“Fix It and I’m Yours,” the CEO Teased — Then the Single Dad Shocked Everyone…
For the first time in years, the silence of her office didn’t feel empowering.
It just felt lonely.
She walked back to her desk, picking up her newly provided replacement tablet to review the morning’s emails.
The police had successfully decrypted Gideon’s personal phone and sent a preliminary data dump to her security chief.
Serena opened the file, scrolling past encrypted text logs between Gideon and the hitman he had hired to rig the car.
But as she scrolled down to the financial ledger, her blood suddenly ran cold.
Gideon hadn’t just shorted the stock with his own money.
The forty-million-dollar capital required to manipulate Croft Innovations’ shares had been wired into his account forty-eight hours ago.
She traced the routing number, her fingers trembling over the glass screen.
The money didn’t come from a faceless bank.
It came from a private equity firm managed by *Vanguard*, originating from an account held by a man she hadn’t spoken to in five years.
Cameron Vance.
Her ex-fiancé.
The ruthless venture capitalist she had utterly destroyed in a hostile takeover early in her career.
Gideon was just a pawn.
Cameron was the one funding the assassination.
And if Cameron knew that Gideon had failed and was sitting in police custody, he would realize his proxy war was over.
He would have to handle Serena himself.
Serena stared at the tablet, the cold reality of her world closing back in around her.
The war wasn’t over.
It had just escalated.
And as she looked out the window, watching Declan’s rusty tow truck pull out onto the busy San Francisco street far below, she realized that despite her billions, he was the only man she could truly trust to keep her alive.
The realization that Cameron Cole was the architect of her attempted murder paralyzed Serena for exactly ten seconds.
Then, the predatory instincts that made her a billionaire kicked back in.
Cameron wasn’t just a scorned ex-fiancé; he was a ruthless venture capitalist who operated in the shadows, using shell companies and proxies to dismantle his rivals.
If he knew Gideon had been arrested, he would assume Serena had the evidence.
He wouldn’t wait for the police to connect the dots.
He would send professionals to finish the job.
Serena didn’t call her corporate security.
Gideon had compromised the entire team, and she didn’t know who she could trust.
She grabbed her replacement tablet, shoved it into her ruined trench coat, and walked out of her office.
She bypassed the private elevator, taking the service stairs down to the underground parking garage.
She didn’t take a company car.
Instead, she found a terrified junior analyst getting into a dented Honda Civic and handed the kid her diamond Rolex in exchange for the keys.
Forty-five minutes later, the Civic rattled down the cracked asphalt of the industrial district, pulling up to the cinderblock building of Wright & Daughter Auto.
The heavy bay doors were open.
The afternoon sun cut through the dust motes in the air, illuminating the garage in a warm, golden haze.
Declan was underneath a beat-up Chevy Silverado, the rhythmic sound of a socket wrench echoing off the walls.
Sitting on a stool nearby, wearing a pair of oversized safety goggles, was Maria.
She was carefully sorting a bucket of lug nuts by size.
Serena killed the engine and stepped out.
The sudden silence made Maria look up.
The little girl’s face broke into a wide smile, recognizing the woman from the storm.
“The pretty lady came back!” Maria announced, hopping off the stool.
The ratcheting sound stopped.
Declan slid out from under the truck on his creeper.
He was wearing a fresh white t-shirt that was already smudged with grease, his arms corded with muscle from fighting rusted bolts all afternoon.
When he saw Serena, his expression shifted from casual surprise to immediate, razor-sharp concern.
He saw the tension radiating from her rigid posture, the pale fear beneath her composed mask.
Declan stood up, wiping his hands on a rag.
He walked over to Maria, gently taking the safety goggles off her head.
“Hey, bug. Why don’t you go into the office and put on your favorite cartoon? I need to talk to Serena about her car.”
“Okay!” Maria chirped.
She paused, looking up at Serena.
“Do you like dinosaurs?”
The innocence of the question pierced straight through Serena’s armor.
The terror of the last few hours receded, just for a moment, replaced by a profound warmth.
“I love dinosaurs,” Serena said, her voice surprisingly soft.
“Especially the T-Rex.”
Maria beamed and scurried into the office, pulling the heavy door shut behind her.
Declan closed the distance between them.
He didn’t ask how her meeting went or why she was driving a beat-up compact car.
He looked directly into her eyes and asked the only question that mattered.
“Who is coming for you?”
Serena let out a shaky breath, stepping closer to him.
