After that silent blast, the whole New York media had gone berserk for the next few months.

Devon Harlington got official trials based on that engagement day video. Though, that little clip couldn't be used as an evidence in court but that issued an investigation that ran long for weeks.

And you know who was the one to file case against him?

Sawyer?

Nope.

Me?

Try again.

Goodwill?

There you go!

It was Goodwill's handiwork. He was the one to send Devon the official court notice papers through a fancy black velvet case. The case which I had chosen.

Anyways, back to the investigation. There were some interesting stuff that came to light through that grave-digging process.

Not only Devon had been cutting percentages of the shareholders, there were documents that he secretly planned to sell the shares to some third-party companies for profit. Basically, he wanted to sell the entire Trexon Empire and build his separate kingdom with that money.

Sawyer had somehow got a sniff of that and that was why he planned to overthrow Devon in his own scheme. This was the reason why after staying silent for five long years, Sawyer got his hands dirty.

"...And look at that buffoon! He did not even spill them once to me and claimed I was his partner!"

Sawyer snickered from my back and I threw him a sharp glare, stepping into the sleek silver elevator together.

I wiped a thin strip of sweat off my hairline and pulled my lips up to give the camera a smile.

"Anyhoo, this got Devon what he deserved and-"

"Tell them about his uncle dearest," Sawyer chirped from the side.

I gave him a look. "I was just covering that."

That chipmunk winked in response and smirked, moving away to press the top floor button.

I returned to the live. "Devon's dirt promptly issued a wide investigation on the whole family. While the rest of the family was somewhat clean, his uncle, John Harlington, had records of blackmailing his students at Yale. Many students, both ex and present, had come up and confessed how he used them to manipulate for his own gains. He even manipulated me once to become his nephew Devon's office slave and I had no chance of getting out unless they willed. All due to a shady contract! Whatever, after a detail study on his case, they assigned him under a psychologist for further progress. The official report was published last week and there, it was clearly stated that John Harlington liked the idea of dominance and practiced them on the most perfect preys aka his students. Basically, John Harlington is a huge controlling jackass in Armani!"

Sawyer laughed, hitting the mirror wall.

"And there's another standing right before me."

"Oh, you love me, Doll!"

Damn, the moths in my belly! I won't grace them by calling butterflies. Nope. This man didn't deserve it.

I cleared my throat to speak. The elevator already pinged, signalling our arrival to the floor.

"Please, don't mind him," I said as we walked out into the familiar silent floor. Sawyer was moving slower, having his moment to take in everything with care. "Okay, so, John Harlington's current update is that he's spending his last era behind the bars at the moment. And his dear nephew? He got his final hearing today. Ten years of active imprisonment and a huge ass fine. Serves him right, huh?"

"Totally!" Sawyer chimed from my side.

"And moving on to Sawyer's attempted murder case-"

"I'll cover that." He snatched the phone, leaving me with a gaping jaw and a frown.

He stood there and waved at the camera. "Hello, I'm Sawyer Ronnes. And I'm here to personally deliver you the latest report of the case Mirasol just mentioned."

I crossed my arms and stared at him with a blank face.

Sawyer continued. "So, what exactly happened is that..."

I watched him talking with an animated expression. He was smiling, even joking at times. But his eyes? They lost their shine as he delved further into the details.

The memories from that day at court was still fresh in my mind.

Sawyer was losing the case. The prosecutor was dissecting Sawyer's history with every events of his womanizer, careless idiot era and had been classifying him as a criminal minded and vengeful right along the lines.

Even the jury and judges were sporting frowns at the story. It was clear that Sawyer would either get a lifetime or worse, sentenced to death at that rate.

Just then, Goodwill had raised his hands and asked to stand on the witness box.

What he said earlier had shocked everyone to the core.

He said it was him who executed the whole dose mismanagement scheme. Sawyer might have one day spilled the want to kill his father out of resentment over a glass of beer in a shady bar - Goodwill's word, not mine - he had no guts to go through that plan or even hurt Ben. Because, as much as it was hard for Sawyer to forgive him, he was still his father. He could never ever try to kill him.

So, Goodwill took it upon himself, bribed a nurse and changed Benjamin Ronnes, leading him to coma. Now, when the prosecutor asked, whether Goodwill had been saying to save Sawyer, Goodwill just smiled and said.

