Page 21

DOMINIC

I sat behind my desk reviewing the briefings from the last forty-eight hours, half listening to the early office movement outside the door.

The leaks weren’t slowing down, and every report that landed on my desk made the patterns harder to ignore.

The first leak involved a draft budget, followed closely by one containing internal messaging documents.

While neither release had caused irreparable damage, the timing and sequence made it clear that someone was orchestrating the drops with a purpose.

Each time I thought we’d patched the holes, something new found its way into the press. Either someone on the inside had a vendetta, or they were careless enough to be exploited. Both scenarios were a problem. And either way, it needed to end today.

Graham stood at the edge of the conference table, holding a flash drive between two fingers like it might bite. His mouth was tight, and he avoided my eyes. “It’s confirmed. The breach came through Marla’s login.”

I leaned back in my chair and studied his expression.

“Was it her?” None of the information they had leaked was damning on its own, but laced together like this, it had the potential to scare off shareholders and turn the board away in disgust. My company would want nothing to do with Raven & Rhodes if the CEO couldn’t keep a handle on his employees.

He shook his head and crossed his arms, the flash drive now tucked tightly into his fist. “The IP address traces back to a remote location, not her condo. Whoever did this routed it through three international servers. They masked their trail with a virtual machine or cloned her credentials with a keylogger. Or it could be here. There’s no real way of telling. ”

I turned to the IT lead, who shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was a stout man with thick eyebrows and a southern drawl. “How long before I get names?” I asked, but he scowled at me.

He scratched at the edge of his jaw like the answer itched. “We’re combing through packet logs and geo-tags now. Might take a day or two. If they accessed the server through a VPN and TOR, we’ll never find out. We don’t have that kind of computing power.”

“You have until the end of today,” I clipped but stayed calm.

I picked up a pen from my desk, clicked it once, and pointed with it.

“And I want the entire security stack replaced before then. The infrastructure needs to be torn out and rebuilt from the ground up with a new firewall and revised access permissions. Every piece of legacy code should be removed, and no one receives exemptions, including the executive team.”

“Understood.” He nodded once and began tapping something into the tablet which he pulled from under his arm.

If someone had coerced Marla, we could go at this more gently, but if she was involved, I planned to bring the hammer down.

This merger meant me having controlling interest in R & R, which meant authority over personnel to a certain extent, but even the acting CEO would have no other course of action but to terminate anyone involved. That included Marla.

Graham handed me a folder and motioned toward a highlighted section. “These are the latest blog updates. Public engagement metrics show a significant spike, and clickthrough rates have increased by over forty percent compared to last week.”

I flipped through the pages without acknowledging the data until a particular image stopped me. There on the fourth page was a candid shot of Savannah, her head tipped toward a laughing child who clutched her hand tightly, the scene captured in a way that suggested something intimate.

I tapped the photo, my pulse tightening. “Who is that?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral as I looked up to first Graham, who stood where he’d been the whole meeting, and then Vanessa, who was staring at her phone, ignoring me. She tensed as she looked up and met my gaze.

Graham stepped closer and adjusted the angle of the photo. “Which one?”

“The kid.” I turned my eyes back to the page and squinted. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place the face.

Vanessa leaned over the folder with a casual glance, now suddenly interested in the meeting. Her brow furrowed as she studied the image. “I think that photo was taken near her building. I assumed it was her roommate’s child.”

I turned toward her. “Does her roommate have kids?” Snapping my fingers, I looked up at the IT guy and barked, “Get me a name. What’s the roommate’s name?”

Vanessa lifted a shoulder in a casual, noncommittal shrug.

“Maybe. Savannah never said anything. I thought she was just helping out.” The dumbfounded expression on their faces told me not a single one of them had done any background.

Here they were shoving me into press opportunities with her and they knew nothing about her.

It was all her pretty face, and nothing about her life.

I studied the image for another beat before sliding it back into the folder.

The edges felt sharp in my hands. There was a tightness in my chest that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

If Savannah had a child, it could explain the gap in her resume, though not why she hadn’t told me.

Then again, it was entirely possible that they were right and her roommate was the mother.

I could see Savannah as the helpful type.

Besides, David had never said a thing to me about being a grandfather. Not once had there been a splash of publicity on his press campaigns as he bolstered support for votes or to draw funds. He’d have told me, wouldn’t he?

“Leave it,” I said as I closed the folder.

“Graham, stay. Vanessa, check in with legal. I want revised NDAs circulated by the end of the day. And someone get me a cup of coffee.” I had to push it away.

I knew if I sat and lingered on it for too long, it would start to eat away at me.

And with the crap being shoveled around this place lately, I didn’t need another thing to stress me out.

