Chapter Nine

​Seraphina Vance’s POV ‘Price of Admission’

​The glass doors of the penthouse study clicked shut behind the guards, sealing the room in a heavy, unnatural silence. Outside, the city stretched toward the horizon, an ocean of flickering yellow streetlamps and crawling headlights under a charcoal sky. Inside, the only light came from the marble fireplace and the green glow of a banker’s lamp on the glass desk.

​Lucian was standing by the huge glass windows, his back to me. His tailored jacket was gone. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled twice over his forearms. He held a crystal tumbler, but he wasn't drinking.

​My knees were shaking from the sedative still lingering in my bloodstream, but I refused to sit. I pressed my back against the heavy mahogany trim of the door frame, using it to keep myself upright. My hand throbbing where the nail had split during my attempt at the rotary phone, an attempt that had yielded nothing but Chloe’s laughing voice on the other end.

​"You're awake," Lucian said softly. He didn't turn around. His voice was flat, robbed of the cadence that used to make my chest ache with tenderness.

​"I heard her, Lucian," I said, my voice crackling like dry leaves. "I called your cell from the old line in the East Wing. Chloe answered. She wasn't coughing. She wasn't dying. She was laughing."

​Lucian took a slow, measured breath. His shoulders rose and fell under the thin cotton of his shirt. Finally, he turned.

​The shadows under his eyes were deep, bruised purple. He looked like a man who hadn't slept in a week, his jaw covered in a rough dark stubble. But when his gaze locked onto mine, there was no warmth in his eyes. Only a cold, terrible distance.

​"She has good hours and bad hours," he said quietly, setting his glass on the marble hearth. "The doctors said the fever comes and goes."

​"It's a lie," I stepped forward, the carpet swallowing the sound of my bare feet. "Harrison fabricated the match. Sterling is on his payroll. Your sister isn't dying, Lucian! She's the hook, and I'm the bait. They're using her to force me into a corner!"

​Lucian didn't flinch. He didn't yell. That was the worst part, the utter lack of rage. He walked slowly over to the glass desk, his movements heavy, deliberate. He picked up a document bound in heavy navy cardstock and laid it flat in the center of the leather blotter. Beside it, he placed a silver pen.

​"Chloe’s surgery is scheduled for six o'clock tomorrow morning," Lucian said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying register he used when negotiating corporate takeovers. "Dr. Sterling’s team is ready. The surgical bay is prepped."

​"Did you hear a word I just said?" My voice cracked, tears burning the backs of my eyes as the betrayal tore through me, sharper than any blade. "It's fake! All of it! The leak to the SEC, the offshore accounts, Chloe's bloodwork, your father built a cage and you're helping him lock the door!"

​Lucian looked down at the paper on the desk. "You're going to sign this, Seraphina."

​I stopped two feet from the desk, my lungs refusing to draw air. "What is that?"

​"A full dissolution of our marriage," he said smoothly, as if he were discussing a supply chain contract. "Unconditional waiver of all assets, liquid stock, and property claims under the Vance estate. A complete nondisclosure agreement regarding all operations at Vance Global."

​The world tilted slightly. The firelight flickered against the silver tip of the pen.

​"You want a divorce," I whispered. The words tasted like ash.

​"I don't want anything," Lucian replied, finally looking up. His dark eyes were pools of black ice. "My father wanted you stripped of your board clearance and handed over to federal prosecutors. He wanted you ruined. I negotiated this. You sign the papers tonight, you go into the operating room tomorrow to clear Chloe's match, and by tomorrow evening, a private jet takes you to Geneva. A trust account with five million dollars will be opened in your maiden name. You will never set foot in New York again."

​"And if I refuse?" I leaned over the desk, my knuckles turning white against the polished surface. "If I refuse to sign away my life for a lie?"

​Lucian stepped closer, his shadow falling over me, suffocating and vast.

​"If you don't sign," he murmured, his face inches from mine, "I hand the Zurich transfer logs over to the federal prosecutor myself. You won't be going to a private clinic, Seraphina. You'll be spending the next fifteen years in a federal prison."

​The room seemed to shrink, the air turning into thick glass. I stared at him, searching his face for the man who had held me in the dark, the man who had promised to protect me from the very wolves he was now leading to my door.

​"You really believe I did it," I said, a tear finally escaping and cutting a warm trail down my cold cheek. "After everything... you think I sold you out."

​Lucian’s jaw tightened, a tiny muscle twitching beneath his skin. For a fraction of a second, something fractured in his cold expression, a glimpse of raw, agony, before he buried it back under his stone mask.

​"The IP address was yours, Seraphina," he said quietly. "The signature on the transfer order was yours. I gave you my heart, and you gave my father the weapon he needed to destroy me."

​"It wasn't me," I sobbed, reaching out to touch his arm. "Lucian, please, look at me"

​He jerked his arm away as if my touch burned him. "Sign the paper."

​"No," I choked out, shaking my head. "I won't sign a confession of guilt. I won't let you throw me away."

​Lucian stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, slowly, he picked up the silver pen, clicked it, and placed it directly into my trembling hand.

​"You have five minutes," he whispered, stepping back toward the window. "Either you sign the divorce papers, or the guards take you down to the holding van."

​My fingers closed around the cold metal of the pen. The paper lay beneath me, its dark legal jargon staring up like an execution order. The silence in the room stretched, heavy and suffocating, punctuated only by the crackle of the fireplace.

​I raised the pen above the signature line.

​Before the nib touched the paper, the heavy double doors of the penthouse study burst open.

​Harrison Vance walked in, accompanied by two armed private security guards. But he wasn't looking at me. His face was pale, his composure shattered for the first time in his life.

​"Lucian," Harrison said, his voice flat with horror. "Put the papers away. The SEC isn't coming for Seraphina."

​Lucian turned around, his brows drawn in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

​Harrison held up a tablet, his hand visibly shaking. "The federal warrant just hit the system. It's not for her. It's for you."