Amara’s POV

The elevator doors whispered open, spilling me into a world of glass, steel, and money.

I didn’t belong here. Not anymore. Not after everything.

But Adrian Blackwell had never cared about what I wanted. And he still didn’t.

I smoothed a hand over the black silk blouse tucked into my tailored trousers and adjusted the strap of my leather bag on my shoulder. The heels I’d chosen clicked with precision against the polished marble floors, each sound sharp, defiant, a reminder that I wasn’t the same girl he’d once shattered.

I’d come armed. Not with weapons, but with armor.

Red lipstick. My favorite pair of stilettos. A mask of calm I’d perfected after years of rebuilding myself from the wreckage he’d left behind.

I told myself I didn’t care what he’d think when he saw me again. That the heat curling in my stomach wasn’t nerves.

It was anger. Only anger.

“Ms amara ?” the receptionist called. Her tone was warm, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of curiosity. “Mr. Blackwell is expecting you. Top floor. Straight ahead.”

Of course he was.

I crossed the lobby without hesitation, even as my pulse throbbed in my throat. The doors to his office opened with a quiet hiss, and there he was

Adrian Blackwell.

He stood by the wall of windows, his tall frame framed by the skyline sprawling beneath him. Midnight Armani clung to broad shoulders, his hands tucked casually in his pockets as if he had all the time in the world. A silver watch gleamed against tan skin, catching the light every time he shifted.

He hadn’t changed. Worse he had.

Sharper. Colder. Stronger.

If time was supposed to dull his edges, it had only carved him into something deadlier.

And when his gaze lifted dark, deliberate the impact was physical.

“Amara.” His lips curved slightly, but it wasn’t warmth. It was control. It was a reminder of the power he wielded just by existing. “It’s been a while.”

I forced my chin up, ignoring the way his voice slid over me, smooth enough to tempt, sharp enough to cut.

“Two years,” I said flatly. “Not that I was counting.”

One dark brow lifted. “Of course you were.”

Arrogant bastard.

I dropped my bag on the chair across from his desk and crossed my arms. “You didn’t have to drag me here with your little stunt. Cutting off all my contracts? Intimidating my clients into silence? Really, Adrian? Petty isn’t your style.”

He moved away from the window, unhurried, every step deliberate. “It worked, didn’t it?”

The air shifted when he stopped in front of me. Close enough for his cologne rich spice and smoke to wrap around me. Close enough that my pulse betrayed me, kicking against my ribs like a trapped animal.

I tilted my head, smiling sweetly. “Only because blackmail is apparently the only language you speak.”

“Don’t confuse strategy with blackmail, sweetheart.” His voice was calm. Too calm. “I needed your attention. Now I have it.”

I laughed, sharp and brittle. “What could possibly be so important that you had to ruin my business for it?”

He didn’t flinch. “Julian.”

The name landed like a knife in my chest.

I blinked. “Julian?”

His jaw tightened, the only sign of a crack in his composure. “He betrayed me. Breached my systems. He embedded code no one else has been able to trace.”

Julian Hart. Adrian’s best friend. The golden boy who’d been by his side at every gala, every meeting. The one man I thought had been his brother in everything but blood.

And the man I had once trusted almost as much as I trusted Adrian.

A fresh wave of bitterness burned in my throat.

“You expect me to believe that?” I asked. “That the great Adrian Blackwell the man who thinks he can control entire cities can’t handle a little cyber attack?”

“Not little.” His tone dropped, smooth but weighted. “He’s buried code that’s bleeding me dry. Slowly. Quietly. And the longer it runs, the more damage it does.”

I swallowed hard, torn between disbelief and fury.

“And you need me.”

His gaze locked with mine, steady, merciless. “Yes.”

The word was simple. But it cracked something inside me.

This was the man who’d destroyed me. The man who left me thinking I’d been nothing more than a pawn in his ruthless games. And now he had the audacity to need me?

I shook my head, laughter spilling from my lips. “Unbelievable. You burn my life to the ground, and now you expect me to save yours.”

“Not expect,” Adrian corrected, stepping closer. “Require.”

I stiffened when he reached past me, bracing one hand on the edge of his desk. The move caged me in without touching me, his presence overwhelming.

“You’ll do this, Amara,” he said softly, dangerously. “Not because you want to. But because I don’t give you a choice.”

Heat coiled low in my stomach, unwelcome, infuriating. My nails bit into my palms, the urge to slap him battling the urge to shatter.

I forced my voice steady. “You don’t get to own me anymore.”

His eyes darkened, something raw flashing for just a second before the mask slammed back in place. “Sweetheart, I never stopped.”

The silence between us pulsed with everything we weren’t saying. Everything we’d buried.

I hated him. I hated the way my chest ached just standing this close.

But I also hated that some small, traitorous part of me had missed this. Missed him.

And that was the cruelest truth of all.

