CHAPTER SIX
989 Words
Mila’s POV
The phone felt heavier in my hand long after the call ended.
I stood in the hallway of my apartment building, keys dangling uselessly from my fingers, my heartbeat pounding so loudly it drowned out the city noise beyond the walls.
The man’s voice replayed in my head, calm, confident, certain.
An offer?
Men like that never offered anything without taking something in return.
I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, sliding down until I was sitting on the cold floor. For the first time since leaving my father’s house, fear settled deep in my bones not the sharp kind, but the slow, suffocating kind that told me this wasn’t a threat I could simply ignore.
They knew my name.
They knew what I had refused.
And worse?, they knew my past.
The next morning, a black envelope layed on my kitchen counter.
I knew I hadn’t put it there.
My hands touched it in curiousity as I picked it up. No address, no stamp.
Just my name written neatly across the front saying “ Mila ” .
Inside was a single card, Lopez Companies.
Executive Floor.
8:00 PM.
No explanation, no choice.
The building looked different at night.
By day, Lopez Companies radiated prestige. glass, steel, power. By night, it felt like a predator waiting patiently in the dark.
The lobby was nearly empty when I arrived, my heels echoing too loudly against the marble floor.
The receptionist didn’t ask for my name.
“Top floor,” she said simply. “They’re expecting you.”
That should have sent me running.
Instead, I stepped into the elevator.
The doors closed with a soft, final sound.
When they opened again, the air felt heavier and quieter. Dim lighting cast long shadows across the executive floor. At the far end of the hallway, a door stood open.
I walked towards it slowly.
Inside, three men waited.
One of them I recognized immediately,
Simon Lopez.
The CEO, the man whose company had nearly swallowed me whole.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, his smile sharp and calculated. “Miss Vaughn,” he said. “I was wondering how long it would take you to come.”
My throat tightened. “You said you had an offer.”
“And you came,” he replied. “That tells me everything I need to know.”
I glanced around the room. “Why here?”
“Because,” another man said from the shadows, “this is where decisions are made.” He stepped forward.
Tall, calm, Impossibly composed.
Something about him felt… different.
“I’m James Moore,” he said smoothly. “But you can call me Jimmie.”
The name sent a strange ripple through me, though I couldn’t explain why.
Simon gestured for me to sit but I didn’t.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Simon chuckled. “Straight to business. I like that.” His gaze hardened. “We want you back at Lopez Companies.”
“I resigned,” I said. “And I won’t be threatened with returning.”
Jimmie tilted his head slightly. “This isn’t a threat.”
Simon slid a file across the desk toward me. “It’s leverage.”
My hands shook as I opened it. They were
photos, documents and records.
My breath left my lungs.
Everything I had buried, my past jobs, the names I’d used, the nights I’d tried to forget stared back at me in black and white.
“You expose us,” Simon said calmly, “and this becomes public.”
My vision blurred. “You’re criminals.”
“Yes,” he replied easily. “Successful ones.”
Jimmie’s voice cut in, quieter but sharper. “You have a choice, Mila.”
I looked up at him. “You call this a choice?”
“We call it survival,” he said.
Simon leaned forward. “We give you a position. Authority, money, silence.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked.
He smiled. “Then you lose everything before you’ve even built it.”
I laughed soft, broken. “You think money scares me?”
“No,” Jimmie said.
“We think loneliness does.”
That landed harder than anything else.
Simon stood. “Take the job,” he said.
“Work for us and learn how the world actually functions or walk out and watch your past destroy whatever future you think you have.”
The room spun.
I thought of my father, my mother and Emily.
I thought of the city outside indifferent and unforgiving.
I understood something chilling.
They weren’t forcing me, they were cornering me.
“I won’t expose you,” I said slowly. “But I won’t belong to you either.”
Simon’s smile widened, “We’ll see.”
Jimmie watched me closely, something unreadable in his eyes.
“Think carefully,” he said. “Because once you step outside this building tonight… your life changes either way.”
Silence stretched between us.
I closed the file.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Simon nodded. “You have forty-eight hours.”
As I turned to leave, Jimmie spoke again.
“Mila.”
I paused.
“Be careful who you trust,” he said quietly. “Even when they seem like your only option.”
The elevator ride down felt endless.
By the time I reached the street, my hands were numb.
I didn’t notice the man standing across the road at first.
Then he stepped forward and my heart stopped.
Marcus, my ex.
He smiled slowly, like he’d been waiting all along.
“Well,” he said, eyes gleaming, “looks like you’re finally ready to make some money.”
The world tilted.
Because at that moment, I realized something far worse than the threat upstairs.
They hadn’t just found my past, they brought it back to claim me.
- Writer
