Chapter 159

[ 953 words ]

Katia’s POV

I looked at the document.

“And if I say no?” I said.

“He goes back to trying to destroy you,” Sam said. “Probably harder. The bounty is still live. The false data pipeline we fed through Daniel is going to run out of road eventually. And he has Delia.” She said the last part carefully, watching my face. “Whatever Delia told him at that Aman dinner — we don’t know the full picture yet p>

I stood up and walked to the window.

The proposal was strong. Genuinely, impressively strong. If it had come from anyone else in any other context, I would have had my legal team review it seriously. The combined entity would be formidable. The government contract would be winnable. The financial case was almost airtight.

But Victor had spent eighteen months trying to dismantle my company. He had posted a bounty to unmask my identity. He had sat across from me at a dinner with his hand on my thigh, telling me he had imagined me in ways that made my skin crawl. He had taken whatever Delia had given him and was building it into something I could not yet see the full shape of.

A man like that did not offer equal partnership because he had decided to be reasonable.

He offered it because he had run the numbers and decided that owning half of something was better than destroying it entirely. He offered it because the government contract renewal was twelve months away and he needed IG’s technology to win it. He offered it because he had decided that getting close to me professionally was the fastest route to whatever he actually wanted.

What did he actually want?

That was the question I kept arriving at. The corporate attack, the bounty, the dinner, the alliance proposal — they did not add up to a coherent strategy unless there was something underneath all of it that I had not yet identified. Victor was not a man who operated without a coherent strategy.

“Seventy-two hours,” I said.

Sam looked up. “You’re going to consider it p>

“I’m going to tell him I’m considering it,” I said. “I need the time to figure out what he’s actually after. Because it’s not the contract and it’s not the company and it’s not me.” I turned from the window. “There’s something else. Something that has been driving this from the beginning and that I haven’t found yet p>

“Julian might know,” Sam said quietly.

I thought about Julian. About the file he had been building on Victor. About Sir Edmund and the government committee and the eighteen-month timeline that had started before I had even gone public with IG. About the conversation we still needed to have – the one that kept getting interrupted by Victor or Delia or the thirty days of proximity or my own inability to sit still long enough to have it properly.

“Julian does know,” I said. “Or he knows part of it.” I picked up my phone. “I’ll call him after I send Victor the seventy-two-hour response p>

“And then?” Sam said.

“And then we figure out what Victor’s endgame actually is before he gets another move.” I looked at the document on my desk. Twelve pages of clean, impressive, professionally formatted leverage. “He spent months building this proposal. Which means he’s been planning this moment for months. Which means somewhere in that preparation he made a mistake.” I picked the proposal up. “We just have to find it p>

Sam nodded slowly. “I’ll start pulling Halo’s recent filing history. If the proposal is real there will be structural changes in their legal entities — new entities registered, old ones consolidated. That kind of preparation leaves a trail p>

“Find the trail,” I said.

She left.

I looked at the proposal for another moment. Then I drafted a three-line response to Victor.

Thank you for the proposal. I will give it my full consideration. I will be in touch within seventy-two hours.

I sent it.

Then I called Julian.

He answered on the first ring.

“I need to see you,” I said. “Today p>

“I’ve been waiting for you to call, Princess p>

Delia’s POV

I had planned the seating arrangement three days in advance.

Katia beside Julian. Me at the opposite end, close enough to watch and far enough to observe without appearing to. Mama and Papa on one side. Grandma Celeste at the head because nobody argued with Grandma Celeste about seating at her own table. Gail was between Katia and Papa because Gail was a buffer, and I needed a buffer between Katia and the rest of the table or the evening would end too quickly.

I wanted it to last.

The dinner started well enough. The food was extraordinary; it always was at the Windsor estate. The conversation moved through the usual channels. Mama talked about a charity event. Papa asked Julian about the London expansion. Grandma asked Gail about a gallery piece she had mentioned the week before.

I watched Katia and Julian.

They were careful. That was the thing — they were very careful. They did not look at each other directly. They did not touch. They spoke when spoken to and directed their attention outward. A stranger watching would have seen nothing.

But I was not a stranger.

I had been watching Julian Windsor for eight months. I knew the way his attention moved when she spoke, the slight stillness, the quality of listening that was different from how he listened to everyone else. I knew the way Katia held herself when he was near, the almost imperceptible awareness, and the way her posture changed by a degree.

I waited until the main course.

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