Zara couldn't sleep.
The message haunted her like a ghost whispering in the dark:
~Verona 2009.
She lay beside Damian, listening to his breathing, wondering what version of him existed back then.
What did he bury?
And who?
---
9:00 A.M. Bridget's Office
"Verona?" Bridget echoed, brows furrowed. "Italy?"
Zara nodded. "2009. I need everything you can pull. Damian's movements, real estate, private jets, shell companies, incidents, anything. Quietly."
Bridget didn't ask questions.
She never did when Zara used that voice.
"Give me a few hours."
Zara almost said thank you, but her throat burned too much.
---
Flashback... Verona, 2009 (writer)
Rain.
A villa on the cliffs.
A man in a black suit. A woman with red hair. A scream.
And then… silence.
The kind that doesn't come from peace.
The kind that comes from the end of something living.
---
Present day.
1:27 P.M. Wolfe Tower (Damian's Office)
Zara stood across from him, arms folded, wearing a sleek white blouse and zero warmth in her eyes.
"I need to ask you something," she said.
Damian looked up. He could tell from her tone this wasn't about business.
"Go ahead."
She dropped a single printed page on his desk. It was an Italian police report.
Unsolved.
Date: July 3rd, 2009
Name: Clara Montaldi – 24.
Disappeared after attending a private Wolfe Foundation event in Verona.
Damian didn't flinch. But his fingers curled around the edge of the desk.
Zara asked, carefully: "Who was she?"
Silence.
"My mistake."
Her stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"
"She was someone I tried to help. And someone I failed."
"Did you love her?"
"I was too young to understand what that word meant," he said. "But I ruined her anyway."
He stood, pacing slowly.
"I met Clara at a benefit. She was brilliant, Reckless. She wanted to bring down a cartel laundering money through a charity we'd unknowingly partnered with. She asked me for access. I gave it to her. Then she got too close."
"What happened to her?" Zara whispered.
"She vanished. They think she fell off a cliff. I think… someone pushed her."
Zara stared at him. "You think she died because of you?"
Damian looked at her like a man still haunted.
"I know she did."
---
Zara's Office.
Later that afternoon, Bridget stormed in with a flash drive.
"You need to see this. It's bad." Handing the drive to her.
Zara took it and plugged it into her laptop.
A recording.
Security footage. Time-stamped 2009. Verona.
Clara.
In a silk dress. Crying. Screaming at someone off camera.
Then...
Damian enters the frame.
He grabs her wrist.
She slaps him.
And he shouts something. Audio is crackled, but one word is clear:
~"You're not walking away from this."
Then Clara runs. Toward the edge of the cliffs.
The camera cuts.
---
Zara sat in stunned silence.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," she said.
Bridget gave her a look. "Then stop believing. Start digging."
8:34 P.M.Damian's Penthouse
Zara confronted him.
This time, not with questions, but with evidence.
The recording.
Damian stared at the screen, jaw tight, refusing to look away.
"I never saw that footage before," he said. "We were fighting. I was angry. But I didn't touch her. I didn't chase her. I never saw her again after that night."
"You threatened her," Zara said coldly.
"I was scared. She wanted to expose something that would've gotten all of us killed. I tried to stop her. I failed. I've lived with it every single day since then."
Zara's hands were trembling.
"You should've told me."
"I didn't want you to see me like that."
"Then you never wanted me to see you at all."
She turned to leave, but he caught her hand.
"Don't let someone else's version of me make your choice."
"Then stop giving me reasons to question everything," she said walking out the door.
11:03 P.M. Zara's Apartment
Another envelope.
No return address.
Inside: one photo.
Zara... age 10, Her father, Her mother. they all sat in a picnic blanket in Central Park.
And in the far background… barely visible. There was a man in a black suit, Holding a phone and Watching them.
"Damian Wolfe."
The photo was dated years before they'd ever officially met.
The blackmailer's note was short this time.
~You think it started with a contract, it started long before that. Damian Wolfe has always been in your life.
You just didn't see him in the picture.