Page 107 of Billionaire’s Ruin

A tremor rolled down my spine. My mouth went completely dry. The taste of metal bloomed on my tongue.

Someone on the inside must’ve helped them.

“Clare.”

Her name ripped from my throat before I even knew I was speaking. It tore through the room like a gunshot.

“Where’s Clare?”

The entire room froze.

The stillness that followed wasn’t natural silence—it was thick, heavy, suffocating. The kind that comes right before a truth no one wants to hear.

I hadn’t seen her since I arrived.

Not a glimpse.

Not a whisper.

Not even a fleeting shadow.

Like she’d been avoiding me on purpose.

My pulse spiked, blood roaring in my ears as my mind spun—when Kai mentioned her in Hong Kong, the careful tension in his voice when he told me not to trust her too easily.

He didn’t know where her loyalty stood—with him or his mother.

And now he was gone.

Completely gone.

Everything inside me twisted into ice.

“What’s the problem?” Lincoln asked, stepping toward me. “June—talk to me.”

I opened my mouth, but the words jammed in my throat. How could I explain something that felt like instinct sharpened into a warning? Nothing concrete. Nothing solid. Just everything pointing in one direction.

“She was supposed to keep watch, right?” my voice rose without permission. “So tell me—how the hell does a trained guard let an entire group come in, take multiple hostages, and disappear without alerting anyone? Without even trying to stop them?”

The room sank into a heavier hush.

Even Lincoln didn’t have an answer.

Dave opened his mouth. “It cannot be. Clare…”

But he didn’t finish.

And that hesitation—soft, cracked, uncertain—was louder than if he’d screamed it.

My stomach flipped. “What, Dave, spit it out.”

The guard glanced at Lincoln, then returned his stare to me. His jaw worked, clenching and unclenching, like he was battling the truth with every breath.

“Clare’s been… different lately,” he said finally. “Distant. Less talkative. Jumpier than usual. At first I figured she was just being awkward with me again, but…”

He trailed off, tension coiling through his shoulders.

Lincoln muttered a curse under his breath—a sharp, vicious sound. “You think she sold us out?”