HIS TO KEEP

**Chapter 2: The Devil's Contract**

The Pierce mansion doesn't feel like a home.

It feels like a museum curated by someone who hated joy.

I know because I spent three weeks here, pretending to be a grieving widow, and I never once saw a dirty dish or an unmade bed.

Now, Alexander leads me through the same halls, but everything looks different.

Darker.

His hand hovers at the small of my back. Not touching. Just close enough that I feel the heat of his palm through the thin silk of my dress.

Possessive without permission.

"Your name," he says as we pass the library. "Your real one."

I keep my eyes forward. "I told you. It's Beatrice."

He laughs.

It's a quiet sound. Almost gentle. That's what makes it terrifying.

"No," he says. "Beatrice had a mole above her left eyebrow. She bit her nails when she was nervous. She called my father 'old bear' and meant it."

We stop in front of a door I don't recognize.

Alexander turns to face me.

"Beatrice also hated pearls," he continues, his voice soft as a blade. "Said they made her feel like a grandmother."

My hand flies to my throat.

The pearls.

*His dead mother's pearls.*

I wore them because the stylist said they looked elegant. I wore them because I didn't know any better.

"You've been in my house for three weeks," Alexander says. "Sleeping in my father's bed. Wearing my mother's jewelry. Eating my food."

He steps closer.

"And I want to know—" His head tilts. "—who sent you."

I should lie.

I'm good at lying. It's the only reason I survived my stepmother, my student loans, the year I spent sleeping in my car.

But something about the way he looks at me—like he already knows every answer and is just enjoying the performance—makes my throat close up.

"My name is Elena," I hear myself say. "Elena Vance."

His expression doesn't change.

But something shifts in the air between us. A lock turning. A door opening.

"Elena," he repeats, tasting the word. "That's better."

He opens the door behind him.

Inside is an office. Not his father's—this one is cold. Modern. A wall of screens shows security footage from every angle of the house.

Including my bedroom.

"Three weeks," Alexander says, walking to his desk. He picks up a manila folder and tosses it onto the leather surface in front of me. "Twenty-three days. Two hundred and seventeen meals served to you. Forty-seven phone calls made from the guest line."

He looks up.

"You called a number in Queens eight times. Same number. Every night at 11:03."

My blood turns to ice.

"The same number," he continues, pulling a photograph from the folder, "that belongs to a man named Daniel Cross."

He slides the photo toward me.

It's Danny.

My brother.

Smiling at his hospital bedside, tubes in his nose, that brave expression he wears when he's pretending not to be scared.

"The leukemia," Alexander says quietly. "Expensive, isn't it?"

I can't breathe.

"The man who hired you—he paid for the first round of treatment, didn't he? The old man you were supposed to marry?"

I don't answer.

Alexander rounds the desk. He stops inches from me, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

"Here's what's going to happen," he says. "You're going to tell me who hired you. You're going to tell me what they wanted. And then—"

He reaches up.

His fingers brush a strand of hair from my face. The touch is light. Almost tender.

It feels like a warning.

"—you're going to help me destroy them."

I should be afraid.

I am afraid.

But there's something else underneath it. Something hot and dangerous that unfurls in my chest when he looks at me like I'm the only person in the room.

"No," I say.

His hand stops.

"No?"

"I'll tell you who hired me," I say, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. "But I won't help you destroy anyone. I'm not a weapon. And I'm not yours."

The silence stretches.

Then Alexander smiles.

It's the first real smile I've seen from him. And it's devastating.

"Oh, Elena," he murmurs.

He pulls a second document from the folder.

A contract.

*My* contract.

"Look at page seventeen," he says. "The clause you didn't read."

I look.

My vision blurs.

*In the event of the principal's death, all obligations and debts transfer to the next of kin.*

"I own you," Alexander says softly. "Legally. Financially. Until every penny of the money you took is paid back."

He leans down.

His lips brush my ear.

"And since you refuse to be my weapon…"

He pulls back. His eyes are black ice.

"I'll just have to keep you."

The door locks behind me.

I don't remember hearing the click.

But I feel it.