"I have years of pent up disappointment stored in my heart against my best friend. And even more for myself, for not being able to do the right, for not stopping him when I should have, enough to be able to kill a man who I considered a soul brother. I loved him. Still do. But I love my morals more. My conscience. My guilty heart. And I could not take the burden of their resentment toward me. So, forgive me if I wanted true peace for myself in my final days."

"That's what he said before judge sentenced him a lifetime and gave me an out." Sawyer sighed as looked down.

I licked my lips and rested a hand on his arm. A small smile stretched across my lips as I offered him a gentle blink. "I'll take it from here."

Sawyer's throat bobbed as he handed me the phone.

I cleared my throat and pulled my chin up. "So, you guys heard him and his heroic tale of getting out of jail."

Sawyer didn't smile as expected.

"Anyhoo, thank you for staying with us this long. We'll see you again later. Till then, take care of your mind, body, and soul. Bye!"

I waved and ended the live before turning to a somber faced Sawyer.

"Sawyer..."

"I'm fine, Doll," He cleared his throat looking ahead, putting his hands in his pockets. "Let's go, yeah?"

I opened my lips to protest to tell him that we could do this another day, that I wanted to hug him, that I'd do anything, any damn thing to bring back that smirk on his face.

But I didn't.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I breathed and offered his a low nod. "Yeah..."

Sawyer's lips tilted to the side a bit. "Thank you, Hayes."

And he moved forward. Soon, I broke out of my trans at that sudden show of gratitude and followed his steps.

As we walked Gregory stepped out of his glass cabin and greeted us with a smile.

"Hello, Sir. Ma'am. Welcome back to Trexon Empire." Gregory stretched his arm.

Sawyer smiled, meeting his hand. "Just Sawyer, please."

Gregory nodded and turned to me. His smile was stiff, eyes cold with flickers of uncertainty flashing within them.

Our hands met, nods were exchanged before he stepped back and cleared his throat.

"This way, please."

Gregory waited for us to step ahead with his hand pointing toward our office door.

Our office door.

This had such a nice ring to it, sounded much better than 'Devon's Office.'

Sawyer twisted the silver knob and slowly opened the door with a soft click.

As he walked inside with slow steps, all I could do was take in his honey-gold eyes.

They roamed all over the room, reflecting obvious joy and suppressed glimmer of agony as they moved.

His whole face glowed golden in the warm light of mid-morning, lips stretched in the softest of smiles.

Sawyer Ronnes was finally back in his office. His blood and sweat. His legacy. And this time no one was going to take this away from him.

"Welcome home, CEO Sawyer Ronnes."

Sawyer met my eyes and his grin widened. "Welcome home... Co-CEO Mirasol Hayes."

I chuckled, looking down. When I gazed up, I was greeted with the warmest shade of golden honey in Sawyer's eyes reflecting fondness and lo-

"Let's have a seat, shall we?"

I blinked, breaking out of that weird thought. My lips stretched into a forced smile.

Sawyer already walked toward the CEO's seat.

His fingers touched the soft black leather. They grazed down the slow curves of the arms. His throat bobbed and he licked his lips.

His head turned and our gazes locked once again.

My heart clenched at the raw vulnerability flashing through them.

I was used to him being someone on top of the world. However, these days, I was learning that even the people of higher grounds sometimes needed lower shoulders to cry on, to share some of their inner weights. And Sawyer Ronnes was the raw most person when he wanted to be.

He was the man neither Devon nor James could ever be even if they tried a thousand lifetimes, especially James.

My mind went back mask that I stole from his home in Las Vegas.

Sawyer didn't know what I did, how I took the mask and sent it for a forensic test. He had no idea that how shocked yet numb I was when I found out that the mask belonged to his brother and the faded blood stain there was also his brother's.

My mind went far back into the days of our highschool days. The days I never wanted to relive, not even in my memories. The days I buried deep into the ground as I soon as I finished graduating. The days when I used to believe every tit deserved a tat in return. The days when James and I were unstoppable.

I was the Queen Bitch. He was the King of Doom. Anyone who came at us the wrong suffered the worst kind of bullying. And his brother got the worst burn of it all.

All he had ever done was keeping a letter in my locker the day before the Winter Dance. No, he didn't ask me to become his date. He knew his brother was dating me so he had no chance with me. But his letter let me know his feelings. The feelings he had never let the world know. The feeling I never deserved for him to harbor for my miserable self. And he didn't want anything in return. All he ever wished was to let me know what he had in his heart for me. That was all.

