BLOOD CONTRACT : WINTER'S VOW

ISABELLA

The Caldwell family fortune died on a Tuesday.

I was standing in my studio, barefoot on the paint-splattered floorboards, when I heard my father's howl from two floors below. Not a shout or a yell,a howl. The kind of sound that cracks foundations and shatters family legacies.

My paintbrush clattered to the floor, splattering crimson across the hem of my white linen dress. Fitting. Everything about this day would soon be stained with red.

I didn't run downstairs. Not immediately. Instead, I stood frozen, watching the dark red paint creep through the fabric fibers of my dress, blooming like blood. The canvas before me,nearly finished after weeks of work,suddenly looked childish and trivial. A commission for a local gallery that had once seemed so important.

The grandfather clock at the end of the hallway chimed three times, snapping me back to reality. Whatever had made my father sound like that couldn't be good. I tossed my palette onto the side table and hurried toward the staircase, my bare feet silent against the threadbare runner that had once been plush Persian wool. Another small sign of our fading glory that my father refused to acknowledge.

The study door stood ajar, and through it, I could see my father slumped over his mahogany desk. At fifty-eight, Winston Caldwell still cut an imposing figure,or at least, he had until this moment. Now, with his silver-streaked head in his hands and his shoulders trembling, he looked exactly what he was: a man drowning.

"Dad?"

He didn't look up. Beside his right elbow was an empty tumbler, its crystal catching the afternoon light from the bay windows. The Macallan decanter,one of the few genuine antiques we had left,stood uncapped beside it.

"They've frozen everything," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

A chill swept over my skin despite the warm September air drifting through the open windows. "What do you mean, 'everything'?"

"The accounts. All of them. Every goddamn penny." He reached shakily for the decanter, pouring another three fingers of amber liquid. "The business, the investments, the trust funds... it's all gone."

"That's not possible," I said automatically, though deep down, I'd been expecting something like this for years. The increasingly frantic phone calls behind closed doors. The mysterious "business trips" that never seemed to yield results. The quiet dismissal of staff who'd been with us since I was a child.

"Not legally," he agreed, finally looking up at me with bloodshot eyes. "But when has legality ever stopped the Blackwoods?"

My breath caught in my throat. The Blackwoods. Even in Boston high society, where old money flowed like water, that name carried weight.

"Alexander Blackwood?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. The Blackwood empire had been expanding aggressively for years, swallowing smaller companies with mechanical precision. Their CEO was notoriously ruthless,a man whose face graced business magazines but who somehow managed to remain intensely private.

"The son of a bitch orchestrated all of it." My father downed his whiskey in one swallow. "Called in debts I didn't even know we had. Leveraged positions on the board. He's been planning this for years, Izzy." His voice cracked. "Years."

I sank into the leather chair opposite his desk, my mind racing. "Why? What could he possibly want with us? The Caldwell Group is hardly a threat to someone like him."

My father's laugh was hollow. "It's not about business. It's personal."

Before he could elaborate, Miriam, our housekeeper,the last of our once-impressive household staff,appeared in the doorway. Her usually unflappable demeanor was visibly rattled.

"Mr. Caldwell," she said, her wrinkled hands twisting her apron, "there's someone here to see you. He says," she swallowed hard, ",he says he's expected."

The heavy tread of expensive shoes on marble echoed from the foyer, growing louder with each decisive step. I rose to my feet instinctively, my heart pounding against my ribs with primitive warning. Danger. Predator. Run.

But I was a Caldwell, and Caldwells didn't run. At least, that's what my father had always taught me.

The man who appeared in the doorway of my father's study stole all the oxygen from the room.

Alexander Blackwood was nothing like the polished, distant figure from magazine covers. In person, he radiated a controlled violence that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Tall and broad-shouldered, he filled the doorframe with a presence that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. His suit,charcoal gray and impeccably tailored,had probably cost more than most people's cars. But it was his eyes that truly arrested me: cold, calculating, and the color of a winter sea before a storm.

Those eyes swept over me now, lingering for a heartbeat on the red paint staining my dress before dismissing me entirely.

"Winston," he said, his voice a low, cultured rumble that sent a shiver across my skin. "You're looking well for a man who just lost everything."

My father rose unsteadily to his feet. "You have no right to be in my home."

"I have every right." Blackwood stepped fully into the room, and I noticed the man who followed him,slightly shorter, wearing an equally expensive suit and carrying a slim leather portfolio. "In fact, according to my legal team, I own the mortgage on this... charming historical property."

The casual cruelty in his tone made my fingers curl into fists. "Who the hell do you think you are?" I demanded, stepping forward before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

Those winter-sea eyes finally turned their full attention on me, and I suppressed the urge to step back. His gaze traveled over me again, slower this time,taking in my paint-stained dress, my bare feet, the stubborn set of my jaw. One dark eyebrow arched slightly.