[End of Chapter One]

Adrian’s POV

The city stretched beneath me like a living map steel veins, glittering lights, and shadows that always hid knives.

I’d built an empire on those shadows. I knew how to wield them.

And yet, the moment Amara walked into my office heels sharp, chin tilted like a blade I felt the ground shift in ways I hadn’t prepared for.

Four years, and she still had that effect.

She shouldn’t. She should’ve been a distant memory by now. But memories don’t walk into your office wearing black silk and red lipstick, looking like a goddamn war you’d lose before it even began.

“Why me?” she demanded, arms crossed like armor.

Because you’re brilliant. Because no one has ever matched the way your mind works. Because I’ve missed you every fucking day since the night I let you go.

“Because none of them are you,” I said instead.

Her eyes narrowed, unimpressed. Good. I didn’t want her impressed. That would make this too easy.

“You’re not flattering me into this.”

“I wouldn’t insult you with flattery,” I said smoothly. “I’m stating a fact.”

She hated that. I saw it in the way her jaw tightened. Hated that I still knew exactly how to get under her skin.

But she also knew I wasn’t lying.

I could’ve hired ten other cybersecurity experts. But none of them were Amara. None of them had the brilliance that once lit up my nights as much as her laughter did.

I turned to my desk, pulled open a drawer, and set a thick folder between us. “This isn’t blackmail, Amara. It’s business. A contract. One that benefits both of us.”

Suspicion flickered in her eyes, sharp and guarded.

“Business,” she repeated, her voice dripping disbelief.

I slid the folder toward her. “Read.”

She hesitated, then flipped it open. Her eyes scanned the page, quick and precise, the way they always had. This woman didn’t just read she dissected, calculated, anticipated.

Clause by clause, she devoured it in silence.

Finally, she looked up. “You’re offering me double my current rate.”

“Triple, if you finish within six weeks.”

Her lips pressed into a line, but I didn’t miss the flicker in her gaze. Interest. Temptation.

“And full restoration of my blacklisted contracts?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“With a personal letter of recommendation from Adrian Blackwell, the king of Manhattan finance himself?”

I let my mouth tilt in a small smirk. “If you want it framed, I’ll even sign in gold ink.”

She rolled her eyes, but I caught the way her fingers tightened on the paper.

This wasn’t just bait. It was a lifeline. And she knew it.

“You think throwing money at me erases what you did?” she said, voice sharp as glass.

“No.” My tone cooled, even as something in my chest tightened. “This isn’t about erasing. It’s about moving forward.”

Her laugh was short, bitter. “You don’t get to dictate how I move forward.”

“You’re right.” I stepped closer, leaning against the edge of my desk, my gaze locked on hers. “But I can offer you something no one else will. Freedom. Your career back. Everything I took, I can return.”

The word hung between us. Freedom.

She swallowed hard, and for just a second, the mask cracked. I saw the girl beneath the one who once believed me when I whispered promises in the dark.

Then it was gone, replaced by steel.

“And what do you get?” she asked.

“The best hacker in the country working for me. And the one person I trust to tear Julian’s code apart before it destroys everything I built.”

Her expression flickered. At Julian’s name, the bitterness in her eyes deepened, but so did curiosity.

Good. She was listening.

“I told myself I’d never let you ruin me again,” she said quietly.

I let my voice drop, softer but edged with steel. “I never ruined you, Amara. I saved you. You just don’t know it yet.”

For a heartbeat, silence hummed between us.

Then she snapped the folder shut. “I’ll sign. But not because of you. Because this contract benefits me.”

My lips curved. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

She shot me a glare sharp enough to slice, but she reached for the pen I slid across the desk. Her hand didn’t tremble.

Of course it didn’t.

She scrawled her signature at the bottom with quick, precise strokes.

When she was done, she shoved the folder back toward me. “There. Happy?”

I leaned forward, resting my hands on the desk, close enough for her perfume jasmine and something darker to stir memories I had no right to hold onto.

“Ecstatic,” I murmured.

Her breath caught. Just for a second. Then she stepped back, heels clicking like gunshots as she turned toward the door.

She thought distance would free her.

But she’d just signed herself into my world again.

And this time, I wasn’t letting her go.

Amara's pov

The smell of blood was always the first thing she remembered.

Thick, metallic, suffocating. It coated her tongue, filled her lungs, seeped into the cracks of her skin like it wanted to stay there forever.

Her body had been crumpled against cold asphalt, legs twisted at an odd angle, warm liquid pooling beneath her ribs where the bullet had torn through. Sirens had wailed somewhere in the distance, fading in and out, but all she could hear truly hear was the sound of his footsteps.

Adrian’s.

Sharp. Unhurried. Each one hammering into her chest harder than the gunshot wound.

“Adrian” Her voice had cracked, raw, desperate. Pain blurred the edges of her vision, but she’d clawed at the ground, dragging herself toward him. “Don’t don’t leave me.”

