Sold To My Nemesis

6: The Glass Trap

Sloane's POV.

The lobby of the Ritz-Carlton didn't smell like a hospital. It smelled like lily of the valley, expensive floor wax, and the kind of old money that could bury a body without leaving a paper trail.

Roman didn't put me down.

His grip on me was iron-clad, his fingers digging slightly into the silk of my dress as he carried me through the gold-leafed revolving doors. I was a mess...pale, trembling, with a heavy bandage hidden beneath the midnight-blue fabric of my shoulder...but Roman walked like he was carrying a queen. He didn't look at the concierge. He didn't look at the tourists staring with their mouths open. He just kept his eyes forward, his jaw so tight I could see a muscle jumping in his cheek.

"Roman," I whispered, my breath hitching as a sharp throb of pain lanced through my collarbone. "People are looking. You’re making a scene."

"Let them look," he growled. His voice was a low, jagged rasp that vibrated against my side. "I want them to see what happens when someone touches what belongs to me. I want them to wonder if they’re next."

He didn't take me to the elevators. He headed straight for the private dining wing, the area where the doors were guarded by men who looked like they’d been carved out of granite.

"Mr. Graves," one of the guards said, stepping forward. He looked at me, then at the bloodless color of my face. "The meeting is private. Mr. Vane was very specific..."

Roman didn't even stop walking. He just leaned into the man’s space, his eyes turning into chips of gray ice.

"Move," Roman said.

It wasn't a shout. It was worse. It was a command that carried the weight of a man who had spent ten years building a cage for everyone who had ever looked down on him.

The guard hesitated for a heartbeat, then stepped aside.

The double doors opened into a room made of glass and mahogany. The city lights of Manhattan twinkled outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking like a carpet of diamonds. In the center of the room sat a circular table.

My father was there.

He was holding a crystal tumbler of scotch, laughing at something the man across from him had said. He looked younger. Relaxed. The desperate, sagging skin I’d seen in his office was gone, replaced by the glow of a man who thought he’d finally outrun his sins.

Then he saw us.

The glass in his hand didn't shatter, but his fingers tightened until his knuckles were white. The laughter died in his throat, replaced by a sound that was half-gasp, half-choke.

"Sloane?" he breathed.

Roman finally lowered me. He didn't let go, though. He kept one arm wrapped firmly around my waist, tucking me into his side so I didn't have to support my own weight. I felt the heat of his body, the steady, rhythmic thrum of his heart against my ribs. It was the only thing keeping me upright.

"You look disappointed, Charles," Roman said. He kicked a chair out from the table and guided me into it with a gentleness that felt like a localized storm. "Did you think the hospital was going to be her final stop?"

My father looked at me, and for a second, I looked for the guilt. I looked for the father who used to tuck me in or the man who had taught me how to read a balance sheet. But all I saw was a stranger who was calculating how much I was worth as a corpse.

"Sloane, sweetheart," my father said, his voice trembling. He reached out a hand, but Roman stepped between us, his presence a wall of charcoal gray and silent threat. "I... I heard there was an accident at the Gala. I was coming to see you, I swear. I just had to handle this..."

"Handle what, Dad?" I asked. My voice was thin, but it didn't shake. The pain in my shoulder was a dull roar now, but the coldness in my chest was louder. "The sale of the encrypted keys? Or the part where you told the cartel I was the one holding the backup?"

The man sitting across from my father...a man with a face like a hawk and eyes that didn't blink...leaned back in his chair. He was dressed in a suit that cost more than a mid-sized house, and he watched us with the detached interest of a scientist looking at a lab rat.

"The girl is alive," the man said. His accent was thick, flavored with the dry heat of the south. "That wasn't part of the deal, Charles. You told me the blood was off the hands."

"She knows nothing!" my father hissed, turning back to the buyer. "She’s just... she’s confused. The medication..."

"I’m not confused," I said, leaning forward. The motion sent a spike of white-hot agony through my arm, but I didn't flinch. I let the pain fuel me. "I know exactly where the backup is. I know what’s on it. And I know that if I don't walk out of this room, those keys become worthless."

