“She was gone?” I looked up at Reynard when he walked into my office. “Just—gone?”

“Gone.” He nodded in confirmation. “She left sometime during the night and she didn’t even take the check—it was right beside her clothes. There’s no way she didn’t see it.”

“Fuck…” My words trailed off. “Maybe it’s for the best. We’ve got the SEC chomping at the bit this morning. I got the call from Fisk—they’re already opening an investigation.”

“I really need to go to Chicago. I need to track Hannah down and get some answers.” Reynard exhaled sharply.

“Fisk says we shouldn’t leave—not right now. It’ll look like we’re trying to run.” I shook my head back and forth. “As if we could even run from this fucking problem.”

“Josef Weber has been planning this for a while. Fuck! I played right into his fucking hands.” Reynard slammed his hand on my desk. “Son of a bitch.”

“This trap was laid for some time, but I don’t think it was meant to be a trap. There’s no way he started this a decade ago when Wyatt and our alleged sister set up that agreement. I have a theory…” I exhaled sharply.

“Okay.” Reynard nodded.

“I think Wyatt found out about our sister—I don’t know how, but I think he tried to make things right—in his own way.” I tapped my desk with my fingers. “I’ve been doing research, and a lot of the companies that the money was being funneled into weren’t always owned by Josef Weber. He’s been acquiring them over the last few years.”

“If they were just decoy companies that Wyatt set up to funnel money to our sister, then they shouldn’t have been companies that were on the market.” Reynard shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s a good theory, but there’s still something we’re missing here.”

“I agree.” I nodded quickly. “But we’re stuck now. We’re just going to have to let this shit with the SEC play out and see what we can do when it’s over.”

I stared at the screen for most of the day, watching our stock plummet. The last offer Josef Weber made would have been a good deal by the time Wall Street finished one day of bloodshed. Investors that we took from Josef Weber left in droves—and they weren’t the only ones. We were losing longstanding accounts. I had a pretty good idea where they were going—straight to their new messiah—the man we tried to take down by dropping nukes on his operation. The bloodshed wasn’t over either. The few investors that stayed behind, even if they were driven by blind loyalty, were going to leave when the markets opened again.

The press ate up the story like it was candy for headlines—and that’s basically what it was. They wanted to know who the mysterious Jackson heir was—they weren’t the only ones. I wanted an answer to that question myself. Ashton Retirement Fund was registered to Hannah Ashton, but she was a ghost. I doubted it was her real name. The money was being funneled into the shell companies, and from there, the checks could have been made out to anyone. The SEC was definitely going to shut them down, but I doubted that would matter much. They were in the red and had always been that way—the instant the money went in, it was taken out.

Josef Weber must have figured out that Wyatt was funneling money into those shell companies—then he started buying them. I just don’t understand why Wyatt didn’t come to me. I could have helped him, even if he was in over his head—he certainly didn’t need to take his own life.

“The press keeps calling…” Abigail walked into my office. “They want a statement—something besides the damage control piece we sent out.”

“How the fuck can I give a statement?” I looked up at her. “I don’t even know what the hell is going on myself.”

“I know.” She walked closer. “Do you need anything—something that your secretary can’t provide normally?”

“What?” I looked up at her.

“You know—that one time—when you were dealing with stuff.” She exhaled sharply and swallowed hard. “I could—do that again.”

“No.” I shook my head back and forth. “Thank you, but no.”

“Okay.” She nodded and walked towards the door. “I’ll be at my desk if you change your mind.”

It was a tempting offer. Abigail’s mouth had been warm and wet one night when I first took over the company—when the stress was weighing heavily on my mind. I regretted it, mostly because she was a damn good assistant and it was a line I shouldn’t have crossed. She wasn’t the kind of girl I needed, nor would she ever be. It was better that I didn’t lead her on, even if a blowjob could have given me a little relief from the array of stress I was under. There was only one woman on my mind, even in the midst of chaos—the one Reynard released—the girl that never belonged in the cage, to begin with.

She might not have been a submissive when she went into that cage, but she’s been changed—morphed into something new. The only thing that would possibly tempt me right now into letting the beast run free—but I don’t know if I trust what it would turn me into right now.

It was disaster after disaster—client after client. They were abandoning Jackson Investments in droves. The SEC had set up shop in Chicago—and they would be in New York when we opened our doors the next day. All I could do was sit alone in my office and stare at the empire that was crumbling to dust around me. I never sought my father’s approval—not really—but I would have been ashamed to have him see what I had let happen to his beloved company. Reynard didn’t bother coming to work. Hell, I had no business there either. It wasn’t like we were going to do anything with our assets practically frozen while the SEC investigated Wyatt’s misconduct—and it was more than misconduct. It was outright fraud.

