Anita learned quickly: power didn't come from knowing everything.
It came from making them believe you knew nothing at all.
So she let Marcus talk.
At their next meeting—this time a fabricated "chance encounter" at a tech innovation brunch—she leaned in when he mentioned a new startup deal he was exploring. The same one that, in her first life, had quietly siphoned GNV funds into a phantom subsidiary with him as the silent beneficiary.
"You should send me the deck," she said, voice light. "Might be something I'd back."
He smiled, just as he had before. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He thought he was leading her to the edge again.
But Anita was already standing behind the curtain, watching the stage he thought she'd never see.
**
Step one: Documentation.
She called her new assistant, Janine—sharp, loyal, and two steps removed from her old life. Janine had no connection to the original GNV players. Anita had hired her two weeks into her second chance.
"I want a full trace on the corporate shell linked to Valkridge Capital," Anita instructed. "All silent partners. Startups. Anything tied to a Marcus Delaney."
Janine didn't blink. "On it."
**
Step two: Isolation.
Anita knew Marcus's game relied on access—access to her calendar, her advisors, her trust.
So she began to shift her inner circle, quietly but precisely. She pulled in old allies before Marcus ever met them in the first timeline. Planted new ones who owed loyalty only to her.
To Marcus, it still looked like the seduction stage of a powerful partnership.
To Anita, it was the containment phase of a controlled burn.
**
Step three: Temptation.
She gave him small victories.
Let him "convince" her to consider a merger.
Allowed him to impress her with a pitch.
Invited him to dinner—his favorite restaurant, his bottle of wine. The same bottle he had used to celebrate their first deal in the old timeline.
"You remember everything," he said that night, raising a glass.
She clinked hers to his. "I will never forget what matters."
**
Step four: Observation.
As Marcus grew bolder, Anita watched the shift.
He tested her. A slight overreach. A faint mention of NDA loopholes. Subtle nudges at financial structures he swore were "above board."
He was laying bricks.
But this time, she was mapping every one.
And then—finally—a crack.
"There's a man named Reiner I'd like you to meet," Marcus said one night, low voice, cautious tone. "He specializes in moving high-level investments off-book. Discreetly."
Anita smiled, slow and measured.
He had taken the bait.
Now, she just needed to pull the wire.
**
That night, alone in her study, she stared at her reflection again. The same eyes. Same woman.
But beneath the skin, a different fire burned.
This was no longer about reclaiming what was hers.
It was about becoming the storm she once thought would save her—and realizing she was the storm all along.
And Marcus Delaney?
He was still playing a game.
But Anita?
Anita was writing the ending.