Chapter 4 - The Midnight Shift
Tessa didn't offer pity. She didn't offer empty platitudes about how “everything happens for a reason” or how “she wasn't worth it anyway.”
She simply walked up to Vincent’s wheelchair, set the small cup of water on the desk, and placed the pills in front of him.
“Your blood pressure is spiking,” Tessa said, her voice calm, anchoring him to reality. “I can hear your heart from the hallway. Take your medication, Mr. Corvino.”
Vincent stared at her through the haze of rage and humiliation. “Did you hear them? Did you hear what she called me?”
“I heard,” Tessa replied, leaning back against the edge of the mahogany desk, crossing her arms. “She called you crippled. She called you finished. She’s an idiot with expensive taste who mistakes cruelty for power.”
Vincent let out a harsh, dry laugh. “You have a dangerous mouth, Tessa.”
“I have rent to pay and a sister in physical therapy,” she countered instantly. “I don't have time to stroke your ego, and I don't have time to listen to you throw a pity party while your house gets looted. Are you going to take those pills, or do I need to call an ambulance because you let a traitorous girlfriend give you a stroke?”
Vincent looked at the pills, then up at her. The raw, unvarnished honesty in her eyes was like a splash of cold water. Slowly, he picked up the pills, tossed them into his mouth, and swallowed them down with the water.
“She took the ring off,” Vincent murmured, staring at the diamond glinting near the bookshelf.
“Good riddance,” Tessa said. She walked over, picked up the ring by its band, and placed it neatly on the center of the desk. “Looks like cubic zirconia anyway. Too flashy.”
Vincent felt a corner of his mouth twitch upward—a ghost of a smile he hadn't felt in months.
“You’re off the clock, Tessa,” Vincent noted, watching her. “Why are you still in this house?”
Tessa looked around the grand, oppressive study, then back at him. “Because the security guards are downstairs drinking your scotch and laughing about what just happened, which means nobody is watching the perimeter. And Dominic didn't look like a man who leaves loose ends. If he thinks you figured out his scheme, he’s not going to wait for the board meeting.”
Vincent’s survival instincts—honed by a decade at the top of the food chain—snapped back into place with terrifying sharpness.
“The safe in the wall,” Vincent said, his eyes locking onto a panel behind the bookshelf. “Behind the third shelf on the left. There’s a satellite phone and three bearer bonds.”
Tessa didn't ask questions. She walked over to the shelf, pulled it back, and revealed the heavy steel safe embedded in the brickwork.
“Combination?” she asked, looking back at him.
“Three turns left to forty-two. Two turns right to eighteen. One turn left to seven.”
Tessa’s fingers moved with practiced precision. The heavy steel door clicked and swung open. She reached inside, pulling out a black satellite phone and a thick manila envelope, and brought them straight to Vincent, placing them in his lap.
“Good girl,” Vincent muttered, checking the signal on the satellite phone. It was encrypted, direct to his offshore contacts.
Suddenly, the overhead lights in the study flickered and died.
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The room plunged into sudden, suffocating darkness, illuminated only by the pale moonlight streaming through the high windows.
From somewhere down the hallway, the unmistakable sound of a heavy metal door being forced open echoed through the silent house.
