Chapter 7: The Woman on the Terrace
I took a day before I called Selina Reed.
I used that day to read every document Elena had given me, to walk through the financial transfer records line by line, and to sit with the uncomfortable reality that the woman I had watched kissing my fiancé on a terrace might be the only person who could finish what Elena had started three years ago.
I called her on a Wednesday afternoon from a coffee shop two blocks from my apartment.
Somewhere public.
Somewhere I could leave quickly if I needed to.
She answered on the third ring.
"Daniela," she said.
Not surprised.
Not defensive.
Just my name, stated plainly, as though she had been waiting.
"You knew I would call," I said.
"I hoped you would."
"I need to meet with you," I said.
"Alone.
Not at anything connected to your father or the Vance Group."
"I know a place," she said.
"Tomorrow morning.
I'll text you the address."
She did.
It was a small hotel restaurant in Evanston, the kind of place where no one from their world would think to look.
Selina Reed was twenty-six years old, with her father's sharp eyes and none of his ease with dishonesty.
She was already seated when I arrived, both hands wrapped around a coffee cup, her posture carrying the specific tension of someone who has made a decision and is waiting to find out if it was the right one.
I sat down across from her.
"The terrace," I said.
"Was that staged?"
"Yes," she said.
"Whose idea?"
"Mateo's.
He told me it needed to look real.
That you needed to be the one to walk away." She looked at her coffee.
"He said it was the only way to protect the merger restructuring.
That if you ended it, the clause activated and his family absorbed the controlling stake cleanly."
"And you agreed to be part of that."
She looked up.
"My father told me I didn't have a choice.
That if I didn't help, he would restructure my trust in a way that left me with nothing until I was forty." A pause.
"I'm not telling you that as an excuse.
I'm telling you because you deserve to know all of it."
"What do you know about the bid manipulation?" I asked.
Her hands tightened around the cup.
"Everything," she said quietly.
"I have known since I was twenty-three.
My father showed me the structure himself.
He said it was how business actually worked.
That everyone at that level operated the same way." She stopped.
"I didn't believe him, but I didn't say so."
"Would you say so now?
On record?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Mateo called me last night," she said.
"He told me that if this situation with you and Sterling escalated, I needed to stay completely silent.
That if I said anything to anyone, he would make sure the staged terrace scene looked like my idea.
That I had pursued him.
That I had tried to sabotage the engagement out of jealousy." Her voice was steady, but her knuckles were white.
"He said he had texts he could use.
Ones he had saved out of context."
"He threatened you."
"Yes."
I looked at her across the table.
Twenty-six years old.
Her father's instrument.
Mateo's leverage.
And sitting here anyway.
"If you testify," I said, "Julian Sterling's firm will provide you with legal representation.
Full coverage.
And Elena Voss — who has been building this case for three years — will make sure your cooperation is on record from the beginning.
That protects you."
"And my father?"
I held her gaze.
"Your father made his choices.
You get to make yours."
Selina set down her coffee cup.
Her hands were steadier now.
"I have something else," she said.
She reached into her bag and placed a small external drive on the table.
"Mateo uses a private server for communications he doesn't want documented.
My father has access.
So do I." She pushed the drive toward me.
"I copied everything relevant before the engagement party.
I didn't know yet what I was going to do with it.
But I knew I wanted to have it."
I picked up the drive.
It was small and light and changed everything.
"You've been planning this longer than I have," I said.
Something shifted in Selina's expression — not quite a smile, but close.
"I've been planning it since the night my father explained the structure to me," she said.
"I just needed someone to plan it with."
I put the drive in my bag.
"There's one more thing you should know," Selina said.
Her voice dropped slightly.
"Mateo knows about Elena Voss.
He knows she's working with Sterling again.
May you like
And he knows you've been to Sterling's office twice this week." She paused.
"He has someone watching the building."
