Signed away by my step father

CHAPTER 6

The morning sun didn't just wake me up; it sliced through my eyelids like hot glass.

I groaned, burying my face back into the flat stuffing of my pillow as a violent, throbbing pulse pounded behind my temples. My mouth felt like it was coated in ash, and a wave of nausea rolled through my stomach the moment I tried to lift my head. The sweet, euphoric freedom of the night before had completely vanished, replaced by the brutal reality of an 18-year-old hangover.

October 15th. My birthday was officially over, and the clock on my wall read 7:15 AM.

Panic, sharp and cold, instantly cut through the physical pain. 7:15 AM. I was supposed to be in the kitchen by 6:15 AM. I had overslept by an entire hour.

I scrambled out of bed, the room spinning violently as my feet hit the cold floorboards. I didn't even have time to change out of the oversized t-shirt I’d thrown on after Daisy dropped me off. I tore open my bedroom door, bracing myself for the inevitable storm—for Helen’s screaming or the heavy thud of Richard's footsteps coming to find me.

But the house was completely, eerily quiet.

There was no smell of burning coffee. No sound of Monique’s ringing laughter from the next room. The entire upstairs floor felt hollow, like an abandoned building.

I crept down the stairs, my hand gripping the wooden railing tightly as my head throbbed with every step. When I reached the bottom, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The living room was a disaster zone. The drawers of the mahogany desk were pulled completely out, their contents—tax documents, bank statements, and old utility bills—scattered across the rug like modern art. My mother was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her face a ghostly, hollow white, her fingers digging so tightly into her knees that her knuckles were bloodless.

Richard stood by the window, his blazer rumpled, frantically pacing back and forth with a phone pressed to his ear.

"What do you mean, frozen?" Richard hissed into the receiver, his voice cracking with a desperate, ugly panic. "The bistro's account has over eighty thousand in rolling credit! You can't just seize the assets without—" He paused, listening, his face turning from a furious red to a sickly, mottled gray. "Listen to me! I just need three weeks! The high-stakes tables at the—"

The person on the other end hung up.

Richard slowly lowered the phone, his hand trembling so badly the device slipped from his slick palm and clattered onto the hardwood floor. He didn't even bother to pick it up. He just stared blankly out the window, his chest heaving.

"Richard?" my mother whispered, her voice barely a thread. "What... what did they say?"

"It's gone," Richard murmured, his voice completely hollow. He turned around, and the sheer desperation in his eyes made me take a step backward into the shadow of the hallway. "The private lenders. They didn't just freeze the bistro's assets, Sarah. They sold the debt. All of it."

"Sold it?" My mother stood up, her hands shaking. "To who? We can talk to them, right? We can make a payment plan—"

"You don't understand!" Richard suddenly screamed, slamming his fist into the drywall, creating a loud c***k that made both my mother and me flinch. "You don't make payment plans with these people! The debt was acquired by a corporate restructuring firm. They bought the bistro, the land, the liquor license... and this house."

My stomach dropped into a bottomless, icy pit. The house. The restaurant. Everything that kept us afloat, gone in a single morning because of Richard’s hidden gambling debts.

Before my mother could even process the words, a heavy, synchronized knock echoed through the front door. Three sharp, metallic thuds that sounded like a death knell.

Richard froze. My mother looked like she was about to faint.

"Sylvia!" Richard's eyes snapped toward the hallway, spotting me hiding in the shadows. There was a terrifying, feral look in his eyes as he pointed a trembling finger at the door. "Open it. Now."

My legs felt like lead, but the ingrained fear of his temper made me move. I walked past him, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, and turned the deadbolt.

When I swung the heavy oak door open, the crisp morning air rushed in, but it didn't clear the suffocating tension. Standing on our cracked concrete porch were two men in identical, flawless charcoal-gray suits. They wore dark sunglasses despite the morning haze, their postures rigid and entirely professional.

But it was the man standing slightly in front of them who made my breath lock completely in my throat.

He wasn't wearing sunglasses. His striking, aristocratic features were completely uncovered, his pale marble skin illuminated by the early sun. He stood with an effortless, terrifying authority, a leather document portfolio resting in his long, elegant fingers.

My hangover-addled brain scrambled, memories of blue neon lights, elderflower liquor, and a warm, solid chest flashing behind my eyes.

It was him. The handsome wall from the VIP suite.

Valerian Vance.

He didn't look at Richard. He didn't look at my mother. His piercing, silver-gray eyes swept over the peeling paint of the doorway before landing directly on me. His gaze tracked from my messy, unbrushed hair down to my bare feet, a faint, almost imperceptible tilt of his brow showing he recognized the drunk girl from forty-eight hours ago.

"Richard Vance-Bristo's guarantor?" Valerian's voice cut through the morning quiet, smooth, cold, and entirely lethal. He finally looked past me, his silver gaze locking onto my stepfather. "I am Valerian Vance. As of 6:00 AM today, your outstanding liabilities have been d

efaulted. I am here to collect."