Chapter 8: Unfiltered Truth

Dominic

I stood in the quiet, dim hallway long after the heavy oak door at the end swung shut behind the two girls.

The silence returned instantly, thick and suffocating against the wood-paneled walls. Down the corridor, the muffled hum of smooth jazz and polite, restrained laughter drifted from the main ballroom, but it sounded distant, like noise filtered through deep water.

I looked down at the dark lapel of my bespoke suit jacket, right over my chest where her small, sharp finger had jabbed me twice through the fabric. I could still feel the lingering pressure of her knuckle against my sternum.

For the past ten years, every human being who looked at me did so behind a carefully constructed mask. Business rivals, board members, socialites, and the unending stream of manicured women my mother paraded through my estate—they all acted according to a script. When their eyes drifted toward the right side of my face, their gazes flicked away too quickly, or they plastered on exaggerated, trembling smiles to prove they weren't repulsed by the jagged, pale mass of burn scar stretching from my jawline down past my neck.

Nobody had ever jabbed a finger into my chest.

Nobody had ever looked at me with pure, unadulterated fury and called me a scarred freak to my face.

The silence broken by heavy, measured footsteps behind me. Vance, my head of security, stepped out of the shadow of the service alcove, holding his radio against his hip and looking noticeably tense.

"Mr. Montgomery?" Vance began, his tone cautious. "Do you want me to have central security intercept them before they clear the south gate? We can hold them for trespassing, press charges, or hand them over to the local precinct—"

"No," I said. My voice came out low and flat, cutting him off before he could complete the thought.

Vance blinked, his eyebrows pulling together in momentary confusion. "Sir? She breached the perimeter fence, triggered the encrypted network alert with an unauthorized phone, and caused a public scene in front of investors."

"I said no," I repeated, turning my head slowly to look at him. "Leave them."

"Understood, sir." Vance swallowed hard, adjusting his posture. "Shall I have the security team wipe the network ping logs from the system?"

"Find out who she is," I ordered, turning back toward my private quarters at the end of the long hallway.

Vance paused, his pen hovering over his small leather notebook. "Pardon me, sir?"

"Her friend called her Maya. She told the guards her full name is Maya Lin," I said, my voice quiet and deliberate as I walked up the broad carpeted stairs. "She came onto the property through the south cliff service gate with a canvas bag containing a pair of muddy running shoes. Find out where she lives, where she works, and bring me a full dossier within the hour."

"Yes, Mr. Montgomery. Right away."

I pushed open the heavy mahogany doors of my private suite, stepping into the dim, cold room, and shut out the sounds of the retreat entirely. I didn't turn on the overhead lights. I walked straight past the leather sofas over to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooked the dark, churning Pacific Ocean. The fog had rolled in thicker now, heavy and gray, swallowing the distant streetlights along the coast until they looked like faint, drowning sparks.

I poured myself two fingers of neat scotch from the crystal decanter on my desk, but I didn't drink it. I just held the heavy glass in my right hand, feeling the cold weight of the crystal while my thumb absentmindedly traced the thick, stiff ridge of scarred skin along my lower jaw.

Every woman I had ever dealt with—every high-class escort hired to keep up appearances at corporate galas, every socialite my mother pushed toward my trust fund, every one-night stand who lingered in my bed hoping for a ring—acted like a trained performer in an expensive play. They fawned over my company's stock value, laughed at jokes that weren't remotely funny, and lied through their teeth about my physical appearance because they wanted access to the Montgomery name. They were predictable, sycophantic, and utterly exhausting.

Maya Lin was none of those things.

She was angry, broke, completely unpolished, and wearing a cheap silk dress with dirt dried across her calves. Her hair was damp from the fog, and she carried her sneakers in a canvas bag like a common thief. Yet she had stood right in front of me, completely unbothered by my height, my money, or my reputation, and looked at me like I was nothing more than an annoying obstacle standing between her and the door.

She hadn't tried to hide her disgust. She hadn't tried to smile. She had looked at the scar that ruined my face and called it ugly with absolute, raw honesty.

It was insulting. It was absurd. And it had hit me like a splash of ice water after ten years of suffocating in a room full of liars.

I set the untouched scotch glass down on the edge of the mahogany desk with a sharp clink, pulled my phone from my pocket, and sat back in the leather chair. I waited in the quiet room, listening to the dull thud of the waves crashing against the rocks below the cliff.

It didn't take an hour. Forty-two minutes later, my phone buzzed on the desk with an encrypted file transfer from Vance.

I picked it up and opened the document.

Maya Lin. Age twenty-two. Former classical ballet student at the State Conservatory, dropped out two years ago. Currently employed as a minimum-wage waitress at a diner downtown. Financial status: severely restricted. Housing status: recently abandoned primary residence following an altercative domestic dispute involving her mother, Colette Lin, and her ex-partner, Trevor Walsh. Currently staying on the couch of one Kiki Ramos in a low-rent apartment walk-up on 4th Street.

I scrolled down the digital page past her birth date, her old school records, and her mother's checkered financial background, until I reached the bottom line.

Her phone number. Ten digits listed in plain, simple type.

I stared down at the screen for a long, unblinking moment. The dark room was completely silent around me. I knew what would happen if I dialed those numbers right now. She was likely still riding the bus back into the city, furious, bruised from her fall, and thoroughly convinced I was a monster who belonged in a high-security ward. If I called, she would yell at me, call me another string of insults, and slam the phone down in my ear.

A faint, humorless smirk touched the left corner of my mouth—the only part of my face that still moved normally.

Let her yell.

I leaned back in my chair, lifted the phone to my face, tapped her ten-digit number directly into the keypad, and hit the call button.