Sold To My Nemesis

"Sit down, Sloane." My father didn't look up from the glass of scotch in his hand. The ice clinked...a sharp, lonely sound in the middle of his massive mahogany-row office. It was only 10:00 AM, but the air in the room already smelled like expensive tobacco and desperation. "I have a board meeting in five minutes, Dad," I said, checking my watch. My suit was pressed, my hair was pulled back into a tight, professional knot, and my skin felt two sizes too small. "The merger is stalling. If I don't get down there and sign the bridge loan, we’re done." "The meeting is canceled," he said. He finally looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin beneath them sagging like wet parchment. "The bridge loan didn't go through. The bank pulled the plug an hour ago." The floor felt like it had turned into water. I gripped the back of a leather chair to keep from swaying. "What? Why? We have the assets. We have the patents for the new software." "We have nothing," a voice said from the corner of the room. I hadn't even noticed him sitting there. He was tucked away in the deep velvet shadows of the wingback chair by the window. He stood up slowly, unfolding a body that seemed too large, too powerful for this room of dying old men. Roman Graves. He didn't look like the scholarship kid I remembered from high school. Gone were the frayed hoodies and the guarded, hungry expression of a boy who lived in a basement apartment. He was wearing a suit that cost more than my first car...charcoal gray, tailored so perfectly it looked like armor. "You," I breathed. The name felt like a bruise in my throat. Roman didn't smile. He didn't even acknowledge the ten years of silence between us. He walked toward the desk, his gait slow and predatory. He stopped right next to my father, placing a hand on the back of my father’s chair. It wasn't a friendly gesture. It looked like he was claiming a trophy. "Your father has been very busy, Sloane," Roman said. His voice had deepened into a low, gravelly rasp that made the hair on my arms stand up. "He didn’t just lose the company. He gambled the pension funds. He leveraged the real estate. He even took a private loan from a firm that doesn't believe in late fees." "That’s a lie," I spat, looking at my father. "Dad, tell him he’s lying." My father just stared at his scotch. He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I’m the firm, Sloane," Roman said, stepping around the desk. He stopped inches from me. He was so close I could smell the scent of cedarwood and something sharp, like ozone before a storm. "I bought his debt six months ago. I’ve been waiting for this morning." "Why?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "To get back at me for what happened in the gym? For the expulsion? That was a lifetime ago, Roman." He reached out. For a second, I thought he was going to touch my face, but he stopped just short, his hand hovering near my ear. I could feel the heat radiating from his palm. "I don't care about the gym," he whispered, his eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying focus. "I care about the fact that your father destroyed my family to build this tower. And now, I’m going to use you to tear it down." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk. "What is that?" I asked. "A Personal Surety," Roman said. "Your father stays out of federal prison. The Vane name stays off the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And in exchange, you become my ward. Legally. Formally." "Ward?" I scoffed, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. "This isn't the eighteen-hundreds, Roman. You can't own a person." "In this state, with a signed confession of embezzlement and a marriage license? I can own exactly what I paid for." He shoved a gold pen toward me. I looked at my father. He was weeping now...silent, pathetic tears that soaked into his silk tie. He was a coward. He had always been a coward. "Sign it, Sloane," my father whispered. "Please. They’ll kill me in there. You know I won't last a day." I looked back at Roman. His expression was a wall of stone. There was no mercy there. No old spark of the boy who used to share his lunch with me under the bleachers. "If I sign this," I said, my voice steadying as the Architect in me took over, "what happens to the employees? The three thousand people who work for Vane Corp?" "They keep their jobs," Roman said. "For now. Their fate depends on how well you play your part." "And what part is that?" Roman leaned in, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear. The contact made a shiver race down my spine that had nothing to do with fear. "The part where you belong to me," he murmured. "Starting tonight. We have a gala to attend. I want everyone to see what happens when the princess loses her crown." I grabbed the pen. My hand didn't shake. If I was going down, I was going down with my head held high. I signed my name in one long, jagged stroke. Roman picked up the paper and blew on the ink. He tucked it away, his eyes never leaving mine. "Pack a bag, Sloane," he said. "The car is downstairs. You have ten minutes to say goodbye to this office. It belongs to me now." He turned and walked toward the door. He didn't look back. I stood there, staring at the empty space where he had been. My life hadn't just changed; it had been liquidated. I looked at my father, who was already pouring a second glass of scotch. "I hope it was worth it, Dad," I said. I walked out of the office, my heels clicking on the marble floor like a funeral march. As I reached the elevator, my phone buzzed in my pocket. An unknown number. ‘He’s been watching you for three years, Sloane. This wasn't a business deal. It was a hunt.’