CHAPTER TWO
1079 Words
I don't sleep.
The ceiling watches me until dawn. Gray light slips through the broken blinds.
My phone says 5:47 AM.
The hospital will call soon. They always call early. Bad news has a schedule.
I roll out of bed. My feet hit the floor.
And stop.
Something white slides under my door.
Paper. Thick. Expensive.
My heart forgets its rhythm.
I kneel. Pick it up.
A manila envelope. No stamp. No address. Just my name written in black ink.
Ria.
The handwriting is sharp. Angled. Like the person who wrote it doesn't waste motion.
I opened the envelope.
Inside: papers.
Medical bills. Dozens of them.
My father's name. My signature at the bottom. Dates going back three years.
Every single one is stamped in red:
PAID IN FULL.
My hands shake.
I flip through them. St. Catherine's Hospital. Dr. Elias Vance. Surgery consultations. Blood work. MRI scans.
All paid.
All of it.
$212,000.
Gone.
No. Not gone. Paid.
By someone who knew my address. Someone who knew my father's name. Someone who watched me from the shadows and decided to erase my debt like it was nothing.
Someone with cold gray eyes and a scar on his jaw.
A note falls from the bottom of the envelope.
One sentence.
You'll hear from me. — K.B.
K.B.
Killian Blackwood.
The man who breaks fingers for a living. The man who looked at me like I was a ghost he'd been hunting.
I read the note seven times.
Each time, my chest gets tighter.
This isn't charity. Men like him don't do charity.
This is a hook. And I just swallowed the bait.
My phone rings.
I almost dropped it.
The screen says: St. Catherine's Hospital.
“Miss Vasquez?” The voice is cheerful. Too cheerful for 6 AM. “This is Margaret from billing. I have wonderful news. Your father's account has been settled in full by an anonymous donor. You no longer owe anything.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“Would you like the donor's information for tax purposes?”
“Can you give it to me?”
A pause. Typing.
“I'm sorry, miss. The donor requested complete anonymity. All I can say is that the payment came from a corporate account registered to Blackwood Holdings.”
Blackwood Holdings.
His company.
I hung up without saying goodbye.
I sat on the floor for thirty minutes.
The envelope is in my lap. The bills are scattered around me like fallen leaves.
My father is still dying.
The money didn't fix that. It just moved the debt from my shoulders to someone else's ledger.
And Killian Blackwood doesn't strike me as a man who forgets what he's owed.
I think about running.
Packing a bag. Taking my father. Disappearing into a city that swallows people whole.
But he found my apartment. He found my hospital bills. He found me.
Where would I go that he couldn't follow?
I stand up.
My legs are unsteady. My reflection in the cracked mirror is pale. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair tangled.
I look like someone who's been hunted.
Because I have been.
For ten years, apparently. Even if I didn't know it.
The second knock comes at 9 AM.
Not on my door. On my wall.
My neighbor, Mrs. Chen, is banging with her broom. “Someone for you, girl. Fancy man. Very fancy.”
I open the door.
He's not there.
But a black car is parked outside. Tinted windows. Engine running.
A driver stands by the back door. Tall. Muscular. Face like carved stone.
“Miss Vasquez,” he says. “Mr. Blackwood requests your presence.”
“Requests or demands?”
The driver doesn't answer.
“Where?”
“He said you would ask that. He said to tell you: the lighthouse.”
The lighthouse.
I've never been there. But I've drawn it a hundred times. In my sketchbook. On napkins. On the walls of this crumbling apartment.
The lighthouse is the only thing I paint when I can't sleep. When the hospital calls. When the world feels too heavy.
I don't know why.
But he knows.
Of course he knows.
I should say no.
I should slam the door. Call the police. Hide under my bed until he forgets I exist.
But my father is still in that hospital bed. And his bills are paid. And a man with cold eyes is waiting for me at a place I've never seen but can't stop drawing.
I grab my jacket.
“Fine,” I tell the driver. “Take me to him.”
The car is silent.
Leather seats. Champagne in a mini-fridge. Windows are so dark the city looks like a shadow.
I grip my knees and count the seconds.
You'll hear from me.
I'm listening.
And I'm terrified of what comes next.
The lighthouse is an hour outside the city.
Crumbling stone. Broken windows. Waves crashing against rocks below.
It's exactly how I draw it.
How is that possible?
The driver opens my door. “He's inside.”
The wind pulls my hair across my face. The salt stings my lips.
I walk toward the entrance.
The door is wooden. Rotted. Hanging on one hinge.
I push it open.
And there he is.
Killian Blackwood stands at the center of the round room.
No suit today. Black sweater. Dark jeans. His sleeves are pushed up. I see the scar on his forearm now. Long. White. Old.
He's looking at the walls.
At the drawings.
Dozens of them. Sketches taped to the stone. Charcoal. Pencil. Ink.
All of me.
My face at sixteen. My hands at nineteen. My sleeping profile at twenty-two.
He's been drawing me for years.
Before I ever served him a drink. Before I ever saw his face.
“You're here,” he says without turning around.
“You paid my father's bills.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He turns.
Those gray eyes find mine. And for a moment, just a moment, I see something beneath the ice.
Not hunger. Not possession.
Recognition.
Like he's been waiting to hear my voice his whole life.
“Because I've been looking for you,” he says quietly. “For ten years. And now that I've found you, I'm never letting you go.”
I should run.
Instead, I step closer.
“What do you want from me?”
His jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Everything.”
- Writer
