“Fix It and I’m Yours,” the CEO Teased — Then the Single Dad Shocked Everyone…

The phone rang and rang.

*Voicemail.*

She dialed her private security detail.

*Voicemail.*

Frustration mounting, she slammed the receiver down.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered.

“No luck?” Declan asked.

He had already changed into a dry grey t-shirt and was circling the Koenigsegg, his eyes scanning the aggressive lines of the hypercar.

“They’re probably asleep, comfortable in their penthouses,” Serena said bitterly.

She walked over to where Declan was staring at her car.

“You’re wasting your time looking at it. Like you said, without the factory computer, you can’t bypass the firewall.”

“I don’t need a computer to see this,” Declan said quietly.

He pointed his flashlight at the rear wheel well.

Serena leaned in, squinting.

Just behind the massive carbon-ceramic brake rotor, a thick bundle of wires hung loose.

They hadn’t just frayed; they had been cleanly snipped.

Serena’s breath hitched.

“What is that?”

“That,” Declan said, his voice grave, “is your main data harness. It connects the engine control unit to the transmission and fuel pumps. But it didn’t just snap.” He reached in and pulled the severed ends into the light.

“Look at the cuts. Clean. Symmetrical. Someone used a pair of aviation snips on this.”

The blood drained from Serena’s face.

“You’re saying… someone did this on purpose?”

“I’m saying someone crawled under your car before you left, cut the harness, and reconnected it with a thermal bypass fuse,” Declan explained, tracing the line.

“When the engine reached a certain temperature—say, during a steep mountain climb—the fuse melted. The connection severed, and the car died instantly. At eighty miles an hour on a cliffside road… you’re lucky you didn’t go over the edge.”

Serena stumbled back, her mind racing.

*Gideon.* Gideon was the one who had insisted she take the car tonight.

Gideon was the one who had sent her security detail ahead to “prep the site.” If she missed the meeting tomorrow, or worse, if she died in a tragic accident, the company bylaws dictated that the COO would take over the merger.

Gideon would gain control of a forty-billion-dollar empire.

“Oh my god,” Serena whispered, leaning against the cold concrete wall.

Her knees felt weak.

The ruthless CEO facade crumbled in an instant, leaving behind a terrified woman who realized she was completely alone.

“They tried to kill me.”

Just then, a small, sleepy voice broke the tension.

“Daddy?”

Serena spun around.

Standing in the doorway of the small attached office was a little girl wearing oversized dinosaur pajamas.

She was rubbing her eyes, clutching a worn-out stuffed rabbit.

Declan’s entire demeanor shifted.

The hardened, stoic mechanic vanished, replaced by a devastatingly gentle father.

He quickly wiped the grease from his hands with a rag and walked over, crouching down to her level.

“Hey, bug. I’m sorry, did the truck wake you up?” he asked softly, brushing a stray curl of hair from Maria’s forehead.

“The thunder is loud,” Maria mumbled, leaning her head on his shoulder.

She peeked over at Serena.

“Who is the pretty lady?”

Serena froze, unaccustomed to being called ‘pretty’ in such an innocent, unguarded way.

In her world, compliments were currency, always carrying a hidden agenda.

“That’s Serena,” Declan said, picking Maria up.

“Her car broke down, so she’s going to hang out here for a little while until the storm passes. Let’s get you back to bed, okay?”

As Declan carried his daughter up the narrow wooden stairs to their apartment, Serena watched them.

She felt a strange ache in her chest.

For all her billions, her sprawling estates, and her armies of employees, she didn’t have anyone in her life who would look at her the way Declan looked at his daughter.

Ten minutes later, Declan came back down.

He walked straight to his massive red toolbox and began pulling out specialized wiring kits, a soldering iron, and a multi-meter.

“What are you doing?” Serena asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“I’m fixing your car,” Declan said, not looking up.

“You said it was impossible without the factory codes.”

Declan walked over to the Koenigsegg and slid onto a creeper, rolling himself beneath the chassis.

“It is impossible to rewrite the software,” his voice echoed from under the car.

“But I’m not going to rewrite it. I’m going to build a hardwired analog bridge to trick the ECU into thinking the harness is intact. It’s going to take me all night, and it’s going to be ugly, but it will get you to your building by 8:00 AM.”

Serena stepped closer, staring at his boots sticking out from under the car.

“Why? Why are you helping me? An hour ago you couldn’t stand me.”

Declan paused.

He rolled out slightly, looking up at her.

The harsh overhead lights caught the exhaustion in his eyes, but also a fierce, unyielding moral compass.

“Because someone tried to murder you tonight, Serena,” he said, using her first name for the first time.

The sound of it on his lips sent an unexpected shiver down her spine.

“And if you don’t show up to that meeting tomorrow, the people who did this win. I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t let bullies win. Period.”

For the next seven hours, Serena Croft watched a master at work.

She didn’t sleep.

She sat on an overturned milk crate, wrapped in an old flannel shirt Declan had thrown to her, and watched him perform mechanical surgery.

He barely spoke.

He stripped wires as thin as human hair, soldering them together with the precision of a jeweler.

When the car’s security system triggered alarms, he bypassed them using ancient analog tricks, routing power from the tail lights to keep the fuel pump primed.

