It was, in fact, strategy of the most patient kind, the strategy of a woman who understood that the way to defeat a man like Marcus was not to fight him on his battlefield but to leave it entirely, to go build a life so far beyond his reach that his eventual self-destruction, when it came, as it always comes for men who cut the corners Marcus cut, would find me already safe, already thriving, already holding the one drive that would matter.

I did not need to fight Marcus.

I only needed to outlast him, and to keep my papers in order while he dug, with his own confident hands, the hole he would eventually fall into.

Chapter 4 — The Smartest Thing

Marcus stepped closer, warming to the encounter now, enjoying it.

“You know what’s funny, Evelyn?

Chloe and I bought a house in Weston.

My company is expanding.