Claimed by the alpha billionaire

He Already Knew My Name

The elevator doors slid open on the ninety-fourth floor like they’d been waiting for me to screw up.

I stepped out anyway, forty-seven slides burning a hole in my tablet, heart hammering so hard I could taste metal. Six jobs. Six families. One impossible pitch. If I bombed Voss Capital today, Meridian Consulting folded by Friday and I’d be the junior analyst who couldn’t close the one meeting she was handed.

No pressure, Everly. Just save the company with a PowerPoint.

The receptionist didn’t even ask my name. She just smiled the way people smile at someone already doomed and waved me down the glass corridor. “Mr. Voss is expecting you, Ms. Kane.”

I hadn’t given her my name.

The conference room was all black marble and floor-to-ceiling windows that made Manhattan look like it belonged to one man. He sat at the head of the table like a king who’d already won the war.

Damien Voss.

Thirty-five. Billionaire. The guy who once made a competitor cry on live television. Dark hair, sharper jaw, black suit that probably cost more than my apartment. He didn’t stand. He just watched me walk in, eyes the color of winter steel.

And he smiled like he already knew how this ended.

“Everly Kane,” he said, voice low and smooth, like he’d tasted my name a thousand times before. “You’re three minutes early. I like that.”

I froze halfway to the table. My badge was still in my bag. I hadn’t introduced myself.

He leaned back, fingers steepled, and the light caught his eyes for half a second—something gold flashed behind the gray, gone so fast I told myself it was the city glare.

Get it together. He probably has a file.

I forced my best professional smile, the one that said I eat impossible briefs for breakfast, and set my tablet down. “Mr. Voss. Thank you for the meeting. I know your time is—”

“You grew up in that little blue house on Maple Ridge,” he cut in, quiet. “Third stepping stone from the porch hides the spare key. Your mother still keeps dahlias in the back garden.”

The room tilted.

I stared at him. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Because that wasn’t in any public file. That was mine. The house I left at eighteen. The garden I helped plant. The exact stupid detail only someone who’d been watching me would know.

He watched my face like he was collecting every micro-expression.

“Sit,” he said, softer now. Almost gentle. Almost possessive.

I sat. My legs didn’t give me a choice.

He slid a thick folder across the black marble. My name was printed on the tab in gold ink. The date on the first page?

Three years ago.

My stomach dropped. “What is this?”

“Your contract,” he answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s been ready since the day my scout sent me your photograph. The land under your childhood home is already in my name. Has been for years.”

The gold flashed in his eyes again—clearer this time, unmistakable.

I should have run.

Instead I opened the folder with shaking fingers and saw the clause at the bottom in bold:

Everly Kane agrees to remain under the personal protection of Damien Voss until the threat is eliminated.

I looked up. He hadn’t moved. He was still watching me like I was something he’d waited three years to own.

And for the first time in my life, my fixer brain had nothing.

Because the most dangerous man in Manhattan wasn’t here for my pitch.

He was here for me.

And he’d already decided I wasn’t leaving without him.