He took a slow step closer. “So you can go and be a whore for him to get your program but not?—”
Sabine didn’t even let him finish. “And I will stop you right the fuck there.” Her finger lifted in his direction. Her voice didn’t rise, but it cut through the air with enough bite to pull his ass back to reality on just who in the hell he was talking to. “No one…and I meanno one, couldevertake credit for what I built. Whether I threw this pussy at him or not, Aderra ismine.Myidea.Mysleepless nights.Myunpaid hours.Mydamn name on every single file from prototype to now.” Her eyes narrowed. “If I wereyou, I’d turn your weak ass right back around and exit the way you came before this turns into something you aresurelynot ready for, Malik.”
His mouth opened—then shut. Sabine leaned forward just slightly, her voice lower now.
“Make this the last time you find yourself alone with me and ever fix your mouth to come at me like that.”
Malik shifted, adjusting his jaw like he’d swallowed something too bitter. She stared at him until he finally backed up, opened the door, and stepped out. Sabine didn’t look away until the door clicked shut behind him.
Only then did she exhale, slow and steady. She sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and opened her laptop again likenothing had happened because nothing had, except her proving thatsheran this. Period.
Sabine sat at her desk for another few minutes, trying to focus—trying to re-center but her heart was still pounding. Not with fear. Not with doubt. Just...rage. That slow-burning, bone-deep kind. The kind women like her carried all their lives and learned how to hide just enough to keep the peace.
She clicked open her email, then paused. Instead of typing, she reached for her phone. She’d been so caught up in everything, she hadn’t even checked in with Ade properly, but Adair had stepped in and made sure their son was extra loved in her absence. No questions. No guilt.
Hey. I just wanted to say thank you for picking up my slack with Ade lately. I promise to be more present, everything is just super busy but we’re almost there. I appreciate you so much.
The reply came quicker than she expected.
Adair: You’ve done it for me for years. I got you.
Sabine stared at the screen for a beat, her eyes softening. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t deep but itwasconsistent. He was consistent. At least with Ade. She tapped out a quiet reply.
Still. Thank you.
Another message popped up almost instantly.
Adair: Always.
Somehow, even through the chaos, that made her feel a little more grounded. Like no matter how complicated everything else got…when it came to their son, they were still a team.
ADAIR
Adair walked into the conference room from a working lunch and two unread texts from his Tate blinking on his phone. He could wait—he’d call him back. Right now, his focus was locked on the whiteboard full of projections and the file folder markedPillar Grove / Aderra LLC – Confidentialalready sitting at the head of the table.
“Afternoon, Dayne,” said Nigel, one of the firm’s senior partners, standing by the glass wall with a clicker in his hand and a legal pad under his arm. “Glad you could make it. This one’s big. “Appreciate you hopping in. We’ve got a time-sensitive situation.”
Adair nodded, smoothing a hand over his beard as he took his seat. “I read the preliminary intake. Tech-backed venture acquisition, lots of moving parts.”
“More than you know.” Nigel clicked the projector on. A clean set of slide decks lit the far wall, bullet-pointed with every corporate buzzword under the sun: “spin-off structuring,” “intellectual property retention,” “funding round security,” and “equity dilution forecasting.”
Classic.
“This is Pillar Grove’s official divestment from its incubated startup Aderra,” Nigel began, clicking forward. “Which, as you’ll see, is slated to go public by Q3 if things stay on track…but they’ve brought us in specifically to finalize the asset transfer documentation, navigate valuation integrity, and handle all vendor and licensing agreements—internal and external.”
Adair flipped open the folder. Everything was structured—streamlined but one name caught his eye.
Founder/Lead: Sabine Knight.
He knew she was building something, of course. Knew she’d been grinding, launching, pitching, sacrificing sleep for strategy calls and school pickups for deadline sprints. All of that was clear but seeing her name on paper made it real. His ex-wife was at the helm of something that’d drawn Pillar Grove back to the table for multi-tiered contract retention.
And now she was about to be sitting across it from him. In boardrooms. On calls. Every detail of her vision exposed for redlining.
Goddamn.
“Dayne?” Nigel caught the pause. “You with us?”
“Yeah,” Adair cleared his throat, closing the file slowly.