Chapter 1 The Man Behind the Glass

The sky over Manhattan was cloaked in midnight blue, and the city glimmered like a million tiny secrets. From the forty-eighth floor of Cole Tower, the world looked like it belonged to Damian Cole. And in many ways, it did.

He stood by the wall of glass that framed his office like a work of art, a tumbler of whiskey in his hand, his suit jacket draped across the back of a leather chair. The world saw a billionaire - sharp, powerful, untouchable. But tonight, behind the skyline and shadows, he felt like a man on the verge of cracking.

Across the room, his assistant's voice broke through the silence.

"Your ten o'clock is here."

Damian didn't move. "Send her in."

A few seconds later, the door opened. She walked in - long legs, a camera bag slung over her shoulder, fire in her eyes. Aria Blake.

He had only seen her through profiles and grainy press clippings, but in person, she was something else entirely. Confident, composed, and too smart for her own good.

"Mr. Cole," she said coolly, "thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I know you're a busy man."

He turned, letting his eyes meet hers for the first time. "Miss Blake, I've been reading your work. You have a reputation for... exposing people."

"I expose the truth," she corrected, setting her recorder on the edge of his polished desk. "Which is exactly why I'm here. Your name keeps coming up in places it shouldn't."

He raised a brow. "Such as?"

"The Cole Foundation. Offshore accounts. A ghost company in Zurich. And a whistleblower who's gone silent."

Her voice didn't shake. Not even a little. Damian felt the first prickle of something unfamiliar: not fear, not annoyance-interest.

"I agreed to this interview under the condition that we discuss business," he said smoothly. "Not rumors."

She smiled. "Rumors have a funny way of becoming headlines. But fine. Let's start with business. How does a twenty-five-year-old heir with no formal training build a billion-dollar empire from the ashes of his father's scandals?"

Touché.

He took a sip of whiskey and walked over to the desk. "What's your real question, Miss Blake?"

She leaned in slightly. "What are you hiding, Mr. Cole?"

Silence hung in the air like a noose.

Damian didn't answer. Instead, he leaned back, watching her. She was bold. Unshaken. And she didn't realize she had just walked into a lion's den with nothing but her sharp tongue and journalistic instinct as weapons.

"I'm not hiding anything," he said finally. "But if I were... you'd be the last person I'd tell."

Aria's lips twitched. A smile? Or a challenge?

She reached for the recorder. "Then I guess I'll just have to find out the hard way."

As she stood to leave, Damian's gaze dropped to the folder sticking out of her bag - one of the documents bore his late father's signature.

She had more than he thought.

And she had no idea what kind of danger she was stepping into.