Page 29 of The Dark Stranger
Interested parties.
Plural.
Her stomach dropped.
She scrolled back through the thread. The first email. The second. The one she’d ignored. The way the language had shifted—more confident, more persistent—like they already assumed the answer would be yes.
Like something had alreadybeen decided.
Behind the scenes, monitors lit up one by one.
Silas watched the email populate on his screen the second it hit her inbox.
“Same agent,” one of his guys said. “Different tone.”
Silas’s eyes moved slowly over the sender, the metadata, the routing.
“They’re pressing,” he said. “Which means they think they have leverage.”
He tapped the desk once.
“Pull the buyer info again.”
Names appeared.
Then connections.
Then one familiar thread tightened.
Jenna.
Silas exhaled through his nose, not surprised—just irritated.
“So she finally made her move,” he murmured.
Back at the shop, Becca rubbed her temples, trying to think logically.
It’s just an email, she told herself.
People sell shops every day.
But this wasn’t just a shop.
This was the thing she built with bleeding hands and late nights. The thing that survived Izzy. The thing that proved she wasn’t disposable.
Her phone buzzed again.
Not an email this time.
A message.
Unknown number.
You should really consider the offer. Opportunities like this don’t come twice.
Her blood went cold.
She stared at the screen, heart pounding.
