Chapter 2The Wicked Game

He thought it was a sex tape. Or compromising photos.

His hand shot out to grab it.

I sidestepped him neatly.

“Let’s keep this civil, Damian.”

Heads were turning now. Whispers were starting to ripple through the crowd.

Jenny drifted over, laying a delicate hand on Damian’s arm.

“Damian, please don’t. Let’s just talk this out.”

She turned to me, her eyes already welling up with tears, her voice trembling just so. “Zoe, darling, is there some kind of misunderstanding? Damian didn’t mean to hurt you, please don’t be angry with him.”

What a perfect little actress.

I ignored her completely, my eyes fixed on Damian.

“Want it?”

His face was a mask of fury. He bit out two words through clenched teeth: “Name your price.”

“Straight to business. I like that,” I smiled. “I want five percent of the Azure Vista project. Non-dilutable shares.”

His pupils constricted.

Jenny gasped. “Zoe, you can’t! That’s extortion! You know how much that project means to Damian!”

“Shut up,” Damian snarled, his gaze never leaving mine.

“You’re dreaming.”

“Am I?” I casually tossed the USB drive into the champagne tower next to us.

Golden liquid splashed as the tiny device sank slowly to the bottom.

“It’s a one-time offer, Damian.”

I turned and walked away. The sharp click-clack of my heels on the marble floor sounded like a war drum.

“Stop!” Damian’s voice roared behind me.

I didn’t break my stride.

As I stepped out of the hotel’s grand entrance, Stella’s car pulled up to the curb.

I slipped into the passenger seat.

“Done?” she asked, handing me a bottle of water.

“He’ll bite,” I said, twisting the cap.

A man like Damian Blackwood prized two things above all else: his reputation and his sense of control.

There was nothing on that USB drive.

But his paranoia? That was my most powerful weapon.

Sure enough, less than thirty minutes later, my phone rang.

It was Damian’s lawyer.

“Miss Zoe, regarding your proposal… Mr. Blackwood has agreed in principle.”

The contracts were signed without a hitch.

Damian probably thought the 5% stake was just on loan to me. Once he got his hands on the non-existent drive and confirmed there was no threat, he’d find a way to take it back.

But now, I had access to all of Azure Vista’s internal documents.

Back at our apartment, Stella and I spread the thick binders and blueprints across the floor.

“Damian’s ambition is off the charts,” Stella said, tapping the master plan. “He wants to turn this land into an ultra-exclusive private resort. Membership fees starting in the eight figures.”

“Which means the entire project hinges on two things: privacy and exclusivity,” I pointed out.

“And both of those things depend on one man.”

We looked at each other and said the name in unison.

“Alistair Finch.”

Alistair Finch was the country’s foremost architectural visionary, a master of spatial aesthetics, and a notorious recluse.

His designs were masterpieces, and getting him to take on a project was next to impossible.

Damian had moved heaven and earth just to get a meeting.

And Jenny Dallas, in her new role as a devoted “student” and “admirer,” was spending every single day at Finch’s studio.

According to the original script of this story, Jenny was supposed to win Finch over with her “innocence” and “raw talent.” He would then agree to personally design Azure Vista, cementing Damian’s legacy.

“Her talent?” Stella scoffed. “You mean her talent for plagiarism?”

We both knew. Jenny’s graduating thesis—the award-winning watercolor painting First Light that had made her a star—was a complete and total rip-off of a piece by an obscure foreign artist.

The original artist had vanished from the public eye years ago, and the work had never been widely published, giving Jenny the perfect cover.

“We can’t just drop the plagiarism bomb on her,” I said.

“That would be letting her off too easy,” Stella finished my thought. “She needs to be at the absolute height of her glory when she comes crashing down.”