I, too, never confronted him for the letter, neither talked to him much out of social obligations after that. He didn't complain or emplied anything about that letter. Even James didn't seem to catch on to anything suspicious so we were fine that way.

Or, so I had thought.

It was a random midnight while we were on a vacation in James's town home. He and I were sleeping in separate bedrooms out of respect for his conservative parents.

I was about to sleep after chatting with James across the room when I got a weird text from James's brother. He wanted to meet me in an abandoned tunnel on the outskirts of their town. He had something urgent to tell me. About that letter.

The word 'letter' had me perked up and I rushed to the location he had sent me only to...

I let out a shaky sigh as the memories of his blood-soaked t-shirt and glazed open eyes flashed in my mind.

And a silhouette shrouded in a vague white mask that was staring at me from afar. A pair of void dark gaze that my eyes accidentally met.

The next thing I knew I screamed and crawled ran out of that hell. Shivering to the bones even after coming home and getting under the warm blanket.

I gulped at the horrid memory.

I still didn't know it was James who had killed him. I had no prove of that, nothing but a mask with his and his brother's DNA and I had no idea whether court would take that as a concrete evidence against him. But my gut told me it was him. It had to be him.

And if this was true, then he was a cold-blooded criminal who could smile like pretend nothing happened the day after killing his brother, who never shed a single tear at his brother's funeral, who could sublty put down his dead brother in any way possible, who was controlling, over-possesive, liar, manipulator,who forced me to break up and then blamed me for leaving him. He was a man who didn't deserve to run free among us.

And it was I would ensure he remained where he truly belonged with the help from my partner, Sawyer Ronnes. This would be our next mission.

"Doll, you okay?"

I flinched out of my thought and looked up to see Sawyer eyeing me with concern.

I took a deep breath and offered him a gentle nod. "Yeah, just getting emotional seeing you sitting back to your throne.

His honey-gold orbs told me he didn't believe my words. Still, he offered me a light snort and looked back at the leather chair.

Sawyer let out a shaky breath and took his time as he lowred himself to his seat.

The chair let out an improptu squeak and we laughed.

"Ah, finally. Good to see you my friend." Sawyer slapped the arm, adjusting himself to lean back comfortably.

"You talk to chairs?" I smirked, walking around the table to get to the shelves.

"Only this one. Been bestie for years. Right, bestie?" he spoke in a weird girly voice.

I couldn't help but snort, taking out a file and flipping through the pages. "You guys paint each other's nails too?"

"OhmiGosh! What are ya sayin'! We braid our hairs together!"

A boisterous bubble of laughter escaped my lips as I left the file on the shelf and turned around to face the goofus.

"Who made you the CEO, Sawyer?"

He stood up and spread his arms like a mighty king. "The people have spoken their minds."

"Lame!" I shook my head, chuckling.

"And you're my partner." He winked.

That was right. I was his partner, wasn't I?

Scenes of the past started to flash in my like a reel of videos.

Our first meeting.

The crude beginning.

His persistence.

My resistance.

Our union through revenge.

Schemes.

Plannings.

Fails.

Successes.

Laughters.

Pain.

Heartbreaks.

And...

Just us.

Us against the world.

We really were partners in every sense of the way. And honestly, even though I sometimes wanted to strangle him, even though we argued a lot, struggled to find same footing in most cases...

My smile turned a notch softer asas I moved toward him in a slow steps, tracing the twinkles in those golden honey pools as they grew closer and closer.

"That's right, Mr. Ronnes," I patted his suit, earning a crooked smirk in return. "We are partners. Partners in scheme."

I wouldn't want it any other way. Nope.

THE END

❤️ Okay folks, so this is it. We've finally reached the ending, huh?

Partners in Scheme has come a long way since- what two years? Damn! It's been soooo long oh my God!

I'm in tears lol.

Thank you so much for being with me throughout the whole journey. There was ups and downs and in-betweens and pauses and restarts, but I enjoyed the whole ride. And thanks to you sweet readers bearing with my inconsistent ass that I've been able to pull it through. You have my gratitude and love from the bottom of my heart.

See you guys in the next adventure, in another world full of magic and mayhem! Till then, take care of your mind, body, and soul

Love,
Sabrina ❤️