"Alexander Blackwood," he said, as if I might somehow have failed to recognize him. "And you must be Isabella." My name in his mouth sounded like something intimate and forbidden. "Your father's pride and joy. Berklee College of Art, wasn't it? With a minor in business you've never used. How... quaint."

The fact that he knew such specific details about me made my skin crawl. "Whatever business you have with my father,"

"Concerns you directly," he interrupted smoothly. "Perhaps more than anyone else in this room."

My father moved surprisingly quickly for a man who'd just consumed several ounces of whiskey. He positioned himself between me and Blackwood, his shoulders squared despite the slight tremble in his hands.

"Leave her out of this, Alexander. This is between you and me."

"It stopped being just between us the moment your daughter turned twenty-four last month," Blackwood replied, his voice dangerously soft. "You've known this day was coming for six years, Winston. Don't pretend to be surprised now."

I looked between them, confusion and unease building in my chest. "Dad? What is he talking about?"

My father wouldn't meet my eyes. The color had drained from his face, leaving him ashen beneath his carefully maintained tan.

Blackwood turned to his companion. "The contract, James."

The man stepped forward, opening the portfolio and extracting a thick document bound in blue leather. He placed it carefully on my father's desk, flipping to a page marked with a red tab.

"This can't be legally enforceable," my father said, his voice barely audible.

"Four separate law firms say otherwise," Blackwood replied. "But by all means, hire your own. I do enjoy watching desperate men throw good money after bad." His lips curved in what might have been a smile on another man. On him, it looked like the prelude to violence. "What little money you have left, that is."

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" I demanded, my patience finally snapping.

Blackwood's attention returned to me, and I had the distinct impression he was cataloging every reaction, every micro-expression that crossed my face.

"It's quite simple, Isabella. Your father made a deal with me six years ago. I've come to collect what I'm owed." He nodded toward the contract. "The terms were clear. In exchange for certain... accommodations... I would receive controlling interest in the Caldwell Group, your family's investment portfolios, and," his gaze pinned me in place, ",your hand in marriage."

The room tilted beneath my feet. I must have swayed, because suddenly his hand was on my elbow, steadying me. I jerked away from his touch as if burned.

"That's insane," I said, looking to my father for confirmation that this was some elaborate, cruel joke. But Winston Caldwell couldn't meet my eyes, and in that moment, I knew it was true. "You sold me? Like some medieval bargaining chip?"

"He was going to destroy us," my father whispered. "We were already on the brink after your mother's medical bills. He offered a way out. Time to rebuild. I never thought,"

"You never thought he'd actually hold you to it," Blackwood finished for him. "Or perhaps you never thought I'd succeed in dismantling your pathetic attempts to recover. Either way, your miscalculation is now your daughter's problem."

I felt sick. "I will never marry you."

"Then your family loses everything," he said simply. "This house. Your father's company,what's left of it. Your mother's medical care."

My heart stuttered. "My mother's what?"

He tilted his head slightly, studying me with those unnerving eyes. "Didn't he tell you? Part of our arrangement included covering the considerable costs of your mother's ongoing care at Meadowbrook. The best private neurological facility on the East Coast isn't cheap, Isabella."

My mother had been in long-term care since the stroke that had nearly killed her when I was eighteen. The stroke that had left her unable to speak, barely able to recognize us on her good days. The expenses had been enormous, but my father had always assured me that insurance covered most of it.

Another lie.

I looked at my father, who had collapsed back into his chair, his face in his hands. "Is that true? Mom's care was part of this... deal?"

He nodded without looking up.

"You have twenty-four hours to decide," Blackwood said, reaching into his jacket pocket and extracting a small velvet box. He placed it on the desk beside the contract. "Though I should warn you that the terms become significantly less generous with each passing hour."

The box sat there like a time bomb, its dark blue velvet almost black in the afternoon light.

"Why me?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. "You could have any woman in Boston. Why insist on this... this archaic arrangement?"

Something flashed in those cold eyes,something so raw and vicious that I instinctively took a step back.

"Your father knows exactly why," he said softly. "Don't you, Winston?"

My father's head snapped up, his expression a mixture of hatred and fear. "This won't bring them back, Alexander."

"No," Blackwood agreed, "it won't. But it will ensure you suffer every day for the rest of your miserable life, knowing exactly what you've lost." He turned back to me. "Twenty-four hours, Isabella. I'll expect your answer by this time tomorrow."

With that, he straightened his already immaculate cuffs and strode from the room without a backward glance, his associate following silently behind him.

The front door closed with a quiet click that somehow echoed through the house like a gunshot.

I turned to my father, who looked suddenly decades older than his fifty-eight years. "What did you do?" I whispered. "What did you do to him that would make him want this kind of revenge?"

Winston Caldwell reached with trembling fingers for the decanter, pouring another generous measure of whiskey. When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow with defeat.

"I killed his parents."