Theo was on a call when Mira arrived back at the penthouse.
She barely registered the door opening, the warm air, the quiet luxury—everything felt distant, like she’d stepped out of her body and left it behind in that hallway.
Theo turned at the sound of footsteps and saw her face.
He ended the call instantly.
“What happened?” he asked, voice already sharpened.
Mira held up her phone with the PDF open. “He’s threatening the Vantage board.”
Theo crossed the room in two strides, took the phone, scanned it.
The temperature in the room dropped.
“This is fabricated,” Theo said, voice flat.
Mira’s throat tightened. “It’s still going to land. People will believe it because it fits what they want.”
Theo’s jaw flexed, once. “Imani.”
Imani was already on the line. Theo put her on speaker.
Imani’s voice came crisp. “We saw it. We’re tracking the origin and the distribution attempt.”
Theo’s eyes stayed on Mira. “Can we stop it?”
Imani paused. “If it’s truly pending and hasn’t been sent, yes. If he has multiple routes—”
Theo cut in. “Assume multiple routes.”
Imani: “Already. Our cyber team is contacting Vantage IT. We also have a legal hold prepared. Priya is drafting emergency orders.”
Mira’s voice shook. “What if he sends it anyway?”
Theo looked at her, gaze intense. “Then we hit back harder.”
Mira swallowed. “How?”
Theo handed her phone back and reached for his own.
His thumb moved quickly.
Mira watched him, pulse racing. “Theo—don’t do something you can’t undo.”
Theo’s gaze lifted, and for a second she saw it: the part of him that had learned to control chaos by becoming more ruthless than it.
Then his expression shifted—something calmer, more deliberate.
“I’m not going to react,” he said. “I’m going to choose.”
Mira’s breath caught. “Choose what?”
Theo showed her his screen: a scheduled post to his public channels.
A photo—new, unmistakable, impossible to twist into “closet meltdown.” It was a high-resolution shot of Theo and Mira on his balcony the previous evening, city lights behind them, Theo’s hand on her waist, Mira’s gaze lifted to his. It was intimate without being explicit. It looked like belonging.
The text beneath it:
**Mira Chen is being harassed by someone attempting to damage her career. Any forged documents or anonymous emails attributed to her are false. I am retaining counsel. If you receive anything of that nature, forward it to my office.**
Then, a second line:
**Also: she’s not alone.**
Mira stared, stomach flipping. “That’s… nuclear.”
Theo’s gaze held hers. “It’s protective.”
“It makes it bigger,” Mira whispered.
“It makes it costly,” Theo corrected.
Mira’s chest tightened, emotion strangling her voice. “You’re tying yourself to me publicly.”
Theo stepped closer. “I’m already tied.”
Mira’s eyes stung. “Because of the contract.”
Theo’s voice went low. “No.”
Silence thickened.
Theo lifted his hand and touched her cheek gently. “He wants you isolated. He wants you ashamed. I’m not giving him either.”
Mira breathed in, shaky. “If you do this, your mother will—”
“I don’t care,” Theo said, and he meant it.
Mira stared at his phone again. “Post it.”
Theo studied her face. “Are you sure?”
Mira swallowed the fear, the humiliation, the instinct to shrink. “Yes.”
Theo hit publish.
Within minutes, the response was immediate—supportive comments, journalists asking questions, people tagging Vantage, people demanding accountability, people speculating.
Mira’s phone buzzed nonstop.
Then—one message slid through from a number she knew by muscle memory even though it was blocked.
A new number, same poison.
*You think he’ll keep you once the fun fades? You’re a PR problem now.*
Mira’s hands trembled.
Theo saw the screen.
His expression didn’t change.
He took her phone, screenshot the message, sent it to Priya and Imani, then blocked the number.
“Stop reading them,” he said quietly.
Mira’s voice cracked. “I can’t stop hearing him.”
Theo stepped in, arms circling her, pulling her against his chest. “Then listen to me instead.”
Mira pressed her face into his shirt, breathed him in—clean soap, warm skin, that faint cedar note she’d started to associate with steadiness.
Theo’s mouth brushed her hair. “He’s going to push for a reaction. He’ll try to make you beg.”
Mira’s voice was muffled. “I’m not begging.”
Theo’s hand tightened at her back. “Good. Because I’m about to make an example.”
Mira pulled back enough to look at him. “What does that mean?”
Theo’s gaze was cold now—focused. “It means I’m calling Vantage’s board chair personally. It means Ethan loses access to every room he thinks he belongs in.”
Mira swallowed. “You can do that?”
Theo’s mouth flattened. “Watch.”
He stepped away, made the call.
Mira listened—Theo’s voice polite, controlled, lethal in implication. No threats stated outright. Just facts, counsel, and consequences.
When he ended the call, he looked at her.
“Now,” Theo said softly, “we breathe.”
Mira let out a shaky laugh that sounded too close to sobbing. “I don’t know how.”
Theo walked to her, took her hands. “Then do it with me.”
He guided her inhale, exhale, slow enough that her lungs stopped panicking.
When she finally steadied, Theo’s gaze didn’t soften.
“Tonight,” he said, “we attend the Hartwell Foundation event.”
Mira blinked. “What?”
Theo’s mouth curved, humorless. “You will be seen with me in a room full of people Ethan wants to impress. You will be calm. Untouchable. Protected.”
Mira’s pulse spiked. “Theo, I can’t—”
“You can,” he said. “And I’ll be there the whole time.”
Mira’s throat tightened. “This is a public move.”
“It’s a bold public move,” Theo agreed. “One he can’t outplay without exposing himself.”
Mira stared, fear and adrenaline tangling into something sharp. “And your mother?”
Theo’s gaze went distant for a beat. “She’ll see I’m choosing.”
Mira swallowed. “Choosing me.”
Theo’s eyes held hers. “Choosing you.”
The words should have felt like victory.
Instead, they felt like a cliff.
Because in the back of Mira’s mind, the contract’s end date ticked like a countdown she couldn’t stop hearing.
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