Confidential was what written on it.
I sat down on the ground, the material is cool. I dropped the envelope onto the glass coffee table.
Open it, a voice in my head whispered. It's right there. The Tokyo merger details. The family secrets. The leverage you need.
I reached for it, my fingernail sliding right up to the edge of the heavy, untouched wax seal. The red wax was smooth, perfect—a symbol of a world that valued appearances over everything.
But I stopped. My hand hovered, trembling just a fraction.
If I broke that seal, that would not be fine. Since this is confidential. Principles matter. The evidence would be undeniable.
No, I thought, slowly pulling my hand back. The envelope is bait. But I don't need to open it to discover the truth. I had something better—I had the internet and the skills to use it.
I stood up and walked back into the study. The three curved monitors of the command center were still glowing, waiting patiently for me like loyal servants. I dropped into the captain's chair, feeling the heavy leather embrace me.
I cracked my knuckles—a habit from my college days when I'd pull all-nighters researching for papers, and later, for the scripts that made the Vanes their millions.
"Okay, Mr. Cross," I murmured to the empty room. "Let's see who you really are. Not from people mouths. But through evidence."
I opened a new tab. My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard.
Sebastian Cross.
Enter.
The screen flashed.
Standard Search: 0 Image Results.
I smirked. Of course.
To the public, he was a ghost. Just like me. Corporate logos appeared, stock prices fluctuated on graphs, and generic, sterile press releases filled the results. But there wasn't a single photograph of a human face. He had scrubbed the internet clean. Erased himself from the digital landscape.
Smart, I thought.
I wasn't just a writer. I was a tech too. And to write realistic thrillers that critics praised for their authenticity, I had learned how to unlock doors that didn't exist, to find information that wasn't meant to be found.
"This is a search not everyone can do," I whispered, my fingers already moving. "Time to hack the system."
I opened a command prompt, the black screen with green text appearing like an old friend. I bypassed the standard PR filters and tapped into the "Dark Media" archives—the database used by paparazzi and tabloids for killed stories. These were the photographs that never ran, the articles that got buried by expensive lawyers, the digital ghosts that refused to stay dead.
I typed his name again, adding parameters. I ran the script I'd written years ago for research purposes.
[Processing...]
[Bypassing the walls...]
[ACCESS GRANTED]
The screen flickered, then there came the results.
There was Sebastian. Not the man who made me an omelet this morning.
There was a photo of him in a tuxedo at a private Met Gala after-party, a model on each arm, looking bored out of his mind.
There was a grainy, long-lens shot of him shaking hands with the Prime Minister of Japan.
There was a high-resolution shot of him stepping out of a helicopter, wearing sunglasses and a suit that looked like it was cut from midnight itself.
He looked... cold. Ruthless. His eyes, the ones that had looked at me with amusement in the rain, were dead sharks in these photos.
I clicked on a leaked internal memo from Forbes that had never been published.
Headline: THE IRON HEIR: How Sebastian Doubled the Empire's Value in Two Years.
I read the texts.
"The CEO is known for his uncaring, cold, ruthless, efficient in his job, and a most soughted bachelor. Rumors of a rift with his grandmother, the matriarch Eleanor, have sparked concerns about the company's future..."
"Eleanor," I whispered, tapping the screen. "So that's Grandma."
I searched for her. Eleanor Cross.
An image popped up of an elderly woman who looked like she ate nails for breakfast. She had steel-gray hair, pearls the size of golf balls, and a glare that could freeze a volcano.
"Yikes," I muttered. "No wonder he's hiding in a garage."
I leaned back, spinning the chair slightly.
It all made sense now. The "friend's" apartment. The expensive car. The cooking skills. The reason he was standing in the rain looking miserable.
He wasn't broke. He was burnt out.
He was running away from the expectations, the board meetings, the "The Ruthless Heir" title. He wanted to have some peace.
And then he met me.
A girl with no name. No money. No expectations.
I was his vacation. I was his rebellion.
A slow, dangerous smile spread across my face.
"You poor, sweet billionaire," I said to the photo of him on the screen. "You think you're using me to escape? You think I'm your little charity case?"
I closed the browser tabs, one by one.
Click. Click. Click.
I erased the history. I wiped the digital footprints. I made sure the "Ghost" remained a ghost to everyone else.
I was Sienna. I had been raised in a shark tank just like him. My father was a monster; his grandmother was a tyrant. We were the same breed, Sebastian and I. Broken royalty hiding in the mud.
But there was one difference.
He was exhausted being the workaholic people call him.
I was hiding because I was preparing for war.
I needed money. I needed that advance from Dave. And to get it, I needed a story that would set the world on fire.
Well, I didn't need to invent one anymore. I was living it.
I placed my hands on the keyboard. The mechanical keys felt cool under my fingertips.
"Chapter One," I whispered.
The typing was a rhythmic, violent staccato. I wrote about the tuxedo. I wrote about the helicopter. I wrote about the secret hidden in the grease under a man's fingernails. I wrote about the girl in the rain who was really a wolf in silk.
I lost myself in the flow. The sun began to dip, casting long, orange shadows across the bridge outside. The penthouse was silent except for the clicking of the keys.
I was halfway through a scene about a corporate gala when the front door buzzed.
The lock hissed.
My heart did a somersault. I didn't minimize the window. I didn't hide the screen.
"Sienna?" his voice called out. He sounded tired, the weight of the day dragging on his words.
I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I just stared at the three monitors glowing with his own face, with his own lies.
"In here, Mr. Cross," I said, my voice steady.
Silence followed. Then, the heavy tread of his boots approaching the study.
He appeared in the doorway, still in his work shirt, a smudge of oil on his cheek. He looked at me, then his eyes shifted to the screens.
The air in the room turned to ice.