Page 66 of Ascension

He leaned forward, eyes glinting. “Watch your tone. You forget who taught you power.”

“Oh, I remember,” I said. “You taught me power was humiliation. You taughtme to swallow my voice because a man couldn’t stand to hear a woman disagree. You taught me that cruelty is love and silence is survival. Congratulations, you created the perfect CEO.”

He sneered. “Listen to yourself. You sound just like your mother, self-righteous and empty. You really think the world’s going to respect you when they learn what kind of woman you are?”

I froze. “What are you talking about?”

He reached into his briefcase and tossed a manila envelope across the desk. The photos spilled out, me outside Provocateur, stepping into the night air.

“I had you followed,” he said smoothly. “You’ve always been secretive. Now I know why. A sex club, Calla? How do you think your investors will feel knowing their pristine CEO spends her weekends rolling in filth?”

My stomach twisted, but I refused to look away. “You’re having me surveilled now? That’s how far you’ll go?”

“I’ll go as far as I have to.” He leaned in, voice low and poisonous. “Either you help me regain what’s mine, or I’ll make sure the world knows exactly what you are.”

“What I am,” I said, rising from my chair, “is everything you’ll never be.”

He stood too, face reddening. “You think anyone will stand behind a whore?”

Something inside me snapped clean in two at his blatant disrespect.

“You know what’s funny?” I said, my voice steadying as his grew louder. “You call me a whore, but you’re the one who couldn’t keep it in your pants. You cheated on Mom so many times that you made betrayal a family tradition. You belittled Caleb for standing up to you, broke Calil’s confidence, and crushedMom until she disappeared inside herself. You’re not a man, you’re a wound that never healed, a festering scab that’s nothing more than an infection that brings rot to anything and anyone you touch.”

His mouth opened, but no sound came; the scathing words crushed his spirit as pain settled into his normally smug features, but I refused to back down.

“You want to ruin me? Do it,” I said. “Expose me, drag me through the mud, take your best shot because your best has never been enough, not as a husband, not as a father, and certainly not as a man. The threats of a man who made a career of doing more harm to the family he created than good will never stand up in the court of public opinion.”

He blinked, stunned. “You’d really throw away your reputation just to spite me?”

I smiled, slow and sure. “You overestimate your power and influence. The only thing you can ruin now is your own reflection.”

We stood in silence, the air between us vibrating. Then I pointed at the door.

“Get out of my office.”

“Calla—”

“Get. Out.”

For once, he listened.

When the door closed behind him, the tremor hit, small at first, then a flood. My knees gave a little. I pressed my palms to the desk until the shaking slowed, until I could breathe again.

He didn’t know. He only suspected. And he would never control me with shame again.

“You’re free, Calla. Don’t let anyone, especially him, take that back,” I whispered, finally sitting behind my desk as I let the silence stretch as I looked over the skyline through the glass.

He’d followed me.

Or paid someone to.

That realization settled under my skin like acid. Not because I was afraid of exposure, I’d rebuilt this entire BlackSphere empire on the backs of my father’s secrets, but this revelation meant Sr. was desperate. Desperation in men like him never came without collateral damage.

I took a steadying breath, pulled out my phone, and opened an encrypted app.

Me: I need a favor.

Ledger: Good morning to you, too, Dahlia. How’s the empire?