The smell of motor oil and sawdust was intoxicatingly grounding.
“Gideon was a puppet. The man funding the sabotage, the one who paid for the hit, is an ex-fiancé of mine. Cameron Cole. He’s a venture capitalist with bottomless pockets and connections to the absolute worst people in the corporate underworld. The police have Gideon, but Cameron is still out there. And if he finds out the proxy failed…”
“He’ll send a cleanup crew,” Declan finished, his jaw tightening.
“I couldn’t trust my security detail,” Serena admitted, her voice finally breaking.
She hated feeling helpless, hated showing weakness, but standing in front of this man, the facade crumbled.
“I didn’t know where else to go, Declan. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this to your door. I shouldn’t have put you and Maria in danger.”
She turned to leave, guilt washing over her.
But before she could take a step, Declan’s large, calloused hand wrapped gently around her wrist.
“Stop,” he commanded, his voice a low, steady rumble.
He pulled her back, not forcefully, but with an undeniable gravity.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You came to the one place they don’t know about. And you’re not leaving.”
“Declan, you don’t understand,” Serena pleaded, looking up at his resolute face.
“Cameron doesn’t send lawyers. He sends men who make people disappear.”
“Let them come,” Declan said, his eyes darkening with a dangerous, protective fire.
He released her wrist and walked over to the massive red toolbox against the wall.
He hit a hidden switch underneath the steel lip.
The heavy pegboard behind the toolbox slid open, revealing a hidden alcove.
Inside was a pristine, customized tactical shotgun and a heavy steel lockbox containing flares, a heavy-duty nail gun, and industrial zip-ties.
Serena stared at the hidden arsenal, her jaw dropping.
“I thought you were a mechanic.”
“I am,” Declan said, loading heavy, slug-filled shells into the shotgun with practiced, chilling efficiency.
“But before I was an engineer in Europe, I was a mechanic for a Marine Corps expeditionary unit in Fallujah. I fix things, Serena. But when someone threatens my family, or the people under my roof? I break things just as well.”
He slammed the action shut, the metallic clack echoing through the garage like a thunderclap.
He looked at her, his expression utterly fearless.
“Welcome to my world.”
The attack came just after dusk.
The industrial park was a ghost town on the weekends, the surrounding warehouses dark and abandoned.
Declan had spent the last two hours securing the perimeter.
He moved the heavy International Harvester tow truck to block the main bay doors, creating a steel barricade.
He sent Maria upstairs to the apartment with strict instructions to hide in the cast-iron bathtub with her tablet and noise-canceling headphones.
Serena sat in the darkened office, monitoring the perimeter cameras Declan had hardwired around the shop.
She watched the black, unmarked SUV roll down the alleyway, cutting its headlights fifty yards from the garage.
“Three men,” Serena whispered into a two-way radio Declan had given her.
“Tactical gear. They’re moving toward the side entrance.”
*”Copy that,”* Declan’s voice crackled back, calm and steady.
*”Stay low. Do not leave the office.”*
The heavy steel side door of the garage suddenly groaned.
There was a sharp hiss of a thermal breaching torch, and the deadbolt melted into slag.
The door kicked open, and three men in dark clothing stepped into the cavernous, pitch-black garage.
They raised suppressed submachine guns, sweeping the area with mounted flashlights.
They expected a terrified billionaire.
They got a ghost.
Declan was perched on the steel rafters fifteen feet above the floor.
He didn’t use the shotgun right away; gunfire would draw too much attention too quickly.
Instead, he reached into his tool belt and pulled out a heavy, two-pound pneumatic wrench.
As the lead gunman stepped directly under the hydraulic car lift, Declan threw a switch on the wall panel using a rigged pulley wire.
With a deafening hiss of compressed air, the massive steel arms of the hydraulic lift dropped violently, slamming into the lead gunman and pinning him flat against the concrete floor.
The man screamed, dropping his weapon.
The other two spun around, firing blindly into the shadows.
Sparks flew as bullets ricocheted off engine blocks and steel cabinets.
Declan dropped from the rafters, landing silently on the roof of a parked sedan.
He vaulted off the hood, launching himself at the second gunman.
With terrifying speed, Declan drove his elbow into the man’s throat, grabbing the barrel of his weapon and twisting it upward.
He swept the man’s legs out from under him, sending him crashing into a rack of heavy tires.
The third gunman finally tracked Declan’s movement.
He raised his weapon, the laser sight painting a red dot on Declan’s chest.