As the hours ticked by, the silence between them shifted from tense to intimate.

Serena found herself mesmerized by the flex of the muscles in his forearms, the quiet intensity in his eyes, the sheer competence of a man who actually worked with his hands.

In her world of empty promises and corporate jargon, Declan Wright was something shockingly real.

At 6:30 AM, the storm finally broke, giving way to a pale, misty dawn.

Declan slid out from under the car, covered in sweat and grime.

He stood up, wiping his hands on a towel, and walked over to the driver’s side.

He reached in and pressed the ignition button.

For a terrifying second, nothing happened.

Then, with a vicious, ear-splitting roar, the twin-turbo V8 engine violently roared to life.

The concrete floor of the shop literally vibrated.

Serena gasped, jumping to her feet.

She couldn’t believe it.

He had actually done it.

He had hacked a three-million-dollar hypercar with nothing but scrap wire, a soldering iron, and sheer brilliance.

Declan killed the engine and leaned against the door, breathing heavily.

He looked completely drained.

“It’ll hold,” Declan said, his voice raspy.

“But you can’t push it past sixty, and you have to drive smoothly. If you jar the suspension too hard, my bridge might snap.”

Serena walked toward him, a mixture of awe and profound gratitude washing over her.

“Declan… I don’t even know how to thank you. I’ll write you a check for whatever you want. Fifty thousand? A hundred?”

Declan shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips.

“Keep your money, Serena. Just get to your meeting. Ruin their day.”

She looked at his mouth, suddenly acutely aware of how close they were standing.

Her heart was hammering, and it wasn’t just adrenaline from the sabotage.

She remembered her taunt on the mountain: *Fix this impossible machine by morning, and I’m yours.*

She reached out, her manicured hand gently touching his grease-stained forearm.

“Declan, I meant what I said earlier. Not the insult. The other part.”

Before Declan could process the heavy implication in her eyes, his mechanic’s instinct kicked in.

A faint, sweet smell reached his nose.

It wasn’t the exhaust from the engine.

It was distinct.

Chemical.

His eyes widened.

He grabbed Serena by the shoulders and pushed her back, hard.

“Declan, what—”

“Quiet!” he snapped.

He dropped to his knees, crawling toward the front left wheel well.

He pulled a flashlight from his belt and clicked it on.

Underneath the car, near the master brake cylinder, a small, dark puddle was slowly expanding on the concrete.

Declan dipped his gloved finger into the liquid and held it to his nose.

Hydraulic fluid.

“Dammit,” Declan hissed, scrambling out from under the car.

He ran to the toolbox, grabbing a crowbar.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Serena panicked.

“The cut wire was just the stall,” Declan said, his voice tight with rage.

“It was meant to stop you on the mountain. But whoever planned this had a failsafe. If you somehow got the car restarted and tried to drive down into the city…”

He wedged the crowbar behind the front wheel and pried the inner fender liner back.

Attached to the steel braided brake line was a small, rudimentary clamp made of cheap plastic.

But inside the clamp was a glass vial, perfectly positioned so that when the steering wheel was turned sharply to the left, the mechanical pressure would crush the glass.

Inside the glass was a highly corrosive industrial acid.

“If you drove this,” Declan said, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper, “the first sharp turn you took on the highway on-ramp would crush this vial. The acid would eat through the brake line in seconds. You’d be doing sixty miles an hour into downtown traffic with absolutely zero brakes.”

Serena stared at the small device, the reality of her impending death crashing down on her.

Gideon hadn’t just wanted her delayed.

He wanted her obliterated.

He wanted it to look like a tragic, catastrophic mechanical failure.

She began to shake violently.

The walls of the garage felt like they were closing in.

The billionaire CEO, the untouchable titan of industry, finally broke.

She covered her face with her hands, a jagged sob tearing from her throat.

Declan didn’t hesitate.

He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his chest.

He wrapped his strong, grease-stained arms around her shaking frame, anchoring her to the ground.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured fiercely into her hair.

“You’re safe here. I’ve got you.”

Serena clung to his shirt, burying her face against his chest.

He smelled of sweat, motor oil, and absolute safety.

For the first time in her life, she surrendered control.

She let herself be held by a man who expected absolutely nothing from her.

After a few minutes, her breathing slowed.

She pulled back slightly, looking up into Declan’s dark, resolute eyes.

“I have to get to that boardroom,” Serena said, her voice shaking but hardening with a sudden, lethal resolve.

“I have to walk through those doors at eight o’clock and look Gideon Shaw in the eyes.”

“You can’t take the Koenigsegg,” Declan said.

“Even if I remove the vial, I have to bleed and replace the entire brake system to make sure no acid seeped in. It’s not safe.”

Serena looked at the clock on the wall.

7:15 AM.

“Then how do I get there?” she asked.

Declan looked over at the battered, rusted tow truck sitting in the bay.

He tossed the crowbar onto the workbench and pulled his keys from his pocket.

“We take my ride,” Declan said, a dangerous smirk crossing his face.

“And I’m coming with you. Because whoever set this up is going to be in that room, and I want to see their face when a dead woman walks through the door.”