Daniel had never been one to give up easily. It was what had made him a brilliant surgeon, a man who could hold a beating heart in his hands and fight to keep it alive. It was what had once made him Elena's anchor—the steady force who never let her drift too far into fear.
But now, standing outside Adrian Blake's towering skyscraper of an office, Daniel realized he was no longer fighting for a life. He was fighting for hers.
He knew Adrian wasn't clean. Men like him never were. No empire built so quickly, no fortune carved from steel and fire, could come without blood on the hands. The question was: how much blood? And if Elena knew the truth, would she still let herself drown in Adrian's embrace?
Daniel slipped into the lobby, his medical badge granting him a smooth excuse. Years of charm and confidence did the rest. Within minutes, he was on Adrian's executive floor, moving with a calmness that belied the storm in his chest.
The secretary—a woman with ice-blonde hair and eyes sharp enough to cut glass—gave him a cool glance. "Mr. Blake isn't seeing visitors."
"I'm not here to see him," Daniel lied easily, flashing a polite smile. "I left a personal file here last week. Confidential. I must retrieve it."
Her suspicion lingered, but eventually, she sighed and motioned toward the records office. "Five minutes. Don't make me regret this."
Daniel's pulse raced as he slipped inside the room. Cabinets lined the walls, each drawer meticulously labeled. Blake Industries. Legal. Contracts. Offshore.
He pulled one open. Then another. The deeper he dug, the darker it became—shell companies, hidden accounts, and contracts written in vague language that whispered of dirty dealings. But it was one file tucked at the back, marked only with an initial and a date, that froze him cold.
The name inside made his blood run to ice.
It wasn't a business associate. It wasn't a deal gone wrong.
It was Elena.
Her name was written across a contract signed two years ago. Daniel's hands trembled as he read, his breath catching. It wasn't marriage. It wasn't love.
It was ownership.
The language was veiled, but the implication was clear: Adrian Blake had known Elena long before she thought he had. He had maneuvered, planned, and bound her into his world before she even had a choice.
Daniel's stomach twisted with dread. If this were true, Elena wasn't just the woman Adrian wanted. She was the woman he had built his empire around.
The sound of footsteps behind him snapped Daniel back to the present. He shoved the file under his jacket just as the office door opened.
Adrian stood there, his expression carved from ice, his voice a velvet threat.
"Looking for something, Doctor?"
Daniel's heart pounded, but he didn't back down. He met Adrian's gaze squarely, gripping the file like a weapon.
"Just the truth," Daniel said evenly. "And it looks like I found it."
For a long moment, the two men stared at each other—the empire and the healer, the billionaire and the ghost of her past.
Then Adrian's lips curved into a dangerous smile.
"You have no idea what you've just done."