Sienna's POV
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I read the message four times before the taxi stopped.
"I found his name."
My thumb hovered over the screen. I wanted to call Petra right then. Demand answers. But Leo was pressed against the window pointing at every car that passed, narrating each one like a sports commentator, and I couldn't — I couldn't have that conversation with my three-year-old son sitting two inches away from me.
So I held my phone tight, stared straight ahead, and said absolutely nothing for the rest of the ride.
Which was the hardest thing I had done all day.
And I had already done very hard things today.
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Petra had the hotel room door open before I even knocked.
She grabbed me first — both arms, tight, the kind of hug that says I missed you and I was scared for you and I'm so glad you're back all at once. I hugged her back just as hard. For exactly three seconds I let myself feel it. The relief of having my person standing right in front of me.
Then Leo crashed into both our legs and Petra screamed like she hadn't seen him in years, which, to be fair, she hadn't.
"He's so big!" she said, lifting him. "You fed him what, rocket fuel?"
Leo giggled and immediately spotted the fruit platter on the table. Petra put him down and he moved toward it like a tiny determined tornado. Within thirty seconds he had strawberry juice on his chin and was reorganizing the grapes by size.
I watched him.
Petra watched me watching him.
"So," she said quietly.
"So," I said back.
She tilted her head toward the small seating area away from Leo. I followed. We sat. She had a folder on her lap — actual printed papers, which meant this was serious, because Petra only printed things when she didn't want digital records.
"Tell me the company stuff first," I said. "Then the other thing."
She looked at me for a second. Then she nodded.
"Vale Enterprises is barely breathing," she said, no softening, straight into it. "Your father's death hit the stock hard. The board is split — half of them are scared of Mira, half of them are just waiting to see who wins before they pick a side." She opened the folder. "Mira moved into the executive floor three months after you left. She redecorated your father's office."
Something sharp moved through my chest. I kept my face still.
"Cole is Head of Strategy," Petra continued. "Which is — I mean — he's good at the job, I hate saying it, but he's good at it. He's been managing the public side of the merger negotiations, making it look clean and logical and like it's the only way forward for Vale." She paused. "It's not. But he's making everyone believe it is."
"And Mercer Corp?" I said.
"Damien Mercer has been pushing this merger for eight months. His team drafted the original terms. It looks like a partnership on paper." She slid a document toward me. "It's not a partnership. If this goes through, Mercer Corp absorbs Vale's controlling assets within eighteen months. Vale becomes a subsidiary. The name disappears."
I picked up the document. Read the first page. My jaw tightened.
"Mira signed a letter of intent," I said. It wasn't a question.
"Six weeks before you landed," Petra confirmed. "Before you even told her you were coming back. Which means either she got lucky with the timing —"
"Or she knew I was planning to contest the will," I finished.
Petra looked at me steadily. "Someone told her, Sienna."
The room felt smaller suddenly. I looked over at Leo, who had now moved from the grapes to the melon and was offering a piece to nobody in particular. My chest did something tight and complicated.
Someone in my corner had talked.
Or I had been watched.
Either option was very bad.
"The board meeting is in two days," Petra said. "You'll walk in as Vale's legal representative since you've filed the contestation. You have every right to be in that room. But Sienna —" She stopped.
"Say it."
"Damien Mercer will be there. In person. He's leading the Mercer Corp side himself." She watched my face carefully. "Is that going to be a problem?"
I thought about the screen at the airport. That carved, cold face. The way Leo had tilted his head.
The same angle.
"No," I said. "It's not a problem."
Petra nodded slowly. Like she half believed me. Then she looked down at the folder in her lap and didn't close it.
"You said company stuff first," she said quietly.
My stomach dropped immediately. "Petra."
"I know you said you didn't want to know. I know you said it didn't matter who he was because he didn't know either, and the night was the night and Leo is Leo and that was enough." She kept her eyes on the folder. "I respected that for three years."
"Petra —"
"His mask slipped." She finally looked up at me. "There was a photo. A journalist who wasn't supposed to be inside the Glass Jungle that night got one shot before security removed him. It ran in a small blog, barely anyone saw it. I only found it because I was searching for something else entirely." She swallowed. "Sienna. His mask slipped in the photo. You can see his face. And I recognized it."
The fruit platter sounds. Leo humming to himself. The city noise outside the window.
Everything else went completely silent.
"Show me," I whispered.
Petra reached into the back of the folder and pulled out a single printed photo. Grainy. Dark background. Two figures at a bar — one in a white mask, one in black.
The one in black had a mask that had tilted sideways. Half his face was visible.
Sharp jaw.
Eyes that looked like they were always calculating something.
I knew that face.
I had seen it an hour ago on an airport screen. I had seen it on magazine covers for three years. I had seen it today before I even reached the city properly.
I had been in the same room with him once before. In the dark. Without knowing.
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
"Petra," I said. My voice came out very strange. Very small. "That can't be right."
She said nothing.
Because we both already knew.
It was right.
Leo laughed from the table, bright and loud, and I turned to look at my son — his curly hair, his amber eyes, the way he tilted his head when something caught his attention.
And for the first time, I let myself see it.
Really see it.
My vision blurred.
Damien Mercer was not just my enemy.
He was Leo's father.
And in two days I had to walk into a boardroom and sit across the table from him like my entire world hadn't just collapsed into four words and one grainy photograph.