The Woman Behind The Curtain.
Ronan’s Point Of View.
I didn’t walk, I tore through the corridors like a live wire on the verge of snapping.
The financial reports had scorched a hole through my morning, twelve percent loss with partners stepping back, stock bleeding out before my goddamn eyes, and no one could explain it?
Not on my f**king watch.
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I hit the intercom with a force that nearly shattered the button.
“Conference Room 1. Financial division. Full team. Five minutes.”
I didn’t need any excuses or delays.
By the time I stormed into the room, they were already seated, good. At least someone around here still remembered how to follow orders. The room was too quiet, all eyes wide and not leaving me as breaths shallow, the energy screamed that they knew they were about to bleed.
I didn’t sit, I tossed the tablet onto the glossy conference table and it skidded to a stop with a sharp clack.
“This,” I said through gritted teeth, “is what I walked into this morning, a twelve percent drop in valuation, the worst hit we’ve taken in four years. Somebody explain to me how the f**k this happened overnight.”
There was a thick silence in the boardroom, not even the sound of breathing.
Rogel shifted in his chair, sweat already breaking on his brow. “We… we believe the market may be reacting to the press coverage, sir. The ex-wife situation… ”
“Don’t you f**king say her name like she’s an event on the calendar,” I snapped, eyes locked on him. “We’ve weath- ered worse stories than that, this is not about optics, this is surgical and someone’s cutting veins.”
“We’re reviewing transactions, internal movements…
”
“Not fast enough,” I growled, slamming my fist down on the table. The sound cracked through the room like thunder. “I was out for less than one f**king day, and in that time, half my investors grow cold feet and a billion dollars evapo- rates from our books.”
Tension buzzed in the air like static.
A few looked down, one man tapped his pen nervously. I kept pacing behind my chair, running a hand through my hair, heart pounding like a war drum.
“I want flagged deals, unusual account activity, communications, all of it. Cross-reference anything that doesn’t smell
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right, if someone inside helped trigger this? I’ll personally ruin them.”
“Sir, the market is volatile, we’re…”
“Don’t you dare feed me lines,” I snarled, eyes flashing. “I built this empire out of fire. If you think I’m going to watch it bleed without a name to put in the crosshairs, you’re dumber than your projections.”
I was shaking now, not with fear but with fury, and disbelief.
I had ruled this city for years, but something was slipping, and I couldn’t even see who was pulling the strings.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
At first I ignored it, I wasn’t in the mood for any phone calls.
Suddenly, there was a second buzz, it was longer this time.
I gritted my teeth, still pacing.
“Someone is orchestrating this,” I muttered under my breath. “This isn’t a f**king market dip.”
The phone buzzed again.
“Goddamn it,” I growled and yanked it out of my jacket.
It was an unknown number from a private line.
I hesitated at first but the number seemed familiar and the last thing I wanted was to miss solid information.
Then answered, still burning. “What?”
Then Cole’s voice, calm, cool, and coiled boomed at the other end.
“I found her.”
My body froze.
The room behind me blurred, like the world had gone underwater.
“Who?” I asked, even though my throat already knew the answer.
“Zyrah,” he said. “I found her. And Ronan…
He paused, then let out a small, disbelieving laugh.
“You’re not gonna fucking believe where she is.”
I frowned as my eyes scanned around the corridor.
“Twenty minutes,” I growled into the phone. “Meet me and be ready to tell me every detail regarding her where- abouts, no games.”
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The Woman Dening the Curtain,
I ended the call before Cole could respond, rage pounding through my chest like war drums.
I turned back to the boardroom, the silence inside already hanging like a noose. All those suits, my financial team, looked like they were praying to survive me.
I didn’t sit but stared at them with cold eyes.
“You have until end of day to sort this f**king disaster,” I said, voice quiet but loaded with venom. “If you don’t want to be jobless by tomorrow, I suggest you stop choking on excuses and start bringing me results.”
