Three weeks later, Wolfe Enterprises was no longer bleeding.
It was roaring.
Stocks had stabilized. The press rebranded Damian as the "CEO Who Chose the Truth." Ava was now a public figure—grace under fire, former whistleblower turned power strategist. Together, they weren't just a story. They were the future.
And yet, in the heart of Manhattan's sleekest event space, Ava Sinclair was considering murder.
"I said no lavender roses," she muttered, glaring at the floral arrangement like it had personally betrayed her.
Naomi winced. "Technically, they're periwinkle. The florist said it's '2025's boldest romantic shift.'"
"I'll shift their invoice straight into the trash."
Naomi snorted. "You're lucky. Most women only get one chance to orchestrate the wedding of the century and help restructure a global empire. Multitasking queen."
Ava grinned despite herself. "Yeah, I just thought I'd have more than five weeks."
"You've survived blackmail, corporate espionage, and your future mother-in-law. You've got this."
That last part made Ava pause.
Because Cecelia Wolfe had been… quiet.
Too quiet.
Damian had noticed it too, but between the trial date for Lucian and prepping the new ethics board, they'd shelved it.
Until now.
Because that morning, Ava received a package.
Unmarked. No return address.
Inside: a single photograph.
Isabelle. Cecelia. And a third woman.
Standing arm in arm… in front of the same Glass Chapel where Ava had fought Lucian.
There was something scrawled on the back in ink that bled through:
"We weren't the first to try and break the Wolfe men. And we won't be the last."
Now, Ava sat across from Damian in their shared penthouse office, the photograph laid between them.
"You think your mother sent it?" she asked.
"She always knew more than she let on. And she's always had a plan." He leaned back, jaw tight. "But this… this feels like a warning."
"Or an inheritance," Ava murmured. "Secrets passed from one woman to another. Except this time, we rewrite the ending."
Damian reached across the desk, took her hand. "Then let's do it together."
She smiled, threading their fingers.
"Power."
"Passion," he replied.
"Ours."
The Wolfe estate in the Hamptons was silent beneath the snow.
Too quiet, Ava thought as the car wound up the private drive. The trees were bare, branches clawing at the gray sky. It was the kind of place that looked beautiful in magazine spreads and haunted in real life.
Cecelia Wolfe greeted them at the door.
Tall, regal, still in mourning black.
"I expected you two sooner," she said coolly. "You've never been good at avoiding storms, Damian."
Damian stepped forward, protective. "You sent that photograph."
"I delivered it," she corrected. "What you do with it… depends on whether you're finally ready to understand the price of keeping this empire alive."
She turned and walked down the hall.
Not toward the study. Not to the parlor. But to a door hidden behind a tapestry.
Ava's heels echoed on the marble as they descended a narrow staircase. At the bottom: a vault door, old and iron-cast, its handle cold to the touch.
Cecelia pressed her thumb to a sensor.
The door unlocked with a hiss.
Inside, it was not what Ava expected.
No gold. No jewels.
Just files. Photos. News clippings. DNA records. Bribes. Names.
A war room.
"This," Cecelia said softly, "is what kept the Wolfe name out of headlines for the last four generations. And what damned every woman who married into it."
Ava stepped forward, scanning rows of files.
One folder bore her name.
She opened it.
Inside: her high school transcripts, therapist records, orphanage data from a closed Romanian facility, even her old burner phone number.
"How…?"
"We vet everyone, darling," Cecelia said. "You passed. But barely."
Damian stiffened. "This is surveillance."
"This is survival," his mother snapped. "You think Lucian acted alone? He was a symptom. The disease is bigger. Global. And it feeds on families like ours."
Ava closed the file, calm and sharp. "Then we burn the system and build our own."
Cecelia tilted her head. "Then I chose correctly."
From behind a glass case, she removed a small black envelope and handed it to Ava.
Inside: a single key.
"To what?" Damian asked.
Cecelia smiled faintly. "To the truth Isabelle died for. And the final piece of your inheritance."
Ava's pulse thundered.
This wasn't just about Wolfe Enterprises anymore.