He stopped. For one breathless, endless second, their eyes locked. His dark, stormy, unreadable. Hers pleading, wide, clinging to hope like it was oxygen.

And then he turned.

No explanation. No hesitation. Just the clean, cold betrayal of a man walking away while she lay bleeding in the wreckage of a feud that had never been hers.

Her scream followed him into the night.

It wasn’t the bullet that killed her that day. It was him.

Amara jolted awake, drenched in sweat, her chest heaving as though she were still gasping for air on that blood soaked street. For a moment, the walls of her apartment seemed to close in, shadows stretching like specters of the past.

Her hand shot out, fumbling for the lamp on the nightstand. Warm light spilled across the room, chasing away the nightmare but not the memory. That never left.

On her desk, across from the bed, the contract waited. Neat, pristine, smug in its stack of cream-colored pages. Adrian’s inked signature bled across the bottom in that sharp, arrogant scrawl she hated and still knew by heart.

Her pulse throbbed.

She’d sworn she’d never see him again. Sworn she’d carve her life so far away from his orbit that even his shadow couldn’t touch her. But one call from him, one request wrapped in a demand, and here she was wide awake at two in the morning, staring at the devil’s offer.

Amara swung her legs over the side of the bed, grounding herself in the feel of hardwood under her bare feet. She pulled the contract toward her, flipping through the pages she’d already memorized.

three weeks

She’d be tied to him for three weeks, bound by non disclosure agreements and performance clauses so airtight even breathing wrong might count as breach.

But then compensation. Control. Autonomy. A seat at the table she’d clawed at for years but had always been denied because she was a woman, because she was young, because she didn’t have a name sharp enough to cut through old money and old power.

He was offering her that.

Or dangling it like bait before the wolf he knew was starving.

Her pen hovered over the signature line.

She thought of her parents. Of the empire she should’ve inherited, burned to ash by the very betrayals Adrian had once claimed he could protect her from. She thought of the way his eyes had looked that night empty, distant as he’d turned his back.

And then she thought of revenge.

The pen sliced across the page with a practiced hand.

Amara signed in bloodless ink, but it felt like crimson all the same.

The next morning, the city was cruelly bright, the kind of light that mocked sleepless nights and broken promises.

Amara walked through the glass doors of Blackwell Industries, her heels clicking like gunshots against the polished marble floor. Heads turned. Whispers trailed in her wake.

She’d dressed for war.

Black tailored pants that hugged her hips like a lover, a silk blouse in deep emerald that flattered her skin, and a fitted blazer sharp enough to cut anyone who got too close. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek twist, her makeup precise, lethal. A ruby line painted her mouth the color of danger.

If Adrian thought she would walk into his world small, apologetic, or hesitant, he was about to choke on disappointment.

The receptionist stuttered when Amara gave her name, fumbling with the guest pass. By the time she reached the private elevator, half the floor had already heard. The ghost had returned. The woman no one thought would ever stand beside Adrian Blackwell again.

The doors slid open on the top floor.

And there he was.

Adrian leaned casually against his desk, a study in impossible composure. Charcoal suit, white shirt, dark tie loosened just enough to whisper of sin. His jacket was unbuttoned, his body language deceptively relaxed, but his presence filled the room like smoke thick, consuming, impossible to escape.

Their eyes met.

The air crackled, charged, thick with years of unsaid words and unforgiven sins.

“Ms. Veyron.” His voice was smooth, deep, untouched by surprise. Like she hadn’t just clawed her way back into his world. Like he’d known she would come. “You’re right on time.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Amara said coolly, stepping into the office. “I’m here for the contract. Not you.”

One corner of his mouth curved. Not a smile. A provocation. “If that were true, you wouldn’t look at me like that.”

Her blood heated. “Like what?”

“Like you want to kill me. Or kiss me.” His gaze flicked, deliberate, to her mouth. “Maybe both.”

She froze. For a fraction of a second, the world tilted, that old, treacherous spark flickering back to life. But then she remembered asphalt. Blood. His back as he walked away.

“Don’t confuse hatred with desire,” she snapped. “You don’t have enough charm left to blur that line.”

Adrian pushed off the desk, closing the distance between them with measured steps. He stopped just close enough that the edge of his cologne brushed against her senses—dark, woodsy, intoxicating.

“Careful, Amara.” His voice dropped, intimate, dangerous. “You’re under contract now. That makes you mine.”

Her jaw clenched. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

“Then prove it.” He extended a file, his eyes never leaving hers. “Crack the code my former partner left behind. Do it fast enough, and maybe I’ll start believing you.”

She snatched the file from him, refusing to flinch under the weight of his gaze.

But as she opened it, her stomach twisted. The encryption was brutal. Clever. Designed to mock whoever tried to break it.

And only Adrian knew she could.