Then I turned on my heel and walked out of the boardroom with no long talks.
As I stormed down the corridor, I pulled out my phone and fired off a single text to Cole.
“Meet me at Arms and Toes, I will be coming in through the back entrance only.”
The address I sent wasn’t listed on any map an under-renovation luxury bar atop a shuttered five-star hotel I used for quiet deals, no staff, or surveillance, just ghosts and echoes.
Exactly what I needed.
I reached my office, grabbed my keys, and didn’t speak to a single soul as I passed the stunned stares and stiff spines of my employees. Elise started to call after me but I raised a hand, silencing her.
I was done listening.
I drove fast to the location.
The kind of fast that blurred the lines on the road and made pedestrians flinch on the sidewalks. My windows were down and the wind were like knives on my face, my jaw clenched.
I didn’t know what Cole was about to tell me, but my gut had already decided it was going to be bad.
Bad enough to pull me away from a crumbling company, from a corporate firestorm I couldn’t explain.
I pulled into the alley behind the hotel and parked without even checking the mirrors. The elevator wasn’t working, so
I took the stairs, two, three steps at a time as my mind racing faster than my feet.
By the time I reached the rooftop lounge, I was already a wire about to snap.
Cole was seated in a corner booth, arms spread lazily across the backrest, sipping mineral water like he was lounging poolside.
The second I saw him, I cut across the space and slammed my hands on the table. “Where the f**k is she?”
Cole didn’t move, or blink, he just leaned back and tilted his head slightly. “Good to see you too.”
“Don’t f**k with me, Cole. I don’t have time for any pleasantries, I didn’t pay you for that.”
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He smiled faintly. “Alright, no more foreplay.”
I stood there, breath ragged, heart thumping in my ears as he said it.
“The company behind Martin Calloway’s withdrawal, the one offering better terms, the one taking your deals from under you… is Aeternum.” Cole announced.
The name hit like a brick.
I blinked rapidly as I tried to process.
“Aeternum?” I repeated slowly. “That’s not possible.”
Cole just looked at me, no sarcasm, or smugness, just the truth.
My mouth was dry and I frowned.
Aeternum wasn’t a rival, Aeternum was an institution, an empire that built empires. They didn’t compete in any busi- ness dispute in the city because they owned, and everyone in this city knew you didn’t dare touch them.
You didn’t even speak their name unless you were ready to kneel.
And they were coming after me?
My voice dropped, colder now. “What the hell does that have to do with Zyrah?”
Cole exhaled through his nose, like he’d been waiting for this moment. He leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“Guess who runs Aeternum.”
My heart slowed as the room spun just slightly. “Who?”
His smile twisted. “Guess.”
“Stop f**king around,” I snapped. “Say it.”
Cole chuckled softly, his voice didn’t rise.
“Zyrah Callisto Aeternum.” he said, letting out the truth like a bullet to my chest.
My knees almost gave out.
The air disappeared from the rooftop. I staggered back a step like he’d physically struck me.
“What… what the f**k did you just say?”
“She’s the CEO,” Cole said. “Has been for a few days since her dismissal, When her father passed, she stepped in, al- though after three months, she’s been hiding in plain sight.”
My lungs wouldn’t expand.
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Zyrah?
My Zyrah?
The woman I married.
The woman I belittled, manipulated, and discarded.
The woman I framed.
She wasn’t a nobody, infact she was everything.
An empire, a dynasty, the very shadow that towered over every boardroom in this goddamn city.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Suddenly I laughed, “You are joking, you must be a fucking clown, Cole.”
Cole didn’t smile but stared at me, he looked away, picked a file and handed it to me.
“In this file is her picture and name, now, do you believe me?”
I stared at the file with shaky fingers, my body was in fire and I could feel a great shock holding my legs in captivity.
I sank into the booth slowly, shaking, unable to feel my own hands. My thoughts shattered like glass against concrete.
