Zack: [I’m trying but she’s stubborn about it. She says I’m being overprotective and she can handle herself.]

Stan: [Zack. Listen to me carefully. The combination of no company name, no formal documentation, urgency, a hotel room, and the instruction to come alone, that’s not a brand deal. That’s a predatory setup. Someone has specifically targeted a young woman who needs money and is hoping the financial pressure overrides her instincts.]

Stan: [Where’s the hotel?]

Zack: [Wanhai Grand Hotel. Room 1204. She’s supposed to be there in an hour.]

Stan: [Wanhai? I’ve got it covered then... Tell her not to go. Tell her you’ll explain everything properly but she needs to wait.]

Stan: [And send me the number the guy contacted her from.]

Zack: [You’re going there aren’t you]

Stan: [Yes.]

A brief pause.

Zack: [I’m coming with you.]

Stan: [Stay with Zoey. Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere until this is resolved. That’s more important.]

Zack: [...okay. Be careful bro. And Stan?]

Zack: [I’m not with her currently, I’ll have to go to her place to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid. Thank you for the help.]

Stan locked the phone and looked up.

Sarah was watching him across the table with the focused attention of a woman who had read the shift in his expression and was already composing her question.

"What happened?"

Stan looked at the food containers on the table and made a quick decision.

"I’ll drop you off now, I’ve got something important I need to look into," he said, rising from his seat. "I’ll explain on the way."

Sarah’s face shifted, the brief, unguarded flicker of disappointment that she didn’t quite manage to conceal before composing herself.

"We haven’t even had a proper meal together yet," she said quietly. Not a complaint. Just an observation, delivered with the soft resignation of a woman who had gotten used to sharing Stan Harrison with the rest of his life.

Stan paused. He looked at her, at the carefully maintained composure, the small effort it was costing her to be gracious about it, and felt something pull at him.

"There’s always later," he said, his voice gentler than usual. "I promise."

The corner of Sarah’s mouth lifted. Not a full smile. But enough.

"You’d better keep that promise."

"I will. Let’s go."

He ordered the food packaged, settled the bill, and they walked to the Huracán. The engine came to life with its familiar, resonant growl, and Stan pulled into traffic with practiced ease.

He explained as he drove, Zoey, the fake brand deal, the hotel room, the manufactured urgency, the instruction to come alone. The financial pressure being used as bait. He laid it out in clean, concise terms, and Sarah listened with the focused attention she always brought to things that mattered.

"This pattern is more common than people know," she said when he finished. "Young women under financial stress, unfamiliar with how legitimate deals actually work. Someone identifies the vulnerability and applies precisely the right pressure."

"I know," Stan said. "Which is why I’m handling it."

They reached Sarah’s building. Stan pulled to the curb and idled.

Sarah was reaching for the door handle when his phone rang.

It was Zack.

Stan answered.

"Stan." Zack’s voice hit him immediately, stripped of its usual easy warmth, compressed into something tight and fast and barely controlled. Panic and fury fighting each other for dominance. "She went. Zoey actually went. I told her not to, I got to her place and she’ve already left, leaving me with a message that she’ve left with Hailey,"

"Where is she now?"

"She called me. Just now. She was screaming, she said she was about to get raped..." Zack’s voice broke for half a second. "Then I heard a man’s voice. Deep. Angry. Saying something about how cold streamers treat their fans. And then she screamed, Stan. She screamed. And then the line went dead, I need your help please Stan..."

The interior of the car went very still.

"I’m already moving," Zack said. "Wanhai Grand. I need you there. Please."

"I’m close to Wanhai hotel. I’m on my way."

Stan ended the call. His jaw was set. His hand found the gear shift.

Sarah had gone pale in the passenger seat, her forgotten food containers still in her lap, her eyes wide.

"A girl is..." She stopped. Swallowed. "That’s serious, Stan."

"I know." He was already calculating the route. "Get inside, Sarah. I’ll handle it."

"Please." She reached across the console and gripped his arm, brief, firm, urgent. "Please be careful."

"Don’t worry."

He waited exactly long enough to see her step through her building’s entrance. Then he was moving.

The Huracán moved through the city with controlled, purposeful speed, not reckless, but with the focused urgency of a driver who knew every light, every lane change, every second that could be saved.

While he drove, Stan called the hotel management line directly.

"This is Stan Harrison. Major shareholder of Wanhai Group." His voice was flat and precise. "I need security deployed to Room 1204 at the Wanhai Grand immediately. This is not a drill and it is not negotiable. Move your people now and do not let anyone leave that floor."

The manager on duty sputtered through an acknowledgment. Stan hung up before the sentence was finished.

Sarah’s home wasn’t too far from the hotel. The Wanhai Grand came into view four minutes later, the familiar facade, the polished glass, the understated entrance lighting. Stan pulled up to the main entrance, left the Huracán where it sat, and walked through the lobby doors without breaking stride.

He took the stairs.

The twelfth floor corridor told him everything before he reached the room.

A cluster of Wanhai’s internal security staff were bunched at one end of the hallway, three of them, professional and trained, and utterly stalled. They’d been stopped.

By guards.

Stan recognized them before he recognized the pattern, the matching black suits, the coordinated formation, the specific combination of number and body type that was designed to make moving through them feel impossible. He recognised their faces...

Damien’s people.

More of them than before. The original crew, the ones Stan had put on the floor at Neon Pulse, had been supplemented with new additions.

Bigger. Bulkier. More muscular. The fresh recruits of a man who had gone home from his last encounter with Stan Harrison and made exactly the wrong conclusion about what needed to change.

’He doubled down,’ Stan thought with a sigh. ’He actually doubled down.’

’So it’s Damien again...’

He had actually been suspecting this, but seeing this made it clear how much of a bastard Damien was...