Chapter 3
The glowing screen of the smartphone felt like a slab of ice in Julian’s hand. He stared at the bolded words of his termination letter, the blood rushing in his ears. The timing was too precise to be a coincidence. Arthur Sterling did not just happen to be having dinner at the same restaurant; this entire sequence of events had the unmistakable blueprint of a calculated corporate trap. Julian looked up, but Valeria and her father were already gone, swallowed by the private elevator descending to the subterranean parking garage.
Clara had already pressed the call button for the elevator bank three times in rapid succession, her face twisted in pure panic.
"What is it?" Clara demanded, noticing the ashen color of Julian’s skin. "Why do you look like you've just seen a corpse?"
"My firm," Julian whispered, his voice barely audible over the ambient lounge music. "They just fired me. They're auditing all my active accounts. Every single contract I brought in over the last year is being pulled for fraud investigation."
Clara stopped pressing the button. She turned slowly, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the man she had planned to ride to high-society luxury.
"Fraud investigation?" Clara repeated, her voice dangerously quiet. "What did you do, Julian?"
"Nothing that half the firm wasn't doing!" Julian lied defensively, though his shifting eyes betrayed him. "It's standard practice to pad performance metrics during a merger. But if Arthur Sterling wants to dig..."
"Arthur Sterling doesn't need to dig," a smooth, unfamiliar voice interrupted.
Julian and Clara spun around to find a well-dressed man in his late forties standing a few feet away. He wore a crisp charcoal suit and held a leather portfolio. It was Marcus Vance, Arthur Sterling’s longtime general counsel and chief legal strategist. Vance offered a cold, professional smile that did not reach his eyes.
"Mr. Vance," Julian choked out, recognizing the corporate shark immediately. "I didn't see you at the table."
"I was seated just across the partition, Mr. Davis," Vance replied smoothly, stepping closer. He looked at Clara with faint, detached amusement before focusing entirely on Julian. "Mr. Sterling wanted me to deliver a message regarding your sudden employment status. The firm you worked for is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sterling Holdings. Your termination wasn't an HR decision. It was an executive directive."
Clara took a sharp step back, putting physical distance between herself and Julian as if his very presence was contagious.
"You..." Clara pointed a trembling finger at Julian. "You brought me into a war you've already lost."
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"Clara, wait," Julian pleaded, reaching out. "Listen to me—"
"Don't touch me," Clara snarled, stepping into the newly opened elevator. "I have my own reputation to salvage. Find someone else to finance your downfall."
