The Devil debt
677 Words
The first explosion didn't just break the windows it turned the air into a furnace.
I hit the marble floor, the shockwave vibrating through my skull. My lungs burned with the taste of gasoline and charred silk. Through the smoke, the Vance Textile Empire was screaming. Generations of my family’s work were melting into a black, oily sludge at my feet.
Move, Elara. Move or die.
I scrambled up, my dress shredded at the thigh, my skin slick with sweat and soot. I clawed my way toward the exit, but the heat was a wall. Just as the ceiling groaned, ready to bury me alive, the smoke parted.
Two men stood there. They weren't running. They weren't afraid. They looked like they had birthed the fire themselves.
Silas Thorne. The Architect. He watched the building crumble with a chilling, bored elegance, adjusting his cufflinks as if he were at an opera.
Cassian Thorne. The Enforcer. He was a mountain of muscle and scars, his eyes locked on me with a hunger that made the fire feel cold.
I didn't wait for a rescue. I grabbed a jagged piece of broken glass from the floor, my knuckles white. "Stay back," I hissed, my voice a raspy edge.
Cassian laughed—a dark, jagged sound that sent a shiver of pure terror and unwanted heat straight to my core. In a blur of motion, he was on me. He didn't flinch at the glass in my hand. He caught my wrist in a grip of iron, twisting it until the shard hit the floor, and slammed me back against a scorched pillar.
The heat of the stone bit into my back, but his body was closer, pinning me. He didn't just hold me; he dominated the very air I breathed.
"Look at her, Silas," Cassian growled, his thumb digging into the soft, sensitive skin of my throat, forcing my head back. "The little princess still thinks she has teeth. I want to see her try to bite when we're done with her."
"Enough, Cassian," Silas said, his voice a cold blade that cut through the roar of the flames. He stepped into my space, his gaze stripping me bare. "Elara, your father didn't just lose the money. He lost you. He signed you over to settle a debt that goes back decades."
"He doesn't own me!" I spat, even as my heart hammered a frantic rhythm against Cassian’s chest.
"He doesn't," Silas agreed, pulling a black, velvet-bound folder from his jacket. He opened it, the gold leaf shimmering like cursed treasure. "But we do. One year. You belong to us—body, mind, and every secret you've ever kept. You do what we say, when we say it, and in return? I don't let my brother break you in the first hour."
Cassian leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his hot breath making my knees weak. "Sign it, Elara. Or I’ll stay here and watch you turn to ash. I’d love to see you burn... but I’d much rather see you crawl."
The roof gave a final, agonizing c***k. A spray of sparks rained down on us. Death was a heartbeat away.
I looked Silas in the eye—not with fear, but with a promise of war. "I'll sign. But when the year is up, I’m going to burn your world down just like this one."
Silas’s lips curled into a predatory smirk. "I’m counting on it."
I snatched the pen, scrawling my name in a jagged, desperate hand. The second the ink dried, Cassian didn't hesitate. He hauled me over his shoulder, his hand clamping hard over the back of my thighs, and ran for the exit as the world collapsed behind us.
I wasn't saved. I was claimed. And as we burst into the night air, I knew one thing: I was going to make them regret every inch of me they touched.
- Writer
