Nathan Voss didn't remember stepping out of the gallery. One minute, he was staring into her eyes, and the next, he was in the back seat of his car, watching the city blur by like ghosts trailing in the glass.
But her voice followed him.
"Did you live through it?"
His jaw clenched. He could still see her face—soft, fierce, quietly determined. Her eyes weren't the wide, adoring kind he was used to. They looked at him like they saw beyond the surface. Past the expensive suit. Past the mask. Into the fire.
She painted his past.
His.
The same wreckage he spent years burying under silence and strategy now hung on a gallery wall, splashed in crimson and memory. And the woman who created it had no idea she'd just painted herself into his world. Or maybe… she knew exactly what she was doing.
"Sir?" the driver asked. "Straight to Vosstech?"
Nathan didn't respond. He was busy playing her words back in his head.
"My father had dreams about the boy. He saved him from the fire."
"I saw it. I remember it."
Nathan let out a breath, slow and sharp. "Change of plans," he muttered. "Take me to the penthouse. And find out everything you can about Stephanie Quinn."
Back in the gallery, Stephanie couldn't shake the chill that trailed behind him. She stood near her painting, staring at it like she didn't recognize her own work.
"Who was that guy?" Leo asked, handing her a glass of champagne.
"I don't know."
"You look like you saw a ghost."
"I think I did."
Leo studied her for a moment, then looked at the painting. "You think he's the boy, don't you?"
Stephanie didn't answer. Her grip tightened on the glass. "He looked at it like it wasn't just art. Like it was… a memory."
"And he didn't give you a name?"
She shook her head slowly. "He just stared. Like he hated what he saw. Or maybe… he hated that I saw it too."
Leo gave a low whistle. "Damn. That's intense."
"It felt… dangerous," she whispered. "Like I just opened something I wasn't supposed to."
Leo grinned. "Then maybe you're onto something."
Stephanie wasn't so sure. There was something coiled inside her now. An ache, a question. That man—whoever he was—had stared at her like she was the beginning of something he didn't want to admit existed. And then he disappeared without a name, a word, or a trace.
But she wasn't afraid.
She was curious.
And curiosity, she'd learned, was always the first spark before something caught fire.
Nathan stormed into his penthouse with a silence that screamed. He tossed his jacket onto the nearest chair, poured himself a drink, and stood in front of the tall windows overlooking the city.
Stephanie Quinn.
It echoed in his head like a curse.
She shouldn't exist. Not in his world. Not in his memories. Not in that moment.
He downed the drink in one gulp.
She knew too much. And she didn't even realize how dangerous that made her.
His laptop lit up with a soft glow. Within seconds, he was in the system, bypassing security, digging through gallery registries, social media tags, and background files.
He found her face. Froze it.
And stared.
Brown eyes, warm but watchful. A mouth that looked like it had bitten back more truths than most people could carry. Stephanie Quinn. Artist. Orphan. Raised by her older brother. No romantic scandals. No criminal ties. Just a girl who painted fire like she'd survived it.
But something didn't add up.
"Why now?" he muttered. "Why her?"
He zoomed in on her expression in the gallery photo. Something about the way she'd looked at the painting. And at him.
It wasn't curiosity.
It was recognition.
Nathan leaned back in his chair, the shadows of the room curling around him. The whiskey burned in his chest, but he didn't care.
She'd seen him.
The real him.
And if she wasn't lying… then someone else was. Someone close. Someone who told him no one knew. No witnesses. No loose ends.
But Stephanie Quinn was a loose end wrapped in fire and art and memory.
He couldn't afford to ignore her.
Not anymore.
And he wouldn't.