Chapter 9
She tapped her leather folder.
“Beatrice’s revised trust document is technically an amendment. Under Delaware corporate law, an amendment cannot supersede a founding charter clause without a unanimous shareholder vote. Since my father owned sixty percent, the amendment she’s holding is completely null and void.”
Wyatt stared at her, genuine, unadulterated admiration blazing in his chest.
She didn’t just have courage; she had built an airtight legal guillotine while living out of a fifth-floor walk-up on cheap cheddar and instant tea.
“So all you need,” Wyatt said, “is to get into that ballroom and deliver the document to the board before Beatrice signs the merger agreement.”
“Yes,” Piper said. “And I have the marriage certificate right here in my bag. But Landon will try to intercept me before I can reach the dais. If he has security detain us at the entrance…”
“He won’t,” Wyatt said, his voice carrying an absolute certainty that sent a strange, electric shiver through her veins. “I promise you, Piper. You’ll reach that room. And you’ll take back everything they stole from your father.”
***
By four that afternoon, Wyatt had sent Piper back to the Astoria apartment to retrieve her father’s charter documents and prepare for the evening.
The moment the subway doors closed behind her, Wyatt turned back into the garage office and pulled his burner phone from his jacket.
He dialed one number.
“Briggs,” Wyatt spoke into the receiver.
Briggs stepped into the office from the garage floor, holding a secure satellite terminal. “Sir?”
“Call the executive management of the St. Regis,” Wyatt commanded, his voice transforming in an instant from a Queens mechanic into the supreme, ruthless monarch of Wall Street. “The Emerald Ballroom is booked for the Holloway Foundation Gala tonight. Inform them that the host of the evening is not Landon Pierce or Beatrice Holloway.”
Briggs’s eyebrows shot up. “Sir?”
“Brandt Global holds the primary debt covenants and commercial financing on the entire St. Regis property portfolio,” Wyatt continued in a flat, lethal cadence. “Tell the general manager that I will be attending personally. Coordinate directly with their director of security, Miller. Upload my encrypted executive credential to their master terminal so their floor staff knows exactly who is entering. Place my personal security detachment on the outer perimeter, plainclothes. No one enters or leaves the VIP wing without clearance from my office.”
“Understood, Mr. Brandt,” Briggs replied, typing furiously into the handheld device. “And regarding Landon Pierce’s hedge fund?”
Wyatt’s hazel eyes turned cold as glacial ice.
“Marcus completed the forensic trace on the Cayman accounts three hours ago,” Wyatt said. “Pierce Capital leveraged eighty-five million dollars of unauthorized credit lines backed by Holloway Logistics’ drained pension assets. Our legal team delivered the forensic dossier to the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s office and the SEC Enforcement Division earlier today. The postal inspectors and federal investigators already had Pierce under preliminary scrutiny; our paper trail gave them the wire transfers and probable cause they needed. Federal agents will be on site tonight once Pierce attempts to execute the fraudulent transfer on the record.”
He paused, his voice sharpening with razor-like precision.
“As for our own leverage: Pierce Capital’s credit facilities are syndicated through our prime brokerage arm. Trigger an immediate margin call on the seventy-five million dollars in secondary notes we hold against his mid-Atlantic holdings. Call the covenants due before trading closes. Landon Pierce is walking into a financial and legal slaughterhouse tonight.”
“And Mrs. Brandt, sir?” Briggs asked quietly. “She still thinks you’re an independent mechanic facing eviction.”
Wyatt looked down at his left hand. The tungsten wedding band caught the dim bulb overhead, gleaming with quiet, unshakeable strength.
“She’s bringing her own thunderbolt tonight,” Wyatt said, a rare, breathtaking warmth softening his hard features. “I’m just going to make sure the sky doesn’t fall on her before she throws it.”
***
Seven-fifteen in the evening.
In the small bedroom of the Astoria walk-up, Piper stood before the full-length mirror, taking a slow, steadying breath.
She wore a vintage floor-length emerald silk gown—the last birthday gift her father had given her before his passing. The neckline was a modest, elegant boatneck that dipped gracefully at the back, cascading into an empire waist that flattered her slender curves. Her dark hair was swept up into an intricate, classic chignon, leaving her long, graceful neck bare except for her father’s small silver locket.
She slipped the embossed 1994 corporate charter into an ultra-slim black satin clutch, alongside their certified marriage certificate.
Her heart was hammering like a drum.
*Tonight,* she thought, touching the silver locket with trembling fingers. *Tonight, Dad. We finish it.*
The bedroom door creaked open.
Piper turned around.
Wyatt stood in the doorway, and the breath evacuated her lungs in an instant.
He wasn’t wearing overalls.
He was dressed in a classic black tuxedo. It had no designer tags on the outside, and the fabric at the cuffs looked deceptively simple, but the cut across his massive shoulders and narrow waist was so impossibly sharp, so devastatingly masculine, that it seemed custom-molded to his frame.
His dark hair was combed back, his strong jaw cleanly shaven, revealing the chiseled, aristocratic bone structure that his grease smudges had spent days concealing.
Up close, he didn’t look like a Queens mechanic who had rented a dinner suit. He looked like an ancient king who had stepped down from a throne to conquer an empire.
Piper’s lips parted, completely paralyzed. “Wyatt… where did you get that?”
Wyatt stepped into the room, his eyes raking over her emerald gown with a raw, smoldering hunger that made the air between them instantly ignite.
“A friend in theatrical costuming,” Wyatt lied smoothly, though in reality his private tailor had flown by helicopter from London to drop the bespoke Savile Row suit at the Queens safe house two hours ago. “You look… stunning, Piper.”
The word was spoken so softly, with such genuine, reverent weight, that a deep crimson blush flooded Piper’s cheeks.
“You clean up pretty well yourself, Mr. Brandt,” she whispered, her voice uneven.
She noticed his bow tie was slightly askew. Without thinking, she stepped toward him, reaching up to adjust the silk knot.
Her knuckles brushed against his throat.
Wyatt didn’t move. His breathing deepened, his gaze dropping to her dark eyes, to her painted lips, to the delicate pulse beating wildly in the hollow of her collarbone.
The heat radiating off his body was overwhelming. Piper felt as though gravity itself had tilted, pulling her inexorably toward his chest.
“Piper,” he murmured, his hands coming up to lightly rest on her waist.
His touch through the thin silk of her gown was electric, scorching her skin with an intoxicating, heavy warmth. Piper tilted her head back, her heart racing so fast she could hear it in her ears. For a second, every thought of corporate fraud, hostile takeovers, and family betrayals dissolved into pure, closed-door static.
There was only him. His scent—cedar, cold air, and something dangerously refined. His eyes, burning with a possessive, protective fire.
“We have to go,” Piper breathed, though her hands remained resting on his lapels, completely betraying her words.
“We have five minutes,” Wyatt whispered, his thumb lightly stroking the curve of her hip.
