The champagne glass exploded against the marble floor like a gunshot. Crystal shards scattered across my bare feet, and I watched expensive Cristal mix with drops of my own blood in a golden puddle.
"Shit." I grabbed tissues from my desk, dabbing at the cut on my big toe. Even bleeding, I couldn't miss the bitter irony. Twenty-four hours ago, I was celebrating another record quarter at Sterling Capital Management. Now I was literally standing in the ruins of everything I'd built.
The movers had stripped my corner office bare an hour ago. My 47th-floor kingdom in the Goldman Sachs building looked like a crime scene. Empty rectangles on the walls where my awards used to hang. Dust shadows on the mahogany desk where my three-monitor setup had been. All that remained were the clothes on my back, this half-empty bottle of Dom Pérignon, and a stack of legal documents that spelled out my destruction in precise legal language.
I picked up the papers with trembling fingers. "Castellano & Associates Legal Services" – innocent enough until you knew the Castellanos didn't just practice law. They enforced it with bullets and baseball bats. The number at the bottom made bile rise in my throat: $8,247,650.00. Eight million dollars my dead husband had borrowed without telling me. Money I didn't have. Money that would cost me more than cash to repay.
"Mrs. Sterling."
The voice came from behind me – deep, smooth, with the faintest trace of an Italian accent that made my name sound like a prayer. I spun around, silk blouse clinging to my sweat-dampened back.
The man in my doorway stole my breath.
Young. Maybe twenty-two, with the kind of face that should be on magazine covers, not in debt collection. Midnight-black hair swept back from razor-sharp cheekbones. Olive skin that screamed Mediterranean bloodline. Eyes like sea glass – beautiful and deadly. His black Armani suit fit his tall, lean frame like it was tailored yesterday, but something in the way he moved whispered violence under all that expensive elegance.
"Building's supposed to be empty," I managed, fighting to keep my voice level. "Security locked the doors hours ago."
His smile was wolf-perfect. "Security belongs to whoever pays their salary. Right now, that's not you."
I set down the papers and crossed my arms, suddenly hyper-aware that I wasn't wearing a bra under my thin silk blouse. His eyes followed the movement with predatory interest, lingering on the outline of my nipples before meeting my gaze.
"You're here about David's debt."
"Among other things." He stepped into my office uninvited, closing the door with a soft click that sounded like a coffin lid. "Marco Castellano."
Ice water replaced the blood in my veins. That name was whispered in trading floors and boardrooms across Manhattan. The Castellanos weren't just loan sharks – they were the kind of people who made billionaires disappear without a trace.
"David's been dead for two years," I said. "Whatever he owed died with him."
Marco's laugh was silk wrapped around broken glass. "Not how our family operates, Mrs. Sterling. Debt transfers to surviving spouses. Your husband's signature made that legally binding."
He pulled a manila folder from his jacket and dropped it on my desk like a death warrant. I didn't need to look to know it contained David's handwriting, probably signed in some moment of desperation I'd been too blind to see.
"I don't have eight million dollars," I said. "The SEC froze everything. I'm under federal investigation for insider trading."
"I know." Marco moved closer, bringing the scent of expensive cologne mixed with something darker – danger, violence, power. "Your husband made interesting investment choices before his accident. Choices that made some people very rich and others very dead."
"David worked in currency exchange. He wasn't—"
"Your husband was many things, Mrs. Sterling. Legal wasn't one of them." Marco picked up the framed wedding photo from my desk. David and I looked so young, so hopeful. So fucking naive. "Beautiful ceremony. Shame about that car wreck."
The way he said it made my spine crawl. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing at all." He set the photo down carefully, but not before I caught sight of something that made my heart stutter. A tattoo on his wrist, barely visible beneath his shirt cuff – a small blood droplet, identical to the engraving on David's watch. The watch he'd died wearing.
My mouth went dry. That symbol wasn't coincidence.
"You have two options," Marco continued, apparently oblivious to my discovery. "Option one: we liquidate your assets. Won't even cover ten percent of what's owed. Then we get creative collecting the rest."
"And option two?"
Marco's smile turned predatory. He was close enough now that I could see gold flecks in those sea-glass eyes, count the individual lashes framing them. "You become my sugar baby."
I blinked hard. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Sugar baby. Mistress. Kept woman. Call it whatever helps you sleep at night." He said it like he was discussing market volatility. "One year of your exclusive companionship in exchange for clearing David's debt completely."
"Are you completely insane?" I stepped backward until my ass hit the desk edge. "I'm thirty-eight years old. I'm not some desperate college girl who needs daddy to pay her bills."