It was about a world of power only women like her were ever allowed to see… right before it tried to kill them.
The address written beneath the key led Ava to a derelict suite above an old private bank in Tribeca.
No signage. No doorman. Just a brass nameplate once polished with pride: Isabelle Laurent. Strategic Advisor. Long before Ava had her own office, Isabelle had one here.
She didn't bring Damian.
Some truths weren't built for two.
The suite creaked as she stepped in, her heels echoing on dusty tile. The walls were lined with books, floor-to-ceiling. Some spines in French. Others in Latin. And in the far corner, a single leather chair beside a filing cabinet—identical to the one that had sat in Wolfe Enterprises' war room.
This one had a locked compartment.
The key fit perfectly.
Inside: a letter. A hard drive. And a small velvet pouch.
The letter was addressed in looping ink: Ava Sinclair. The one who survived.
Her fingers trembled as she unfolded it.
"You were never supposed to inherit my war, Ava. But I see now, you were always meant to end it. This empire isn't just about men with money. It's about the women who've bled to keep them breathing. I trained you to be their reckoning, even when I couldn't say the words aloud. Inside this drive is every transaction Wolfe Enterprises ever buried—along with evidence of a global shell network: Arclight."
"Destroy it, and you take down the men who made Lucian. Protect it, and you inherit their crown."
"Whatever you choose, know this—love is not the opposite of power. It's the only thing worth wielding it for."
– Isabelle
Ava sat back slowly.
The pouch held a pendant—black glass, etched with a symbol she'd seen once before, inked on Isabelle's wrist in the faintest scar: a mirror, cracked down the center.
Ava closed her hand around it.
Her future wasn't just about marrying into power.
It was about confronting the illusion of power—and breaking it.
She slipped the hard drive into her coat.
And left the way she came in.
Outside, the snow had started again.
Soft. Cold. Relentless.
Back at the penthouse, Damian was waiting. No questions. Just arms open, and coffee already poured.
She walked into his embrace.
"I found the truth," she whispered.
"Is it heavier than you expected?"
She nodded. "But I'm strong enough now."
The chapel was nothing like the one Lucian bled in.
This one sat on a rooftop garden in the heart of Manhattan. Ivy curled up white columns. String lights blinked like stars. And every seat was filled with people who had once doubted, feared, or underestimated Ava Sinclair.
Not anymore.
Naomi adjusted Ava's veil with trembling fingers. "You're sure about this?"
Ava turned, eyes fierce beneath the lace. "About marrying him? Or about becoming the most dangerous woman in this city?"
Naomi smiled. "Both."
The doors opened.
Music swelled.
And Ava walked toward the man who had ruined her life… and then fought like hell to help her rebuild it.
Damian stood at the altar in a tailored midnight suit, no tie, just a bloodstone pin at his lapel—the same color as the ring on Ava's finger.
When he saw her, everything else vanished.
Not the press watching from a distance. Not the shareholders seated in designer gowns. Not even Cecelia Wolfe, sitting in the front row with a look that said Good girl. Now finish what we started.
Just Ava.
A storm in silk.
A woman who had chosen everything.
The officiant spoke, but Ava barely heard a word.
Until it was time.
"Do you, Ava Sinclair, take Damian Wolfe—"
"I do."
"And do you, Damian Wolfe—"
"I have, since the day she broke into my office and rewrote my world."
Laughter. Soft gasps. Applause.
They kissed.
The city roared beneath them.
But as the champagne flowed and the music soared, Ava saw her.
At the edge of the rooftop.
A woman in white. Face half-covered in a lace veil.
Watching. Waiting.
Not Naomi. Not Cecelia.
Someone else.
Ava stepped toward her—just a few feet. Enough to see the scar on the woman's wrist.
A mirror. Cracked down the center.
But before she could speak, the woman slipped into the shadows.
Gone.
A message.
A warning.
A promise.
Damian came up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist.
"Everything okay?"
Ava looked out at the skyline. At the city that now whispered her name in every boardroom and back alley.
"Yes," she said. "But the story isn't over."