Marcus Ellis kicked his own front door so hard the frame cracked. He didn't care. He'd just come home at midnight, soaked to the bone, exhausted from a 14-hour job, and there was a stranger's suitcase sitting beside his bed. His hand was already reaching for the baseball bat behind the door. When the blanket moved, a woman sat up, and the second the lamplight hit her face, his blood ran cold.
It was Victoria Sterling, his boss, the billion-dollar CEO who signed his paychecks. The most powerful woman in Atlanta, hiding in a single father's bed at midnight, whispering four words that would burn his quiet life to the ground. "Please let me stay. " But here's what Marcus didn't know yet. Victoria wasn't running from a bad night. She was running for her life.
And the man hunting her was already three houses down the street. Marcus Ellis stood frozen in his own bedroom doorway, the baseball bat still gripped in his right hand, water dripping off his jacket and pooling on the hardwood floor he'd laid himself three summers ago. "Don't move," he said. His voice came out lower than he meant to. "Don't you move. " The woman's voice cracked.
"Marcus, it's me. Put it down. Please put it down. " He didn't put it down. Not yet. His heart was slamming against his ribs so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
14 hours. 14 hours he'd spent up on a ladder in the rain finishing the Henderson's roof, and all he'd wanted was a hot shower and 8 hours of sleep before his daughter came home Sunday night. Instead, there was a suitcase by his bed and a body under his blanket, and his hand had grabbed that bat before his brain even caught up. "Say my name again," he said. "Marcus. " "No, say yours. " The lamp on the nightstand clicked on, and when the light spread across the room, Marcus felt the bat go loose in his hand.
"Victoria," he said. It came out like a question, like he didn't believe his own eyes. "Victoria Sterling. " "Yes," she whispered. He'd seen this woman maybe six times in his life. And every single one of those times, she'd been standing behind a wall of assistants and executives in a suit that cost more than his truck.
He'd seen her cut a man off mid-sentence in a boardroom and watched that man apologize like a child. He'd seen her walk across a construction site in heels and make 40 grown men stand up straighter without saying a word. That woman did not exist right now. The woman in his bed had mascara streaked down both cheeks. Her hair was tangled and stuck to the side of her face.
She was wearing a wrinkled gray blouse that looked like she'd slept in it for 2 days. And when she pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, her hands were shaking so badly he could see it from across the room. Marcus lowered the bat all the way to the floor. "How did you get in my house? " he said. She didn't answer.
"Victoria, how did you get into my house? " "I took your key," she said. From the office, the emergency file. Your address is in there, too, for the insurance. She stopped, swallowed. I know how that sounds.
I know exactly how it sounds. And I'm going to give it back, and I'm going to leave. And you're never going to have to see me again. But I need you to understand that I did not have anywhere else to go tonight. I had nowhere, Marcus.
He stared at her. 10 years he'd been running his little renovation crew. 10 years of showing up, doing honest work, keeping his head down, taking whatever the big companies threw his way. Sterling Construction had been his best client for two of those years. Victoria Sterling had never once, not one single time, spoken to him like he was a person.
She'd say the renovation team the way you'd say the plumbing or the drywall. A thing that showed up and did what it was told. And now she was sitting in his bed at midnight crying, telling him she had nowhere to go. "You have a house," Marcus said slowly. "You have a mansion.
You've got that place up in Buckhead. I've seen pictures of it. You've got a condo downtown. You've got money. You've got lawyers.
You've got a whole company full of people who'd jump off a bridge if you asked. And you drove all the way out here to Southwest Atlanta, broke into a single dad's house, and got into his bed. So, I'm going to ask you one more time, and I want the truth. " He set the bat against the wall. "What is going on? " Victoria pulled her knees up under the blanket and wrapped her arms around them. For a long moment, she just looked at the window like she expected something to come through it.
"Is your daughter here? " she asked. "No, she's at her grandmother's till Sunday. " Marcus felt the back of his neck tighten. "Why? Why are you asking about my daughter? " "Because I need to know she's safe," Victoria said. That's all.
I swear to God, that's all. "Safe from what? " Victoria opened her mouth, closed it, and then she said the thing that changed everything. "There's a man following me," she said. And I think he watched me pull into your neighborhood. Marcus made her tea because he didn't know what else to do with his hands.
They sat at his kitchen table, the same table where he helped Ava with her spelling homework, the same table where his late wife used to sit and read the paper on Sunday mornings back when there were still Sunday mornings worth reading the paper on. Victoria wrapped both hands around the mug and didn't drink it. She just held it like she needed something warm to hold. "Start at the beginning," Marcus said. "The real beginning, not the version you'd give a reporter. " She almost smiled.
"You don't trust me. " "I trust that you broke into my house," he said. "Everything past that we're figuring out as we go. " "Fair enough," her face said. "His name is Adrien Cole," she began. "You've probably seen him. He comes to the site sometimes.
Tall silver watch. Very charming. Everybody loves him. Marcus thought about it. "The one who does the partnership deals? " The money guy.
That's the one. She turned the mug a quarter turn. We've been engaged for a year and a half. I was going to marry him this fall. "Were? " Marcus noticed.
"Past tense. " "Nine days ago," Victoria said., "I found out that Adrien has spent the last two years quietly buying up my company from the inside. Not the way you buy a company, the way you steal one. " He got himself named on a partnership agreement that gives him voting rights I never agreed to. He's been having private dinners with three members of my board. He's been telling them, her voice caught. He's been telling them that I'm unstable, that I've been having a breakdown, that the stress of running the company has quote affected my judgment.
"And has it? " Marcus asked, not cruel, just honest. No, she said. But that's the beautiful part of what he's doing. The more I try to prove I'm fine, the crazier I look. If I stay calm, I'm cold and disconnected.
If I fight back, I'm hysterical. If I go to the police, I'm paranoid. He built a trap where every single move I make is proof he was right. She finally looked up at Marcus. Do you understand what I'm telling you?
He didn't just take my company. He made it so nobody would believe me when I said he did. Marcus sat back in his chair. He understood betrayal. God knew he understood betrayal.
But this was a different animal. This was a man who'd looked a woman in the eye every morning for 2 years and told her he loved her while quietly building the knife he was going to put in her back. "So, you left? " Marcus said, "I tried to stay with my friend Diane first," Victoria said. Adrien showed up outside her building the next morning, just standing there smiling. He never came in.