—DAMIEN—
She didn't say a word in the car, and I was left alone with my thoughts.
Forty-two minutes from the cemetery to the house. I counted, not because I was nervous, but because the silence with Mia Torres wasn't the kind of silence you stop noticing. It was loud in every important way.
She sat with her back straight, her hand in her lap, her eyes fixed on the window, and every line of her body said the same thing: I hate you.
I've been hated before. It never bothered me.
I told myself it didn't bother me now.
The gates opened as we pulled in. Viktor, my head of security, was waiting at the top of the steps with his arms behind his back and his expression blank. He knows better than to ask questions in front of guests. Mia was not a guest, but the principle applied.
She stepped out of the car before I could open the door.
Another message, clear and deliberate. She was going to fight every little thing.
Fine.
She stopped at the base of the steps and looked up at the house. I watched her face. It was a habit I had spent years perfecting, reading people in the moment before they realize they are being read. Most people reveal everything in that first unguarded second.
Mia's expression was complicated. The house is large, built to communicate exactly one thing to everyone who sees it for the first time. Power. She registered that, I could see it. But she didn't look impressed. She looked like someone taking inventory of a place they planned to escape from.
Smart girl.
Ryan had always said she was the smarter one.
She turned before I could reach her.
"I'm not going there."
I stopped two steps below her, so we were eye level. Her eyes were dark, darker than I remembered, or maybe it was the light, or maybe it was the year of grief she'd carried inside her.
"You've already come this far," I said.
"I got in the car because you gave me no choice." Her voice was steady. I could tell. She was angry, but she wasn't shaking. "But I'm telling you now, so you can't say you didn't know later: I'm not standing in your house and pretending this is acceptable. I'm not going to follow your rules. I'm not going to be who you think I am because of a piece of paper my brother signed without asking."
I let her finish.
She wasn't done.
"Ryan is dead." Her jaw tightened on the word, just slightly, the only crack in her composure. "Whatever deal you made with him died with him. You want to take me to court over a contract? Fine. Do it. But I will not walk through that door like I belong to you, because I do not. I don't belong to anyone."
The wind moved through the trees along the drive. Somewhere behind me I heard Viktor shift his weight, the smallest sound, barely anything. He had worked for me for six years. He knew what it meant when I went this quiet.
I looked at Mia.
She looked back.
There was something almost admirable about it. The way she stood her ground in front of a man she had every reason to be afraid of, in front of a house designed to make people feel small, the day after learning her entire situation had been decided without her. A lesser person would have been crying by now. A smarter person might have been pretending to agree, buying time.
Mia Torres was doing neither.
She was just standing there. Burning.
"Are you finished?" I asked.
"I haven't even started."
"Then I will wait." I kept my voice even. "But while you are deciding what comes next, consider this: the contract is real. The debt is real. I have three lawyers who will confirm both in writing within the hour if you would like. You can fight it. You have every right to. But the legal process will take time, and during that time, you will need somewhere to stay. You have nowhere to go, Mia."
Something flickered across her face.
"Ryan's apartment lease ended two months ago. Your job at the cafe closed in August. You have four hundred and thirty dollars in your bank account. You have nowhere to go." And pause. "This is not a prison. You will have your own room, your own space. There are rules, and I will explain them once. But I am not your enemy."
"You are not my friend either."
"No," I agreed. "I am not."
She looked at me for a long time. I watched it all pass through her, anger, logic, pride, practicality, all of it moving across her face in a way she probably didn't know was visible.
"If I find out you're lying about any of this."
"You won't."
"If I do," she continued as if I hadn't said anything, "I'll make your life extremely difficult."
"I have no doubt," I said with a smile.
It was interesting to hear all of that, she was always tenacious, and that was what I liked about her.
She held my gaze for another three seconds. Then she turned and walked up the stairs and through the front door, not waiting for me to lead her.
I followed her. Victor walked beside me.
"Should I do the west wing?"
"The east wing," I said. "Closer to the main rooms."
He didn't ask why.
✦✦✦
I showed her the house in twelve minutes. She walked through each room with her arms crossed and her expression closed, taking everything in but giving nothing away. The library. The kitchen. The east wing corridor. Her room, which was larger than anything she had had before, although she would never admit that.
I gave her the rules at the door of her room.
"Three floors are accessible to you. The ground floor, the east wing, the library on the second floor. The west wing, the basement, and my office are off-limits. You do not enter those spaces."
"What is in the west wing?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you will get." I continued before she could respond. "You will have a phone with limited access. If you need something, you tell me or you tell Viktor. You do not speak to my other men unless spoken to first. You do not leave the property without me."
She laughed, a short sharp sound with nothing warm in it. "Without you. So I am a prisoner."
"A guest with restrictions."
"That is a creative way to say prisoner."
I looked at her with a smile on my face.
She looked at me with so much hate in her eyes.
I approached her and grabbed her chin with one hand and raised her gaze to be on the same level as mine and rested my other hand on her waist.
She didn't look away, she didn't even resist.
"You are mine now Mia, so remember to be an obidient girl."
I looked at her for a few more seconds and then I let her go, I had a feeling that I would cross the line if I looked at her longer.
"Dinner is at eight," I said. "You don't have to come. But the kitchen closes at nine."
I turned to leave.
"Damien."
I stopped.
"Why did Ryan owe you that much?" Her voice had shifted. Still sharp, but underneath it there was something genuine now, something that had nothing to do with anger. "He never told me anything about money or debts or—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Why?"
I stood with my back to her for a moment longer than necessary.
The answer was complicated in the way that would change how she saw Ryan. I wasn't sure she was ready for that. I was not certain I had the right to be the one to tell her.
"Get some rest," I said. "We will talk tomorrow."
I left before she could ask again.
In my office, with the door closed and the city lights dim through the window, I sat for a while and then lit a cigar.
Ryan had asked me once to take care of her if anything happened to him. I told him nothing was going to happen. He laughed and said I was the only person he knew who lied badly. I told him to stop being dramatic.
I had not imagined it would come to this.
I had not imagined a lot of things.
The house was quiet around me. Somewhere in the east wing, Mia Torres was in a room she had not chosen, in a life she had not agreed to, hating me with every breath.
I told myself that it was fine.
I told myself it didn't matter.
I was getting very good at lying to myself.
✦