Chapter 3
Are you awake?
He was.
Ivy was spending the weekend with her grandmother, Mae, the only person from his ex’s family who had stayed after everything fell apart. The apartment was too quiet without Ivy’s rocket drawings scattered across the table.
What’s wrong? he typed.
Can you come to the office? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.
He was pulling on jeans before he answered.
Be there in twenty.
Vivien was waiting in her office, still dressed from the day, but the armor was cracked wide open.
“Someone is trying to kill me,” she said.
Wyatt stopped in the doorway.
On her desk lay photographs, security stills, reports, access logs.
A man in a maintenance uniform tampering with the same electrical panel Wyatt had repaired the morning they met.
“That’s not one of ours,” Wyatt said immediately.
“I know. Stolen badge. Fake uniform. He was in the building forty-seven minutes.”
Wyatt picked up the photo. The man’s face was turned from every camera.
Professional.
Vivien spread out more papers. “My brake line failed six weeks ago. Ruled mechanical. A catered lunch almost sent me to the hospital because someone ‘accidentally’ served shellfish in my meal. Threatening emails started three months ago. Security said they were trolls.”
“This electrical panel wasn’t vandalism,” Wyatt said. “It was designed to start a fire.”
“Yes.”
“Have you called the police?”
“With what?” she asked. “A feeling? A pattern? A man with no face on a camera?”
“With this.”
“It’s not enough. Not yet.”
Wyatt looked at her. “Who wants you dead?”
“That’s the problem.” Her voice lowered. “Too many people benefit if I’m gone.”
They went through everything. Competitors. Former executives. Board members. Investors. People her father had trusted. People she had fired.
By three in the morning, a name kept appearing.
Derek Hollis.
Senior vice president of strategic development. Twenty-three years at Blackwell. Friend of her father. Publicly loyal. Privately opposed to almost every transparency measure Vivien had pushed in the last year.
His assistant’s badge had accessed the executive floor on nights when the assistant was out of state.
His department had buried financial reports.
His allies on the board were quietly discussing emergency succession.
“If I die without naming a successor,” Vivien said, pale under the desk lamp, “interim control goes to senior leadership.”
“Derek,” Wyatt said.
She nodded.
His stomach turned cold.
“We need the FBI.”
“We need proof.”
“You cannot use yourself as bait.”
“I’m not bait.” She lifted her chin. “I’m the CEO. We have a product launch in three days. Press, investors, board members, everyone in one room. If Derek wants chaos, that’s his chance.”
“Vivien.”
“I need you there.”
“I’ll be working the event anyway.”
“No. I need you near me.”
He stared. “I’m maintenance.”
“You’re the only person in that building I trust completely.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
She reached across the desk and covered his hand with hers. Her fingers were cold.
“Please.”
Wyatt looked down at their hands.
Hers were smooth, elegant, ringed in quiet wealth. His were rough, scarred, stained from years of work that never ended.
They should not have fit together.
But they did.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
The morning of the launch, Wyatt woke before dawn with dread sitting on his chest.
He dropped Ivy at Mae’s house, hugging her too tightly.
“Daddy,” Ivy complained, “you’re squishing my bones.”
“Sorry, bug.”
She studied him with the seriousness only a six-year-old could weaponize. “Are you scared?”
Wyatt forced a smile. “Nope.”
“That’s a lie.”
He crouched in front of her. “A little. But I’ll be okay.”
“Promise?”
He hesitated one fraction too long.
Ivy’s eyes narrowed.
“I promise I’m going to do everything I can to come back to you,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s better than a fake promise.”
He closed his eyes.
At noon, Blackwell Technologies’ grand ballroom glittered with wealth, ambition, and danger.
Wyatt stood near the stage in a navy suit Vivien had sent to his apartment. It fit perfectly, which somehow made him feel worse. He was used to uniforms with name patches, not fabric that slid over his shoulders like it belonged to someone with a retirement account.
Marcus, head of outside security, passed by.
“You Sullivan?”
“Yeah.”
“Boss says you see things other people miss.”
“I fix pipes.”
“Today, fix anything that looks wrong.”
The lights dimmed.
The crowd settled.
Vivien walked onstage.
She wore navy blue, her hair swept back, posture flawless. Every inch the CEO the world expected.
But Wyatt saw what others didn’t.
The brief tightening of her fingers around the podium. The way her eyes found him once, just once, before she began.
“Good afternoon,” she said, her voice steady through the speakers. “Today, Blackwell Technologies is proud to introduce a platform that will change the future of emergency healthcare.”