Roman’s hand landed on my uninjured shoulder. It was a heavy, grounding pressure. He wasn't just protecting me; he was staking a claim.

"The deal is over," Roman said, his voice dropping to that dangerous, quiet register. He looked at the buyer, ignoring my father entirely. "The debt Charles Vane owes you? Consider it transferred. You want the money, you talk to me. You touch the girl again, and I’ll spend every cent of the Vane fortune making sure you don't live long enough to see the sunrise."

The buyer tilted his head. "You would burn an empire for a woman who was sold to you as a surety?"

Roman leaned down, his face inches from mine. He didn't look at the men at the table. He only looked at me. In the dim light of the Ritz, his eyes weren't gray anymore. They were dark, filled with a decade of unspoken promises and a hunger that made my skin tingle.

"I didn't buy an empire," Roman whispered, his thumb brushing against the line of my jaw. "I bought the only thing in this city that actually has a soul."

He turned back to the table, his expression flat and final.

"Charles, get out," Roman commanded.

"What?" my father stammered. "Roman, this is my meeting. This is my..."

"It was your meeting," Roman corrected. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, gold-plated coin...the symbol of the firm he’d used to buy my father’s debt. He flipped it onto the mahogany table. It spun with a high-pitched ring before clattering to a stop in front of my father’s scotch. "Now, it’s a liquidation. You have thirty seconds to leave this room before I call the feds and hand them the confession I’ve been holding since yesterday morning."

My father looked at the coin. Then he looked at me. There was no love in his eyes. Only the bitter, jagged resentment of a man who had lost his crown to a boy he’d once tried to break.

He stood up without a word. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't apologize. He just walked out the door, his footsteps echoing on the marble like a coward's retreat.

The buyer stood up next. He adjusted his cuffs, his eyes lingering on the bandage visible at the edge of my dress.

"You’re playing a dangerous game, Graves," the man said. "The girl is a target. Keeping her alive is going to cost you more than just money."

"I have a lot of money," Roman said.

The man nodded once, then followed my father out.

The silence that followed was heavy. The glass room felt smaller now, the air thick with the scent of Roman’s woodsmoke cologne and the underlying metallic tang of my own blood.

My strength finally gave out.

I slumped back in the chair, my head falling against the headrest. The room started to spin, the lights of the city blurring into long, glowing streaks. I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead.

"Sloane," Roman’s voice was suddenly right there, soft and urgent.

He was on his knees in front of my chair. He grabbed my hands, his fingers large and warm against my icy skin. He looked at the way the dark blue silk was starting to turn even darker.

"You're bleeding again," he growled. There was a c***k in his voice...a genuine, raw fear that didn't belong on a man like him. "I told you to stay at the hospital. I told you..."

"I had to see it," I whispered, my eyes drifting shut. "I had to see him leave."

"He's gone," Roman said. He reached up, his hand cupping my face. His palm was rough, but he touched me like I was made of spun glass. "He can't hurt you anymore. I've got you."

"Why, Roman?" I asked, my voice barely a ghost of a sound. "Why me? After all these years... why keep the girl who watched you bleed?"

Roman leaned in, his forehead resting against mine. I could feel the tension in his body, the way he was vibrating with a protective rage that he was trying to keep in check for my sake.

"Because," he murmured against my skin. "When you told me to run ten years ago, you weren't trying to save yourself. You were trying to save me. And I’ve spent every second since then making sure I’d be the one to save you back."

My phone buzzed in the clutch I’d left on the table.

I didn't have the strength to reach for it. Roman picked it up. He looked at the screen, and his face went totally white.

"What is it?" I rasped.

Roman didn't answer. He turned the screen toward me.

It wasn't a text this time. It was a photo.

It was a picture taken from the hallway outside the glass room. It showed Roman on his knees in front of me, his head bowed.

The caption read: The Liquidator is weak for the Asset. Phase two begins now.

The doors to the room didn't open. But the glass window behind us...the one overlooking the city...didn't look so solid anymore.

"Roman," I breathed, pointing at the reflection in the glass.

A red laser dot was dancing on the center of Roman’s forehead.