Zyrah Callisto Aeternum.
The woman I thought I buried was the one tightening the noose, and I never saw her coming.
I didn’t sit back down.
Couldn’t.
I stood there, heart pounding, hands braced against the edge of the rooftop bar table, staring at Cole like he’d just ripped the world out from under me and replaced it with something I didn’t recognize.
“Say that again,” I demanded, voice cold and flat.
Cole tilted his head, expression unreadable. “Zyrah Callisto Aeternum. Heiress to the Aeternum fortune, and CEO of the Aeternum Group.”
I blinked. “Her last name was Devine. She said…”
“She lied,” Cole cut in. “Zyrah Devine was a shadow, a made-up identity to hide in plain sight. Her real name’s been off the grid since her father’s death three years ago. It was a total lockdown, and that’s when she disappeared.”
My throat dried up.
“Disappeared?”
Cole leaned forward. “She vanished from the media, no public sightings, or statements. Her older brother, Darius
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The VVonian buntiniu TIG Guntain.
Aeternum, locked the family estate down tighter than the White House, they’ve kept everything buried until now.”
I lowered myself into the booth, each word slamming harder than the last.
“She has a brother?” I raised a brow.
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Darius, he is known to be ruthless and very protective. The guy’s a phantom, you barely see him, but when you do, someone usually ends up losing something. He’s the one who got Zyrah out of jail, and cleared the fraud case overnight like it never happened.”
I sat forward slowly, stunned. “How the hell did I not know any of this?”
“Because they didn’t want you to, Darius made sure no one tied her to Aeternum while she was married to you.”
My stomach turned.
So it was Darius, not some anonymous donor, not a fluke.
I thought back to those hours after her arrest, how quiet everything went, how I thought I’d buried her.
I thought I’d won.
I thought she was gone.
“She played the part perfectly,” I muttered.
Cole shook his head slightly. “Not at first.”
I looked up. “What?”
“She didn’t come to you to ruin you, Ronan, not in the beginning. I’ve talked to someone close to her staff, she kept her identity buried because she wanted to live without it, and from everything I’ve dug up, she fell in love with you.”
The words hit harder than I wanted them to.
“She what?”
Cole nodded. “Yeah, she was all in, the marriage, the life, she loved you until you turned on her.”
My teeth clenched. “She never said anything.”
“Why would she?” Cole said. “You didn’t exactly make room for confession once you threw her to the wolves.”
I stood slowly, the ache of betrayal sinking into my bones.
The memories came back like knives.
Her laugh, silence, her lips brushed mine after midnight meetings, that look in her eyes when I held her, like I was ev- erything.
Zyrah, she’s not the poor, broken woman I thought I left behind. She’s a damned heiress, a goddess I could never con-
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trol.
I looked back at Cole, voice cracked but cold. “So now what? She’s just wiping me off the map?”
“She’s not doing it alone,” Cole said. “She and Darius, he’s backing her. They’ve started poaching your clients, your shareholders quietly, and methodically.”
My heart shattered.
“are they doing all of this because I put her in jail?” I muttered.
Cole shrugged, “I guess so, or maybe because you broke her,” Cole corrected. “And now she’s reclaiming every inch of herself, and taking a little more in return.”
I slammed my fist into the table, wood creaking under the force.
“Fuck!” I roared.
All this time, she played me, I can’t believe I fell for it, she’s been using me the entire time.
I looked up, eyes burning. “I want everything, every contact, and every bank record. Find out where she’s staying, who she’s meeting, and him too, Darius. If he breathes near one of my deals, I want to know.”
Cole gave a single, slow nod. “Already working on it.”
“And when you find them,” I said darkly, “Please, do not follow or make contact.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
I stared out over the rooftop, the wind biting, my voice low and venom-laced.
“Because when I come for them, I want it to be personal.”
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Zyrah’s Point of view.
