chapter Two: What Stellan Voss Does Not Know

I found the Monteiro company car three blocks away in the underground parking garage of a luxury apartment building.

I found it because the original Zara’s memories were still settling inside my head, slow and heavy like sediment sinking through water.

Garage level C.

Black sedan.

Spare key hidden inside the magnetic box behind the rear tire.

Original Zara had been careful.

Far more careful than anyone around her realized.

She had known something was wrong long before tonight.

The fear lived inside her memories.

Three months of pressure disguised as business negotiations.

Three months of Voss Capital buying shares through shell companies while pretending they were unrelated investors.

Three months of board members suddenly becoming distant.

Three months of Stellan Voss smiling politely while tightening a noose around her neck.

And when the takeover became unavoidable—

He decided murder was faster.

I slid behind the wheel and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Dark wet hair.

Sharp cheekbones.

Expensive coat soaked through with freezing water.

Beautiful, exhausted eyes filled with someone else’s memories.

Not mine.

Not entirely.

The feeling should have terrified me.

Instead, I mostly felt irritated.

Because I knew this story.

Not every detail, but enough.

The weak female lead.

The genius male lead.

The inevitable corporate takeover.

The dramatic betrayal.

The emotional abuse disguised as romance.

And somewhere around chapter eight hundred, the readers were apparently supposed to forgive the male lead because he looked sad while apologizing.

Absolutely not.

I started the car.

Johannesburg blurred past in streaks of gold and black as I drove toward Monteiro Industries headquarters.

The building rose above the financial district like a glass knife cutting into the night sky.

Most of the offices were dark at this hour, but the security guard at the entrance recognized Zara immediately and let me through without question.

“Good evening, Miss Monteiro.”

“Evening.”

No suspicion.

No concern.

No idea their CEO had nearly been drowned an hour ago.

The elevator carried me to the executive floor.

The moment the doors opened, another wave of memories hit me.

Late nights.

Board meetings.

Panic attacks hidden behind locked office doors.

Crying silently in this exact hallway after another meeting with Stellan Voss.

I frowned.

God, this girl really had suffered through the entire novel.

No wonder readers kept screaming at her to grow a spine.

I stepped into the office.

Minimalist.

Elegant.

Cold.

The kind of room designed to impress people rather than comfort them.

I sat behind Zara’s desk and opened her laptop.

The password came automatically from memory.

Then I started reading.

Financial records.

Board minutes.

Shareholder agreements.

Acquisition reports.

Six hours disappeared.

By five in the morning, I understood the entire battlefield.

Stellan Voss had spent the last year quietly positioning himself to seize Monteiro Industries piece by piece.

Twelve shell companies held nearly thirty percent of Monteiro shares.

Three board members had already aligned themselves with Voss Capital.

Friday’s shareholder meeting was supposed to remove Zara as CEO permanently.

Clean.

Legal.

Efficient.

Except for one thing.

At four seventeen in the morning, buried inside the original founding documents of Monteiro Industries, I found a clause that changed everything.

I sat very still while rereading it.

Then I read it again.

And again.

A slow smile spread across my face.

“Oh,” I whispered.

Oh, this was funny.

The founder share class held by the Monteiro family trust possessed veto rights over any executive restructuring vote.

Meaning?

Stellan Voss could not legally remove Zara without her consent.

And judging from the paperwork, nobody had realized it.

Not the board.

Not the legal department.

Not even Zara herself.

I leaned back in the chair and laughed quietly into the empty office.

After months of corporate warfare, billions in acquisitions, legal maneuvering, bribery, manipulation—

The idiot had lost to fine print.

I grabbed a pen and wrote one word across the notepad in front of me.

Veto.

Then I picked up the office phone and called the company lawyer.

He answered on the fourth ring sounding half asleep.

“Miss Monteiro?”

“I need you in the office at seven,” I said.

A confused pause.

“It is five in the morning.”

“I’m aware.”

Another pause.

“…Is something wrong?”

I looked down at the founding document spread across the desk.

Something dangerous and delighted curled slowly inside my chest.

“Yes,” I said softly.

“But I think I just solved it.”