Asher's POV
The presentation dissolves into chaos, and I cannot move.
Twelve thousand viewers watch Ethan's face drain of color while those photographs burn across the screen behind him.
My lungs seize. My hands lock against the armrests of my chair. Every instinct screams at me to stand, to speak, to tear that journalist apart but my body refuses to obey, frozen by a paralysis I haven't experienced since our father's funeral.
Say something. Open your mouth and defend him.
The command ricochets through my skull while Ethan's eyes find mine across the presentation hall. I watch hope flicker and die in those dark depths, watch him search my face for the protection I promised and find nothing but silence.
Then he runs.
"Ethan!" Cole's voice breaks the spell, and suddenly I'm on my feet, but the damage is already done. The exit door slams shut behind the only person I've ever wanted badly enough to forget every rule I've constructed to keep myself safe.
"We need to find him immediately," I say "Blaine, take the east corridors and check every floor between here and the lobby. Cole, cover the parking structure and service exits. I'll search the executive level and work my way down. We meet at the main entrance in fifteen minutes regardless of the outcome."
We split into three directions. My legs carry me through corridors that blur past in fluorescent smears, checking conference rooms and supply closets and every dark corner where a man might hide to fall apart in private.
He looked at you like you might save him, and you let him burn.
The thought crashes through my composure.
I've spent decades cultivating control—building walls high enough that nothing could penetrate, armoring myself against every weakness that might compromise my position. And in the moment when one word from me could have changed everything, I choked on my own fear of exposure.
The hallway near the fourteenth floor opens onto a figure I recognize immediately.
Hargrove stands with his back to me, phone pressed against his ear, his voice carrying the unmistakable satisfaction of a man who believes he's won.
"You should have seen his face when those photos hit the screen," he says, laughing into the receiver. "Twenty-six years of hiding what he is, and I exposed everything in under thirty seconds. The Varkas brothers just stood there like statues while their little whore fell apart. Best investment I ever made, hiring that photographer. The journalist practically wrote the story herself."
Rage settles into my chest.
"The best part is that nobody will believe him now, even if he tries to claim the relationship was consensual. I've destroyed his credibility so thoroughly that anything he says will sound like the desperate lies of a disgraced employee trying to salvage his reputation. By tomorrow morning, Ethan Hale won't be able to get a job sweeping floors in this industry."
"Hargrove."
My voice cuts through the hallway. He spins, phone still pressed to his ear, and the color drains from his face when he sees my expression.
"Mr. Varkas, I didn't realize you were—"
"End the call and give me that phone." I extend my hand with the kind of calm that precedes destruction. "Now."
His fingers fumble against the screen. The device lands in my palm, still warm from his grip, and I slide it into my pocket without breaking eye contact.
"I don't know what you think you heard, but I'm certain once you understand the full picture—"
"You're fired. Effective immediately. Security will escort you from the building within the hour, and you will not be permitted to collect personal belongings or contact any current employees. Your severance is forfeit, your references are nonexistent, and your career in this industry ended the moment you decided to target someone under my protection."
"You can't do this without cause. I was simply bringing legitimate concerns about workplace misconduct to the appropriate channels through proper journalistic inquiry—"
"You hired a photographer to stalk a junior employee. You fed confidential personal information to a journalist without authorization. You orchestrated a public humiliation designed to destroy a man's career and reputation for no reason beyond petty vindictiveness." I step closer, and my expression makes him press backward against the wall. "I heard every word of that phone call, Hargrove. I heard you bragging about destroying him. And now I'm going to destroy you with the same thoroughness you applied to him, except I have resources you cannot begin to imagine."
"This is retaliation for a personal relationship that violates every corporate ethics policy in the handbook, and if you think the board will support—"
"The board will support whatever I tell them to support, because I control forty percent of this company's investment portfolio and you are a mid-level manager with a history of harassment complaints that HR has been documenting for three years. By the time I'm finished, you won't be employable anywhere in this city. You won't be employable anywhere in this country. Every firm you apply to will receive a detailed account of your conduct, every reference you list will be contacted with documentation of your misconduct, and every door you try to open will be closed before you reach the threshold."
"You're threatening me because I exposed the truth about your little—"
"I'm promising you consequences for targeting someone I love." The word escapes before I can stop it. "Now get out of my building before I have security remove you in a manner that will add assault charges to your growing list of concerns."
He leaves without another word.
Cole appears at my elbow moments later.
"He wasn't in the parking structure. Blaine checked every floor twice, and nobody's seen him since he ran from the presentation hall. Asher, where would he go?"
"His apartment. He'll go home to regroup. We need to get there before he disappears completely."
The drive takes seventeen minutes that feel like hours.
Ethan's apartment greets us with silence. The door is unlocked—careless, unlike him—and we step inside to find evidence of a departure executed with terrifying precision.
The suit lies folded on his bed. Every crease aligned with the kind of care that breaks something inside my chest. The cufflinks rest in their velvet box beside it, silver catching the weak light from his single window.
The encrypted phone sits dark and silent on his nightstand.
He took nothing we gave him.
My hands reach for the suit before my mind catches up with the movement. The fabric feels like water beneath my fingers, soft and expensive and unbearably empty.
He thinks we abandoned him.
The realization crashes through every wall I've ever built. I stood in silence while the man I love faced public destruction, and now he's vanished into a world that has given him every reason to believe he's worthless.
"Asher?" Cole's voice reaches me from somewhere distant. "What do we do now?"
I clutch the abandoned suit against my chest and feel something fundamental shatter.
"He thinks we abandoned him," I whisper. "And we have to prove him wrong."