Lahat ng Kabanata ng COLD HEARTS & CONTRACTS : Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

The Night Before the VoteBenita HayesI didn't bother changing out of my clothes. The forest-green trousers and cream blouse I had worn to the office felt tight and restrictive, but I didn't care. I just sat at the small glass desk in the corner of the bedroom, my laptop open, the screen throwing a harsh white light across my face. It was past 2:00 AM, and my eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand into them.On the other side of the room, Adrian had finally shed his corporate armor. His midnight-black vest and silk tie were tossed over the back of an armchair. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up past his forearms, revealing the lean, muscular build he usually hid under structured suits. His dark hair was a total mess from where he had been running his fingers through it for the last three hours. He didn't look like the untouchable, perfect Ice King anymore. He just looked like a man fighting for his life, and for some reason, that made him far mo

The Price of Loyalty Benita Hayes The high from our boardroom victory did not even last the length of the elevator ride back down to the executive floor. The moment the silver doors slid open with a soft, mechanical chime, Luca was waiting for us on the polished marble landing. He did not have his usual playful grin, his messy dark hair looked even more disheveled than it had earlier, and there was no witty remark about how we had just completely humiliated the chairman in front of his own directors. His face was entirely pale, his eyes darting anxiously between Adrian and me as he held his smartphone out like a piece of unexploded ordnance. The busy corporate hallway was alive with the hum of typing and ringing phones, but around Luca, the air felt thick and heavy with a new kind of disaster. "You need to look at this right now," Luca said, his voice dropping into a low, hurried whisper as he fell into step beside us, guiding us away from the main glass corridors toward a quiet al

The RetractionBenita HayesMy stepmother’s fingers were shaking so badly she almost dropped her phone onto the marble floor. Her fancy lawyers didn't look so tough anymore either. They were practically stepping away from her, trying to look like they had nothing to do with the mess she had just gotten herself into. The air in the empty foyer felt freezing as the phone line started ringing on speakerphone, the sound echoing off the bare walls where our family pictures used to hang."Put it on the table, Veronica," I said. My voice wasn't loud, but it was completely steady. I didn't feel like the shy girl who used to hide in the back of my dad's office anymore. I just felt an incredibly cold focus running through my veins.She swallowed hard, tapped the screen, and placed the phone on the small marble table next to the empty crystal vase. It rang three times before a man answered with a sharp, busy tone."This is Federal Prosecutor Vance."Veronica looked up at me, her eyes pleading, b

The Ghost AccountBenita HayesWe did not go back to the Knight estate that evening. We could not risk the security cameras recording our movements or the staff reporting which files we were carrying out in our bags. Instead, Adrian drove us straight to a small, low-key diner on the far edge of the industrial district, right where the warehouses met the shipping docks. It was the kind of place with faded green vinyl booths, sticky laminate tables, and flickering fluorescent lights that buzzed like angry insects. It was a corner of the city where Alexander Knight would never dream of setting foot, which made it the safest place in the world for us right now.Luca was already sitting in the deepest booth at the back of the room when we arrived, a half-eaten plate of cold fries and a mug of black coffee sitting in front of him. Next to him was Mia, my closest friend from college and a absolute genius when it came to digital network security and forensic auditing. She already had her heav

Room 3BBenita HayesThe thick smell of burnt white sugar and cheap laundry detergent hit me the very second I pushed open the heavy, water-warped wooden door of the apartment building. There was no uniform security guard sitting behind a polished marble desk down here, there was no indoor waterfall to mask the street noise, and there was definitely no central air conditioning hum to cool the air. There was only a narrow, claustrophobic stairwell covered in peeling dark green paint and a single, low-wattage yellow lightbulb hanging miserably from the ceiling by a frayed black wire.Adrian walked a couple of paces ahead of me, carrying our two large leather suitcases—the absolute only possessions we had managed to throw together into a couple of bags before his father's team of high-priced corporate lawyers executed the emergency lockouts on the penthouse. He still wore his expensive, custom-tailored dark charcoal wool suit, but the structured jacket was gone, his silk tie was buried s