Everything would come out in the end, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Vanessa hesitated a few seconds before gathering her things and leaving.

I knew she understood what hell would break loose for us publicly if that kid really was Savannah’s.

The optics could be skewed to go a few different directions, and while Doting Stepdad might sound like a good headline, there were a few that I knew might not look as great.

Once the door clicked shut behind her, Graham spoke again, and I didn’t like what he had to say. “There’s a theory going around. I’ve heard a few of our techs whispering about it.”

I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the edge of the desk. “What theory?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uneasy. “That someone who has it in for you might be manipulating Marla…Dom, it’s something we have to think about.”

My brain scrambled to my personal life and why anyone would try to attack me like this.

The only thing that came up was David Bennett, but he wouldn’t dare do something so brazen, not when he knew it would affect his daughter too.

And I’d lived a mostly clean life, though shame crept in like a bad cold and gave me a chill as I remembered the dark secret I carried, one that my old pal David helped me cover up. But that had been buried in my past.

“Speculation,” I said, though the line of my jaw tightened with the word.

None of this made sense to me. It was just a business transaction between two companies, that would be good for both companies, the market, the consumer, and my pocketbook.

Unless someone wanted me to suffer financially, there was no other logical reason for the leaks.

“Yes, but the theory fits.” He cocked his head and the tech guy glanced up at him, then back to his tablet.

“Keep digging quietly. I want a full picture. If there’s someone on the board or someone outside trying to kill this deal, I want names and motives.” I stood as I said it, signaling the conversation was over. My chest was too tight to carry any more today.

Graham gave a short nod and nudged the tech.

The two of them walked out, and for a long moment I stayed where I was.

The folder was closed in front of me, but the image of Savannah and that child still burned in my mind.

It rolled around like a fireball I had to try to stamp out before it set me ablaze.

After a string of check-ins and a lunch I barely tasted, I left my office and headed toward the rooftop break area for some fresh air. The usual noise filled the air—phones ringing, printers humming, voices in passing—all of which I had grown deaf to. I needed a moment away from my desk.

As I turned the corner near the east elevators, Savannah stepped out of one, distracted and slightly off-kilter. Her blouse was untucked at one side and her gaze distant, as if she had been somewhere far more personal than a boardroom.

“Savannah.” I slowed my pace, watching her carefully.

She blinked and straightened, posture stiffening as if caught off guard. “Oh. Hey.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, but neither did she shy away from me as I approached.

“Are you alright?” I moved closer, not touching her, but near enough to see the flush on her cheeks.

She gave a quick, unconvincing smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m fine. Just tired. It’s been a long morning.” There was no lie in her eyes. Now closer, I could see the way her eyes were slightly puffy, the way tiny crow’s-feet walked across her cheekbones.

Before I could press further, a junior executive rounded the corner and called to her, his tablet already open. “Savannah, we need you in room three—budget alignment.”

She gave me a polite nod and followed him down the hallway, mumbling, “Talk later?” I watched her go, but something about her expression didn’t sit right.

Maybe it was me being insecure about what was going on between us, or maybe that picture of her with the little boy, no more than four or five years old, had really rattled me.

But something in my gut told me she was keeping something from me, and now, of all times, was the worst possible moment to get obsessed over it.

I took the elevator to the rooftop terrace, needing the space more than the coffee I ordered from the kiosk in the corner.

The breeze up there was mild, and the skyline cut clean across the view like it always did.

I didn’t look out at it. I found a seat, sipped my drink, and stared at the concrete under my shoes, trying to keep my focus on the next task and not the lingering questions in my head.

It was a colossal feat to put the doubts out of my mind, but I managed to open my phone and start going through my emails, and after reading and responding to a few, I felt better. I finished my coffee and dumped the empty paper cup in the trash.

When I stepped back inside and made my way down the hallway, I passed two interns near the window, hunched over one of their phones with grins that were far too satisfied.

“Look at this one,” one of them whispered. “Those twins look just like him.”

I didn’t stop walking, but my ears burned, and my pace shifted just slightly as my mind scrambled to process what I had heard.

Twins? Him? Were they talking about some celebrity post?

Some influencer’s family spread on a gossip blog?

Or were they looking at pictures of Savannah—pictures I hadn’t seen, that maybe I should’ve?

That was, after all, what our analysts were supposed to be analyzing—the social push for my PR stunt.

The thought burrowed deep as I passed them without glancing over, too aware of how easy it would be to look, to ask, to spiral. But I refused to sate my curiosity.

I kept moving, but the conversation chased me down the hallway and into my office, each word echoing louder than the last. The conversation was too coincidental, and no matter how I tried to focus on the tasks in front of me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bigger was starting to unfold—and I was already behind on figuring it out.