The city was wrapped in its usual gray hush, the kind of day where even power moved in whispers. Passion stood at the edge of her office window, watching the skyline blur into fog. Behind her, Aria moved like a shadow, careful not to disturb her.
"Your nine o'clock is waiting," Aria said gently.
"Push it. Thirty minutes," Passion replied.
Aria hesitated. "It's the ministry rep."
"Then tell him to wait like every other man who thought he was too important to hold."
When the door clicked shut again, Passion turned away from the glass. Her mind wasn't on the rep. It wasn't on the next strategy call or the market shake from the Bishop scandal. It was on the USB file still locked in her safe. The missing journalist who was certainly dead by now. The account routing numbers and the fact that someone had been moving money in her father's name.
This didn't smell like the usual Bishop cover-up. It felt like someone reaching out like a ghost raising its head.
******
Elsewhere in London, Scott Bishop sat in the back of a black town car, jaw tight, eyes locked on his phone. His father had turned manic over the last forty-eight hours, shouting, threatening, pulling strings that had long lost their power. But Scott wasn't thinking about his father. He was thinking about Passion. He had seen many people stand up to his father and fall without it bothering him more than usual. But now, he felt terror and he just couldn't understand why.
There had been a moment, several moments, where something about her clean cut cold businesswoman facade had cracked. Not publicly, never publicly. But when she'd stared his father down in that suite, when she'd thrown those cold words like knives, it wasn't just a power play.
She was protecting something. Or avenging it!
And if his instincts were right, Charles Bishop was getting too close to figuring that out.
Scott didn't know if Passion was leaking the files, but he was almost certain that if she was, she wasn't doing it for business. And he hated the strange twist in his chest that came with knowing she might be in danger, because of his name.
******
Back at Passion's penthouse, Elena stepped into the study without knocking. Matteo followed, a worn folder in his hand.
"You're not going to like this," he said simply, setting it on her desk. Passion's eyes snapped to the tab. It was stamped with an old London government archive seal.
Elena sat down, crossing her legs. "Someone sent this through one of our secure contacts"
Passion flipped through the folder. Photos. Newspaper clippings of her parent's death. Transcripts. A blurry scan of a ledger entry from 15 years ago. She stilled when she saw the name.
Thomas Everett. He had been one of her father's oldest confidants. She remembered him vaguely. A quiet man who always smelled like ink and kept his eyes down. He had also died mysteriously a week after her parents in a robbery.
"He's dead," she murmured.
"Exactly" Matteo said. "But now…"
"Someone who clearly knows that is stirring things up, trying to send us a message." Elena finished.
Passion's throat tightened. "But that means, someone out there knows who I really am and is telling me so."
"We don't know that. It could just be a coincidence. But if someone knows it, they clearly haven't told the Bishops. They might be an ally."
Passion leaned back, the folder still open. "So either a ghost is alive, or someone's playing on the board game and we can't see their pieces."
"And whoever it is, they're watching. This isn't just about the Bishops anymore. This is about what you don't see."
At midnight, Passion sat alone on her balcony, London spread beneath her like a beast in sleep.
What you don't see. It echoed in her mind like a threat.
She had pulled the strings for years, always three steps ahead. But now something was watching her moves. Her war was no longer private. And worse, there could be someone out there who knew the night her world burned.