"No." Marco's eyes traveled slowly down my body and back up, taking inventory. "You're infinitely more interesting than some college brat. You're experienced. Desperate. And despite your current circumstances, still incredibly beautiful."
Heat pooled low in my belly. The compliment shouldn't have affected me – I was being extorted by a man young enough to be my little brother. But it had been two years since anyone called me beautiful. Two years of celibacy, burying grief and loneliness in eighteen-hour workdays.
"This is insane," I whispered. "Find someone your own age to play with."
"I don't want someone my own age." Marco reached up and brushed a strand of auburn hair from my cheek. His fingers were warm, callused. "I want you, Victoria. And what I want, I take."
"Why?" The question escaped before I could stop it.
Marco's hand dropped to rest against my throat – not squeezing, just lying there like a promise of violence. "Because your husband stole something precious from my family. Now I'm going to take something precious from his."
"I'm not precious to anyone," I breathed. "David's dead."
"Are you sure about that?"
The question hung between us like poison gas. Marco's thumb found my pulse point, stroking gently while my heart hammered against my ribs. He could feel how terrified I was. How aroused.
"The contract is simple," he murmured. "You move into my penthouse. Attend social functions as my companion. Be available whenever I require your... services. In exchange, your debt disappears and you receive fifty thousand monthly for expenses."
Fifty thousand dollars. More than most people earned in a year, offered as pocket change.
"What exactly do these 'services' involve?" I asked, hating myself for considering it.
"Whatever I decide they involve." His thumb pressed harder against my pulse. "But I'm not a savage, Victoria. I won't force you to do anything you don't want. Though I suspect you'll want to do far more than you expect."
The arrogance should have been revolting. Instead, electricity shot straight between my legs. Two years of celibacy, and this dangerous boy was making me wet with nothing but words and the ghost of a touch.
"If I refuse?"
Marco's hand dropped away. "Then you'll discover why the Castellano name still inspires fear after three generations."
Not an idle threat. I could see death in those beautiful eyes – he would do whatever necessary to collect what was owed. Despite his youth and stunning looks, something cold and lethal lived under that perfect exterior.
I looked around my gutted office one last time. Twenty years building my reputation, destroyed because of secrets my dead husband never shared. David had left me with nothing but debts and shame.
"How do I know you'll honor this agreement?" I asked.
Marco's smile finally reached his eyes. "You don't. But what alternative do you have?"
He was right. I was broke, federally investigated, and owed money to people who made problems disappear permanently. Marco Castellano might be dangerous, but he was offering salvation.
"One year," I said. "Then I'm free."
"One year," Marco agreed. He produced a contract from inside his jacket – thick, official, already prepared. "Sign here."
I scanned the document. Surprisingly detailed, covering everything from living arrangements to social obligations to intimate expectations. Clinical language describing what amounted to sexual slavery. For twelve months, I would belong to Marco Castellano in every way that mattered.
"I need a pen."
Marco withdrew an expensive Montblanc from his jacket. When he handed it over, our fingers brushed, sending electric shocks up my arm.
I signed Victoria Sterling in my usual confident script. Marco countersigned below, his handwriting bold and aggressive like everything else about him.
"Excellent." He tucked the contract away. "Pack what you need for tonight. My driver will collect you at eight."
"Tonight? I need time to—"
"Time is a luxury you can no longer afford, Victoria." Marco was already moving toward the door. "Your schedule is now my schedule. Your time is my time. Your body..."
He let the sentence hang, implication crystal clear.
"Wait." I called after him. He paused, hand on the doorknob. "That tattoo on your wrist. What does it mean?"
Marco glanced down at the blood droplet, then back at me. For one unguarded moment, his mask slipped. Raw pain flashed across his features – grief, rage, something that looked almost like loss.
"It means your husband wasn't the only one who died that night," he said quietly. "The difference is, mine actually mattered to someone."
Then he was gone, leaving only the scent of his cologne and the weight of what I'd agreed to.
I walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared down at the street forty-seven floors below. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, unaware that Victoria Sterling – once featured on Forbes' "Most Powerful Women" cover – had just sold herself to pay dead husband's blood money.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number: Wear black tonight. And Victoria – don't even consider running. I'll find you anywhere you go.
I deleted the message, but couldn't stop my hands from shaking. Or ignore how my body had responded to Marco's touch. Or deny that for the first time in two years, I felt truly, desperately alive.
Marco Castellano might be using me for revenge against David. He might be dangerous enough to destroy me completely. But standing in that empty office, surrounded by the wreckage of everything I'd built, I realized something more terrifying than any threat he could make.
I was looking forward to tonight.
End of Chapter 1