Chapter 3 - The Ascent to the Eighth Floor
The elevator bank on the eighth floor of the Omni William Penn was quiet, lined with dark wood paneling and thick Persian runners that muffled the sound of footsteps. It felt entirely divorced from the loud, glittering chaos of the ballroom two floors below.
I didn't take the elevator. I took the service stairs—concrete, cold, and smelling faintly of industrial cleanser and old iron. It gave me time to think, time to let the rhythmic slap of my leather-soled shoes against the steps set the tempo for what was coming.
When I reached the heavy fire door marked *808*, I didn't knock.
The door was unlocked—just as Julian Vance, the head of hotel security whom I had quietly retained three weeks prior, had promised it would be. I pushed it open with my fingertips and stepped inside.
The suite was breathtaking. It wasn't a standard hotel room; it was the Presidential Suite, a sprawling expanse of velvet-draped windows overlooking the glittering, industrial span of the Pittsburgh bridges arching over the Allegheny River. The lights inside were dimmed to a warm, seductive amber, casting long, dramatic shadows across the hardwood floors and the oversized king-size bed draped in Egyptian cotton.
At the far end of the suite, near the wet bar, the sounds of muffled laughter and the rustle of clothing drifted out from the direction of the master bedroom.
“Just give me five minutes to get out of this dress,” Sienna’s voice floated out, light, breathless, and dripping with the kind of playful abandonment she hadn't directed toward me in five years. “Reid is probably still downstairs sulking by the bar like a lost dog.”
“Let him sulk,” Andre replied, his voice thick with triumph. A bottle of Dom Pérignon uncorked with a sharp *pop*, followed by the sound of glasses clinking. “By the time he figures out where we went, the board will have already approved the restructuring plan, and you’ll be untouchable. He’s nothing, Sienna. He was never anything.”
I walked further into the room, my footsteps completely silent on the thick wool rug.
On the mahogany coffee table near the floor-to-ceiling windows sat a leather briefcase I had left there twenty minutes ago. Next to it sat three manila folders, a digital voice recorder blinking a steady green light, and a printed stack of documents bearing the official letterhead of *Abbott & Zimmerman Enterprises*—the joint venture Andre and Sienna had quietly incorporated in Delaware last month, funded entirely by liquidating our joint retirement accounts and shifting corporate assets.
They thought they were celebrating a promotion.
They were actually celebrating the completion of an airtight paper trail for corporate fraud, embezzlement, and conspiracy.
“You know,” Andre’s voice purred louder as he stepped out of the bedroom, wearing only his dress shirt with the top three buttons undone, holding two crystal flutes of champagne, “the best part about all of this isn't even the title.”
He stopped dead in his tracks.
May you like
The champagne flutes didn't shatter—Andre was too coordinated for that—but his fingers locked around the stems so hard his knuckles turned translucent.
I was sitting in the high-backed leather armchair by the window, my legs crossed lazily, watching him with the mild, patient expression of a university professor listening to an undergraduate butcher a thesis defense.
