HALE’S CONTRACT

Emery Shaw’s POV The wind had shifted. Emery Shaw rolled her window halfway down, hoping the sharp scent of pine and the bite of impending rain might do what the lukewarm gas station coffee couldn’t keep her awake. The cup wobbled precariously between her knees as she adjusted her grip on the wheel. It was nearing midnight, the moon smothered behind thick clouds, and every muscle in her body ached with exhaustion. She hadn’t meant to stay that long at the clinic, but Lila’s medication had arrived late again. And Emery refused to gamble with her sister’s life. She always stayed, always waited, always made sure. Now, the backroads of rural Maine sprawled out in front of her like a forgotten dream. No streetlights. No traffic. Just black ribbon unspooling beneath her tires, flanked by skeletal trees that clawed upward like they were trying to hold the night in place. Her headlights were the only thing breaking the dark. Fog clung to the windshield in a greasy smear as the car crept forward. She reached for the radio dial with her free hand, fingers fumbling, desperate for some sound—music, voices, even commercials. Anything to keep the silence from closing in. Static. Then “—no word yet from Hale Enterprises, but sources confirm the private jet of tech billionaire Sebastian Hale disappeared from radar six hours ago—” Emery’s spine went rigid. The cup tipped, coffee soaking into her scrubs. “—last seen departing from Zurich, en route to New York. Rescue teams have found debris scattered along the coast of Maine. No bodies have been recovered. The world waits, breath held—” Click. Silence. She yanked her hand back from the dial like it burned. Of course she’d heard of Sebastian Hale, who hadn’t? Golden boy of the tech world, son of privilege, jawline carved by god or genetics or both. He’d been on every business cover, in every scandalous tabloid. Another billionaire with a tragic family legacy and a reputation for breaking hearts and IPO records alike. But to hear that he’d vanished? She squinted into the fog, heart thudding with a vague unease. A man like Sebastian Hale belonged to a world so far from hers it might as well have been Mars. His problems didn’t touch her life. Didn’t- Something moved. Her foot slammed the brake. The car shrieked as it jerked to a halt, tires screeching against wet asphalt. Emery’s body snapped forward with the momentum, chest nearly hitting the wheel. There caught in the beam of her headlights was a man. He staggered into view like a ghost. Barefoot. Bloody. A torn shirt clung to his frame, soaked with something too dark to be water. One arm hung limply at his side while the other stretched out, as if reaching for something he couldn’t see. The forest behind him was a wall of shadows, branches torn and broken like he’d fought his way through them. He didn’t look real. His legs gave out just as his eyes found hers wide and glassy and hollowed by pain. Then he collapsed. “s**t—s**t!” Emery flung her door open, gravel crunching beneath her as she sprinted toward him. Her shoes slipped slightly on the wet road, but she caught herself, heart jackhammering in her chest. Kneeling beside him, she reached for his neck. Pulse weak. Thready. She angled his face toward the light and gasped. Blood matted his hair. There was a split in his lip and a jagged gash across his cheekbone. His skin was pallid, lips tinged with blue. His body twitched with shallow breaths. But even beneath the blood and grime, she saw it; the striking symmetry of his features, the curve of his mouth, the unmistakable chiseled jawline. No. It couldn’t be. Yet it was. Sebastian Hale. She blinked, stunned. Then something else hit her—a brief flicker of heat, unbidden and unwelcome, but impossible to ignore. Because even like this, beaten and broken, he was gorgeous. Built like he’d been sculpted in a fever dream broad shoulders, lean waist, and muscle stretched over bone in a way that made her breath catch. His shirt had shredded at the hem, exposing a strip of ink along his ribs a tattoo, intricate and black, coiled just beneath the blood. She couldn’t see all of it, but what she did see was dangerously beautiful. And expensive. She shook herself. “Hey,” she breathed, shaking his shoulder gently. “Can you hear me?” He groaned, a low, broken sound. Tried to speak. Failed. No time to panic. She yanked her phone from her back pocket and dialed the clinic’s emergency line. “It’s Emery,” she barked. “Trauma case. Male. Mid-thirties. Head trauma, blood loss, possible internal injuries. I’m bringing him in.” “Wait, now? It’s almost—” “I don’t care. Prep a bed!” She disconnected, tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, and turned back to the man. He was heavier than she expected, all lean muscle and deadweight, and it took everything she had to drag him to her car. He gritted his teeth against the pain but didn’t fight her. His skin burned against hers—fever? Infection? She managed to get him into the seat and buckled him in. As she slid behind the wheel, her hands trembled. Her eyes kept flicking to him. His head lolled, mouth slack. The seatbelt crossed his chest awkwardly, pressing against the angry wound that peeked through the rip in his shirt. Something metallic glinted faintly in the blood. Not just a gash. A bullet wound. Her pulse quickened. “What the hell happened to you?” she whispered. The forest swallowed the road behind her as she drove toward the clinic like her tires were on fire. By the time they reached the small emergency room, Emery’s adrenaline had shifted into overdrive. She burst through the doors, shouting for the night nurse, already grabbing supplies with one hand while stabilizing Sebastian’s weight with the other. “Emery—what the hell?” the nurse gasped. “No time. Help me!” Together they got him onto the bed, stripped what remained of his shirt, and started cleaning the wounds. Emery worked by instinct—IV line, disinfectant, gauze. Her fingers moved with mechanical focus, but her mind screamed questions with every beat of her pulse. His shoulder. The trajectory of the wound. It looked like an entry. Someone had shot him. He hadn’t just survived a crash. He’d been hunted. She didn’t say it out loud. Not yet. Hours passed. Sebastian finally slept, his breathing shallow but even. Monitors beeped beside him, and the scent of antiseptic clung to the air like static. Emery stood alone beside his cot, arms crossed over her chest. His face was almost peaceful now, stripped of blood and grime. The billionaire. The genius. The man headlines had just declared missing or presumed dead. And he was here. In her clinic. Alive. She rubbed her face with both hands, trying to grasp what this meant. If word got out, her quiet world would be overrun. Media. Police. Questions she didn’t have answers to. But all she could think about—ridiculously—was that he had looked right at her. Like she was the only tether he had to whatever life he was clinging to. She leaned over him, her voice barely a whisper. “What the hell happened to you, Sebastian Hale?” And why—of all the roads in the world—had you ended up on hers?