The dark red wine slid down Anissa’s throat, tasting like victory and cold ash.
Connorstared at her, his face drainingof color until his skin matched the white linen tablecloth. The words discarded trash seemed to physically strike him His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He took a stumbling st ep backward, his expensive shoes catching on the edge of the Persian rug
Before he could muster a response, the heavy, imposing presence of Harding Snow materialized behind Anissa s chair. The air temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Harding didnt even look at his n ephew. He simply placed a large, warm hand on the bare skin of Anissa's shoulder.
“The car is waiting" Harding said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through her collarbone.
Anissa set her wine glass down with a sharp clink She didn't spare Connoranother glance as she stood up, allowing Hardingto guideherout of the diningroom
The drive back to Manhattan was a silent blur of highway lights and heavy exhaustion. By the time they reached the penthouse on Bilionaires Row, the adrenaline that had fueled Anissa all evening completely ‘evaporated, leaving behinda hollow, restless energy.
Harding went straight to his study to take an international call. Anissa wandered the massive, silent apartment. Her bare feet sank into the plush carpets, making no sound.
Without realizing ít, her feet carried her down the long, dimly lít corridor that led to the west wing She stopped.
Rightin front of her was the closed oak door.
It was the only room inthe penthouse she had been explicitly told never to enter. The wood was dark, heavy, and completely out of place among the modern glass and steel of the rest of the apartment
Anissa stood there, her chest risingand falling in shallow breaths. Her fingertips hovered just half an inch from the cold metal of the doorknob. The silence in the hallway was absolute. A microscopi electronic mechanical sound echoed from insidethe lock.
It was a sound of disengagement It was as if the room itself was respondingto her presence, invitingher in.
Anissa snatched her hand back as if the metal had burnedher. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
A rumor she had overheard in her past life, whispered among the high society wives duringa lavish charity gala, suddenly echoed in her mind. Harding Snow has a woman hidden in his past, they had sneered behind their champagne flutes, completely unaware that Anissa was listening A ghost he can't let go of. The untouchable Matriarch is nothing but a shield. The chilingmemory screamed a wamingin her head: Don't fall for him
She stared at her trembling fingers. If she pushed that door open she would cross a line. She would shatter the fragile, safe equilibriumof their contract. She would see the face of the woman Harding truly loved, the “white moon’ he k ept locked away in the dark.
She couldn't handle that humiliation Not tonight.
Anissa forced herself to take three st eps back. The fog in her eyes cleared, r eplaced by a cold, hard rationality. She turned on her heel and walked quickly back to the master bedroom.
Insidethe security monitoringroom down the hall, Hardingsat inthe dark
The blue light from the screens illuminated the sharp angles of his face. He watched the feed from the hallway camera, his eyes tracking Anissas retreating back.
His jaw muscle ticked. The tight line of his shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch A heavy, suffocating disappointment settled in his chest
He reached out and pressed a button on the console, turing off the monitor. The room plungedinto total darkness.
“Not yet,” Harding whisperedto the empty room. ‘It's not time yet
Back in the master bedroom Anissa threw herself onto the massive, soft bed. Her pulse was still racing. The image of that oak door was bumed into her mind. She needed a distraction. She needed an anchor to the real world
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and dialed Morgan's private number.
The phone rang for a long time. She was about to hang up when the line. finally clicked open.
“Hello?" Morgans voice came through the speaker. It was thick, heavy, and laced with a profound exhaustion that made Anissa sit up straight. He sounded ike he had a severe cold
“Morgan? Are you okay?" Anissa asked, her grip tighteningon the phone. “You sound terrible. Did something happer?”
A forced, hollow laugh crackled through the receiver. 1 m fine, Nissa. Just... partied a little too hard at the club last night You know how it is. The champagne was flowing
He was usinghis signature playboy tone, but the pitch was completely wrong. It was flat. Dead.
That single, strained laugh triggered a violent physical reaction in Anissa. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead, instantly soakingthe collar of her silk pajamas. Her stomach plummeted.
‘A memory from her past life violently tore throughher mind.
New York was buriedunder a massive blizzard. The television in her tiny, freezing apartment was playing the local news. The ticker at the bottom of the screen flashed in bright red letters: BELL TELECOM FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY.
And then, the anchors voice, sterile and detached: "Authorities have recovered the body of Morgan Bell, heirto the Bell fortune, who jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge early this morning.."
Anissas knuckles turned stark white as she gripped the phone She couldn't breathe. The phantom cold of that blizzard seemed to se ep into her bones.
“Morgan,” she said, her voice droppingto a fierce, urgent whisper. She sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Listen to me very carefully. Whatever is happeningright now, whatever mess you are in do not do anythingstupid. Do you hear me?"
The line went dead silent, For five agonizing seconds, all she could hear was Morgan's shallow breathing
“You worry too much, Nissa, he finally whispered His voice cracked on the last syllable
The call disconnected.
Anissa stared at the screen, her eyes burningwith unshedtears. In her past life, she had beena helpless victim, unableto save herself, let alone the only friend who had ever shown her genuine kindness She had ‘watched himdie, crushed by the ruthless machinery of Wall Street.
But she wasn't that girl anymore. She was the Matriarch of the Snow family. More importantly, she was a woman armed with the exact financial memory of the next decade.
Anissa threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. She walked to the heavy oak desk in the comer of the room. She reached undemeath her fingers findingthe hidden latch. A secret compartment dropped open. She pulled out a matte black laptop with no logos or markings It was the military-grade device Jax Valer had configured for her.
She flippedit open The screen glowed an eerie biue inthe dark room. She typed in a twenty-character dynamic password.
She didn't need to be a master hacker, she just needed the flawless memory of the future. She opened a secure, encrypted financial terminal that Jax Valer had configured for her, bypassing the need to hack through complex corporate firewalls - She typed in the ticker symbol for Bell Telecom, alongside the specific, obscure codes of three offshore hedge funds she vividly remembered from the news r eports of her past fife.
The screen populated with dense, real-time trading volumes and price charts, To anyone else, Ít was just standard market fluctuations and noise To Anissa, it was a confirmation of her darkest memories. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she stared at the glowingnumbers the phantom cold of the blizzard from her previous life threatening to consume her again. | won't let them win this time, she vowed silently, her jaw clenching Her eyes darted across the data, cross-referencing the numbers with the timeline etched into her brain. Within two minutes, she found the exact anomaly she was looking for.