Chapter 2

The air conditioning in the SUV blasted cold air against Grace's face. She drove with one hand resting lightly on the steering wheel. The car glided smoothly up the winding roads of the Beverly Hills canyons.

She glanced at the encrypted phone sitting on the passenger seat. She reached over, tapped the screen, and dialed Hayden's private number on speaker.

The phone rang. It rang seven times.

Finally, the line clicked open. The faint sound of fabric rustling echoed through the car speakers.

"Hey, baby," Hayden said. His signature deep, magnetic voice sounded perfectly gentle.

Grace's fingers tightened around the leather steering wheel. Her knuckles turned white. Her stomach churned, a wave of pure nausea hitting the back of her throat. She swallowed it down.

"How is the shoot going?" Grace asked. Her voice was perfectly even.

Hayden let out a heavy, exaggerated sigh. "Exhausting. The director is being a nightmare today. I am just lying in my dressing room trying to memorize these lines."

The image of him pressing Jacey into the leather sofa flashed behind Grace's eyes. The nausea twisted into a sharp, burning anger.

"I can come over tonight," Grace said, softening her tone artificially. "I can cook you a big dinner at the house. You need to relax."

There was a dead pause on the other end of the line. The silence stretched for three seconds. Hayden was caught off guard.

"No, no, baby," Hayden said quickly. His voice pitched up a fraction of an inch. "I have an early call time tomorrow. I do not want you driving all the way up here. You work too hard for me already."

Grace stared at the road ahead. Her eyes narrowed into cold slits. He was a liar to his core. Every word out of his mouth was a calculated manipulation to maintain his perfect image.

"Okay," Grace said smoothly. "Get some rest."

She ended the call.

She slammed her foot on the brake. The SUV jerked to a halt at a scenic overlook. The sprawling, glittering city of Los Angeles stretched out below her.

Grace picked up the encrypted phone. She used facial recognition and a thumbprint scan to bypass the security firewalls. She logged directly into the confidential mainframe of the Sykes Consortium.

The screen populated with the complete financial data of Starlight Entertainment Investments. It was a company she had created in secret. She was the sole capital provider.

She pulled up the asset list under Hayden's name. She stared at the top-tier endorsement deals and the massive movie contracts. She had bought every single one of them for him.

Grace dialed the direct line of Aya Vance, the CEO of Starlight Entertainment and her closest friend.

"Emergency meeting," Grace said the second the line connected.

Aya heard the sharp edge in Grace's voice. She immediately dropped the Wall Street merger file in her hands and logged into the secure audio room.

"Double the marketing budget for Hayden's upcoming Oscar-bait movie. I want it to be the most hyped film of the year," Grace ordered.

Aya went silent for a second. "Grace, we already poured millions into that project. Doubling it will artificially inflate his value beyond market logic. What happened?"

"I want to inflate him," Grace said, her voice dropping to a terrifying calm. "I want him to think he is untouchable. And while he is distracted by the spotlight, I want the legal team to start drafting a strategy to strip him of every ounce of commercial value he possesses."

Grace tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. "Have them review the morality clauses in his original endorsement contracts and agency agreements. Do it quietly. No one breathes a word."

Aya inhaled sharply. She knew Grace. She knew Grace never made emotional business decisions unless the line had been crossed permanently.

"Consider it done," Aya said.

Grace ended the call. She put the car in drive and headed down the mountain toward her luxury apartment in Century City.

She pulled into the underground garage, took the private elevator, and stepped directly into her penthouse. The massive space was filled with cold, minimalist furniture. It matched the emptiness in her chest.

She walked straight to the marble bar. She poured three fingers of neat whiskey into a glass and swallowed it in one gulp. The alcohol burned a fiery path down her throat, clearing the last remnants of hesitation from her mind.

She opened her laptop. She connected her phone and uploaded the audio file from the studio corridor to a multi-encrypted private cloud server.

The progress bar hit one hundred percent. The trap was set.

Her phone screen lit up on the counter. It was a goodnight text from Hayden. He had attached a selfie. He was lying in bed alone, holding a script. The background was carefully cropped.

Grace stared at the fake photo. She set the empty whiskey glass down hard on the marble.

She grabbed her car keys. She was going back out.