“Abigail, I’m going home.” I walked out of my office and closed the door. “You can let everyone else go home too. There’s no reason for everyone to sit here and twiddle their fucking thumbs.”

“Yes, sir.” She looked up at me and nodded.

I might as well just go home and drink. What else can I do at this point?

I kept a condo in the city that was registered to the company. It was the kind of expense I could write off and handy when I didn’t want to drive home. It was a good place to watch my empire crumble—I could even see the top of Jackson Investments from the window. Fitting, since the condo itself, would probably be seized when the SEC got done pillaging what was left—I might as well enjoy it for a few more days.

I watched our stock prices continue to tumble once I was sitting on my couch with a drink in my hand. Fisk sent me updates every hour—and none of them were good. I had just gotten a good buzz, or a bad buzz—depending on how much more I intended to drink when my phone lit up and I saw Reynard’s number.

“Hey,” I answered the phone and took a drink. “If you haven’t made it to the office yet, don’t bother. I sent everyone home.”

“I’ve been busy looking through Wyatt’s laptop.” He exhaled sharply into the phone. “Where are you? I need to show you something.”

“I’m at the condo.” I leaned back against the couch. “Is it going to save the company? If not—don’t even bother. I’m not ready for another one of your obsessions about our brother’s suicide.”

“You’re going to want to see this—trust me.” He growled under his breath. “Just trust me—I’m on my way.”

“Okay, fine.” I nodded, even though he couldn’t see my head shaking, and hung up the phone.

There was a part of me that wanted to be angry at Reynard for taking us down the path that set everything in motion, but it was as much my fault as it was his. I should have realized that it was as easy as it seemed. I should have paid closer attention to Josef Weber’s threat when it was directly in front of me. I shouldn’t have let Reynard’s obsession with Lizzy get in the way of what we were doing. She became a distraction for him—and a distraction for me. We looked at her as the reason for Wyatt’s death when we might have uncovered the truth earlier if we were looking in the right place. It was too late for second chances. Things were already spiraled past the point where they could be undone.

I sipped my drink and my mind started wandering to Lizzy—the moment we shared—when she begged for the beast inside me to be unleashed. I had never met a woman like that—one that I didn’t feel was lying when their eyes screamed for the beast to come out and play. Lizzy was more than just a random submissive woman who could satisfy a craving. She was truly unique—the kind of woman I had been looking for my whole life, but I didn’t even know a woman like that could exist. She was molded by the darkness—sculpted by Reynard’s cruelty—and when the darkness faded—she became a diamond.

It’s too fucking bad things had to turn out like they did, but we can’t have her around if everything is about to go to shit. She has her freedom now, and that changes things. I doubt she’ll ever walk into the abyss again willingly—no matter how much it turned her on when she embraced the pain she was owed.

My thoughts were still on Lizzy when there was a knock at the door. It had to be Reynard. I walked over, confirmed it was him with a quick look through the peephole, and then pulled the door open. He looked like a man possessed with a fire in his eye—one that burned as bright as it did the day he told me about Lizzy the first time. He walked over to the table next to the couch and opened Wyatt’s laptop. I sat down in front of it and stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“I don’t understand…” I looked at him and back to the screen.

“That’s a will—Dad’s will.” He sat down beside me. “Look at the date.”

“It was signed a year before he passed.” I narrowed my eyes and started scanning. “But this isn’t the one that was read—it mentions…”

“Four children.” Reynard nodded quickly. “Dad knew—he knew about her.”

“Fuck.” I exhaled sharply.

“There’s a letter too.” Reynard hit a button and loaded it. “Right here, it’s supposed to go with the will.”

“She was the result of an affair—oh my god. While our Mom was pregnant with you?” I looked at Reynard. “But, if Wyatt had this…”

“He hid it.” Reynard nodded. “Remember, after Dad had his first heart attack, he gave Wyatt his Power of Attorney—just in case.”

“Dad must have trusted Wyatt to make sure this was read when he passed, but then—Wyatt didn’t go through with it. He set up shell companies for our sister and started funneling money to her.” I shook my head back and forth. “He fucked us. It would have been better if he just let the fucking will get read—at least then we could have split up the assets and bought her out of Jackson Investments.”

“Yeah, but she probably had no idea that Dad changed his will.” Reynard exhaled sharply. “If she even knew who he was before he passed.”

“How the fuck did Josef Weber find out…” I narrowed my eyes at the screen.

“I don’t know.” Reynard shrugged. “But we’re going to have to pay him a visit and find out.”

“Agreed.” I nodded quickly. “At this point, the SEC is going to fuck us over regardless, so we might as well make them work for it if they want to put handcuffs on our wrists.”