Chapter 8: The New Rules
829 Words
The ride back was a silent, suffocating affair. The new treaty was signed. Sterling didn’t speak, his profile a granite silhouette against the city lights. He was no longer trying to figure me out; he was observing me. I felt his gaze like a physical weight.
When the car stopped outside my modest, pre-war apartment—another piece of my "Blair Davis" camouflage—I reached for the door.
"I have a gala on Saturday," he said, his voice stopping me cold. "The Museum of Industry benefit. A key networking event for the Schmitt merger. You'll accompany me."
A command. The first move under our new rules. He was putting me on display in his world, in front of his peers, his rivals. He wanted to see how I’d perform on a bigger stage.
"As your assistant, or as your 'experiment'?" I asked, my hand on the handle.
"Is there a difference?" he replied, his voice devoid of emotion. "A car will be here at seven. Don't be late."
I got out without another word and didn't look back as the car pulled away. He thought he had me pinned under his microscope. The arrogance. He had no idea he’d just invited the wolf deeper into the fold.
The next two days were a masterclass in psychological warfare. The air on the 88th floor was thick with a new kind of tension, a silent, high-stakes chess match. Sterling was relentless. He gave me impossible tasks, not to see me fail, but to see how I succeeded. He wanted to see the cracks in my persona, to glimpse the real machinery underneath.
He asked for a summary of a 300-page geological survey, due in an hour. I gave it to him in fifty-nine minutes, written in the eager tone of Blair Davis, but with an analysis of mineral deposit data that was subtly brilliant.
He had me reorganize his entire digital filing system, a labyrinthine mess. I did it overnight, creating a system so intuitive it would increase his efficiency by fifteen percent. I left a single, brightly colored folder on his desktop labeled "FUN IDEAS :)" containing only a picture of a kitten.
Every task was a walk on a razor's edge: flawless execution wrapped in amateur presentation. Blair Davenport in analysis, Blair Davis in style. It was exhausting. It was exhilarating.
He, in turn, watched my every move. I’d look up and find his blue eyes on me from his open office door. He never looked away, his expression an unreadable challenge.
Maria, his longtime assistant, was completely bewildered. "I don't get it," she whispered to me by the coffee machine. "The last three girls, he fired them for leaving a smudge on his water glass. You practically set off a glitter bomb, talk back, and he gives you more responsibility. What is your secret?"
"I think he's bored," I lied with a cheerful smile. But I knew it was more. I was a puzzle he was obsessed with solving. And the more he focused on the puzzle of me, the less he focused on the vulnerabilities I was mapping in his company.
On Friday afternoon, he called me into his office. "Close the door."
He was standing before a large whiteboard covered in diagrams of the Schmitt merger. "Helios Innovations," he said, tapping the name, which he'd circled in red. "Your 'gut feeling'. My acquisitions team did a deep dive. They came to the same conclusion you did. The perfect target: unstable, undervalued, with revolutionary technology."
"I'm glad my gut could be of service," I said, my voice carefully neutral.
"Your gut didn't tell you this, though," he said, turning to face me. "My team flagged an issue. A poison pill provision. If a hostile takeover is initiated, preferred shares are automatically issued to a third party, a shell corporation in the Caymans. It makes an acquisition prohibitively expensive."
My blood ran cold. I knew about the poison pill. My father had helped draft it years ago as a defense against predators like Sterling.
"A shame," I said, feigning disappointment.
"Isn't it?" Sterling’s eyes glinted. "But here's the interesting part. My legal team has been trying to find who controls that shell corporation. It's a ghost. But they found one name, buried deep in the incorporation documents from a decade ago. The original registered agent."
He picked up a marker and wrote a name on the whiteboard.
Edward Davenport.
My father's name.
I stared at the name, written in Sterling Prescott's sharp, aggressive hand. For the first time, my mask didn't just c***k. It shattered.
The blood drained from my face. My composure evaporated, replaced by a wave of raw, cold fury and a grief so profound it stole the air from my lungs. He had found the link. The one, concrete link between his world and mine.
"Davenport," Sterling said, his voice a soft, dangerous purr. He watched my reaction, his eyes missing nothing. "Any relation?"
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