"I’m sorry, Mom and Dad," he muttered into the empty room, his voice dropping into a rough whisper. "But it looks like the legacy project is going to be delayed a little longer due to a historical hiccup."
He turned the page, but his mind refused to lock onto the data. He sighed again, leaning back against the leather headrest as a sudden, sharp wave of guilt hit him square in the chest. He hated to admit it, even to himself in the absolute privacy of his office, because it felt like a profound failure to his parents' memory. But something deep down inside him was actually rooting for Hearts Hotel. A part of him wanted Linda and her stubborn uncle to win this initial round. If the historical freeze went through, it wouldn't be his failure. It wouldn't mean he had let his father down; it would simply be a casualty of hard-fought, unpredictable business logistics.
Darius forced his gaze back down to the ledger, trying to shake the uncharacteristic sentimentality from his brain. As he did, his eyes landed on a faded, handwritten scribble in the outer margin of a land survey blueprint. It was his father’s handwriting, hasty and bold:Sweet Blossom Bay Campground.
Darius frowned, slid his glasses onto his nose, and pulled the map closer. He traced the boundary lines, his eyes widening slightly as the actual scale of the property registered in his mind. The campground parcel was massive. It spanned the entire interior block, stretching far beyond the perimeter of his current house all the way down to the western boundary of the Hearts Hotel estate. Furthermore, the cul-de-sac edge of that abandoned campground touched the exact eastern side of his private property line.
A sharp, predatory spark of corporate ambition instantly replaced the guilt. Darius leaned forward, his analytical mind spinning a brand-new web of logistics. He had originally intended to look into that specific vacant campground anyway, operating under the assumption that acquiring it would allow the Wayne Group to expand their luxury resort footprint even further once the hotel was secured.
He snatched up his phone and dialed his executive assistant's direct office line back in Miami.
"Darius here," he said the moment she picked up. "I need an immediate, high-priority property title search executed on the Sweet Blossom Bay Campground parcel. The one directly across the road from the hotel."
"Of course, Mr. Wayne," she replied, the sound of her notepad rustling. "What specific details are you looking for?"
"I want to know exactly who owns that land," Darius commanded. "The Wayne Group was outbid on that parcel a few years back during a quiet private sell-off, and the current deed-holder hasn't touched the property since the purchase went through. Find out who handles the estate, contact their broker immediately, and ask whether they are willing to entertain apremium off-market buyout offer. I want that block, and I want it yesterday."
"I'll have the ownership details and the broker contact information on your desk within the hour," she promised.
"Thank you." Darius ended the call.
A slow, calculated smile spread across his face as he stood up and walked back toward the sweeping view of the bay.
Maybe there was an alternative path forward after all. If he could aggressively secure the campground block, he wouldn't need to waste time or capital fighting a protracted, exhausting legal battle over a protected Calusa site at the hotel pool. He could use the massive campground parcel as the primary foundation to get the Wayne Group’s luxury resort started immediately.
It was a perfect, elegant workaround. They would build their high-end complex right in the Hearts Hotel’s backyard, and once their modern, state-of-the-art resort was in full operational swing, the weathered, historic Hearts Hotel wouldn't last two seasons against the competition anyway. They would be completely crushed by the market share, starved of tourist capital, and forced into a standard, clean foreclosure.
Darius watched the golden light of the afternoon begin to stretch across the water, his confidence fully restored. He had been playing this corporate acquisition game for a very long time. What was a little longer to wait for the hotel to fall into his hands naturally?
A sudden, violent crash shattered the silence of the room.
The heavy oak office doors didn't just open—they slammed against the interior drywall with a force that made the glasswindows rattle in their tracks. Darius spun around, his hand instinctively gripping the edge of his desk as his heart leaped into his throat.
Isabel stood framing the threshold, her face flushed crimson with raw, unbridled fury, her chest heaving as her breathing rattled in the quiet of the office. Her fingers were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists at her sides, and her eyes burned with a dangerous, unblinking intensity that Darius had never seen in his sister before.
Before he could even process her sudden arrival or demand an explanation, she took a single, aggressive step into the center of the room, her voice slicing through the air like a razor blade.
"How dare you, Darius?" Isabel spat, her entire frame trembling with rage as she locked her gaze onto his face. "How dare you and Baxter use our parents' memory to destroy this beautiful little town!”
ISABEL
The vehicle rolled smoothly into the sweeping driveway of the beach house, the tires crunching against the ground before the engine cut out, leaving only the hum of the air conditioning fading into the quiet interior. Isabel didn't move her hands from her lap. Penny’s phone was still hooked into the vehicle’s audio console, the digital display glowing brightly against the dark dashboard panel.
Penny kept her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, her thumb tapping a quick rhythm against the leather before she reached out and hit the button to connect to her office extension in Miami.
The line clicked twice before her executive assistant answered. “Hello, Ms. Rawlings."
"Hello, Tracy," Penny said, her voice clear, professional, and entirely devoid of its usual warmth. "I need you to do something for me quickly, and I need it handled with absolute discretion.”
“Of course, what do you need?” Tracy didn’t even hesitate to answer.
“Find out if Darius has still been actively pushing the acquisition project for the Sweet Blossom Bay property since we arrived here,” Penny instructed. “Look for any new entries or movements in the primary development docket."
"I’ll get right on that, Ms. Rawlings," Tracy replied through the speakers, the sound of rapid typing instantly filling the car. "Give me a few minutes to access the secure secondary server. I'll call you right back on this line."
"Thank you, Tracy," Penny said, ending the call with a brief touch to the screen.
The silence returned to the vehicle, heavy and thick with an underlying tension that made Isabel's chest feel tight. She reached into her leather handbag, her fingers brushing past her compact before closing around the cool, smooth metal of Pete’s digital dictaphone. She pulled it out and pressed the play button, routing the audio directly through the car's speakers.
