpel. She cuts, he bleeds."
Nathaniel stepped closer, his presence filling the air like a storm cloud. "Then we cut back."
Her arms folded tighter. "We? That's rich, considering the last time you and I stood together, you" She stopped herself, biting down the words.
His expression didn't flinch. "I know what I did. And I'll carry it. But this fight isn't about us. Not anymore."
The honesty in his tone rattled her more than his power ever had.
He meant it.
"Why now, Nathaniel?" she asked quietly. "Why step in after all this time?"
His answer was simple, dangerous in its clarity. "Because I watched Adrian walk you into a trap meant to erase you. And I realized… I'd rather burn with you than watch you vanish."
The words hit her chest like a hammer. She wanted to dismiss them, to laugh them off, but his eyes held hers with unflinching gravity.
Before she could respond, the sound cut through the garage phones buzzing in unison. Nathaniel's, then hers.
Lena glanced at the screen. Headlines, notifications. A flood of breaking news.
VOSS UNDER FIRE: INSIDER TRADING SCANDAL ROCKS CROSS ENTERPRISES.
BOARD MEMBER CALLS FOR HER IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION.
WHO IS LENA VOSS? FALLEN STRATEGIST OR CRIMINAL MASTERMIND?
Her stomach dropped.
Adrian hadn't wasted a second.
Nathaniel's hand clenched around his phone. "He leaked it."
The parking deck seemed to shrink around them, the concrete pressing tighter. Lena's name wasn't just under attack inside closed doors anymore it was on every screen in the city.
Lena swallowed hard, forcing her voice steady. "Looks like the execution just went public."
Nathaniel's gaze locked on hers, fierce, unrelenting. "Then we don't wait for them to write the story. We write it ourselves."
She studied him. The man who had betrayed her. The man who had just chosen to stand beside her again.
An uneasy alliance. Fragile. Necessary. Dangerous.
"Fine," Lena said, her voice like steel. "But understand this, Nathaniel I'll fight. With you, without you, against you if I have to. I'm not going down."
His mouth curved dangerous, approving. "Good. Because neither am I."