Chapter 4: The Price of Power

At 12:03 AM, the phone in her palm vibrated once.

[Voss Private Bank: $200,000,000.00 Received]

Ava stared at the cold string of numbers, her fingers trembling uncontrollably. Not from excitement, but because her inner thighs were still throbbing. Every slight movement aggravated the tearing sensation where Landon had been so rough. The air seemed to still cling to his scent: cedar mixed with tobacco, and the heavier, sharper musk of sex.

She sat in the back of a taxi downstairs from Landon’s office. Her dress was ruined beyond repair. The trench coat was buttoned crookedly, barely hiding the fresh, teeth-bruised purple marks on her neck and collarbone. The driver kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror. She ignored him, pressing her forehead against the freezing window, letting the cold glass suppress the residual heat in her body.

Closing her eyes, the scenes from five hours ago looped in her mind like a broken film.

The moment Landon pressed her against the floor-to-ceiling window, the lights of New York exploded into a blurry sea of stars before her eyes. Her back against the ice-cold glass, her chest crushed by his burning chest. His fingers gripping her waist nearly embedded in her flesh. The glass fogged up with her breath and cries; her fingers scratched blindly, leaving ten distinct trails.

"Look closely," he had growled, biting her earlobe, his voice sounding like it crawled out of hell. "The whole of New York is watching how I f*ck you."

Ava had cried until her voice was gone. Yet, when he slammed into her again, her body traitorously convulsed in pleasure. In that moment, she wanted to kill herself, and kill him, but right at the peak of loss of control, she heard herself whimper a sound that was dangerously close to begging.

When the aftershocks hadn't even faded, he flipped her over. He forced her to face the city, taking her from behind. That time was harder, deeper, smashing her knees until they gave way. Her nails dug into his forearm, blood dripping down their interlocked wrists onto the expensive carpet like blooming poppies.

When he finally withdrew, she was as limp as if her bones had been removed. He simply wiped his hands with a tissue, slow and methodical, then leaned down to chuckle in her ear: "Little Rose, you taste sweet."

The memory surged like a tide. Ava snapped her eyes open, breathing fast. The taxi driver was startled by her movement and cracked the window. Cold wind rushed in, sobering her up.

Don't think about it. Thinking about it is like letting him do it to you again.

She told the driver to turn around and head to the hospital.

Nora’s condition had worsened, but the latest batch of specialty drugs had arrived. She was out of danger for now. When Ava rushed into the ward, she was still wearing Landon’s shirt. The collar was wide open, revealing the shocking bites and pinch marks on her chest. The nurse saw her and gave her a complicated look but said nothing.

Ava stood outside the ward, leaning back against the wall, feeling hollowed out. The shirt hem couldn't cover the redness on her thighs. Every step made her hiss in pain; cold sweat trickled down her spine.

Her phone buzzed. A voice message from Summer, her friend and assistant: "Ava! I'm at the hospital entrance. Where are you? Ivy is here too!"

She took a deep breath, buttoned the top button of the shirt, and turned up the trench coat collar to hide the most obvious bite mark on her neck before dragging her feet toward the exit.

At the entrance, Summer rushed over, eyes red. "You scared me to death... the doctor said another two hours and it would have been too late..."

Ivy stood three steps away, holding a bag of clean clothes. Her gaze landed on Ava’s unnatural gait and the peek of purple bruising at the collar. She said nothing, her eyes darkening.

Ava took the clothes. "I'm going to change. Ten minutes, then we meet."

In the changing room, she locked the door. She peeled off the shirt saturated with Landon’s scent and shoved it into the trash. The person in the mirror looked like she had crawled off a battlefield: collarbone covered in teeth marks, chest bruised, five clear fingerprints on her waist, inner thighs swollen and red, with faint traces of blood deep inside.

She turned on the faucet and stood under the coldest water for twenty minutes. Only when her skin was red and stinging from the cold did the heat of Landon finally subside. Afterward, she slapped herself hard across the face in the mirror.

"Ava Rosier, wake the f*ck up."

Dressed and composed, she found Summer had already contacted a top global team of pulmonary fibrosis specialists. The one-million-dollar down payment was sent. Ava posted the screenshot of the two-hundred-million-dollar receipt into their group chat with a single caption:

"Starting tomorrow, I want Rosier Holdings up five points in three days."

At 5:30 AM, she sat on the hospital roof and lit a cigarette. she didn't really smoke; she just watched the ember glow and fade, like her precarious soul.

Her phone rang. Unknown number.

She picked up. A lazy male voice, like sandpaper on eardrums, came through.

"Can't sleep?" Landon sounded satisfied, husky. "Or did I f*ck you so hard your legs are too weak to get out of bed?"

Ava’s fingers twitched, ash falling onto her trousers.

"Mr. Voss, the transaction is concluded."

"Transaction?" He laughed low. In the background, she heard the rustle of fabric—he was getting dressed. "Little Rose, when you bit a chunk out of my shoulder, you didn't say it was a transaction."

Ava’s throat tightened. The sound of his heavy breathing echoed in her memory, and her body reacted with a conditioned flush of heat. The tearing pain between her legs throbbed, reawakened.

She gritted her teeth. "Don't call again."

"Too late." Landon’s voice dropped, filled with dangerous amusement. "Right now, my head is full of you crying and begging me to go deeper. Ava Rosier, you can't run."

The call ended.

Ava stared at the black screen, nails digging into her palms until her eyes burned.

She knew she was in trouble.

Not because of the money, or her mother’s life. But because in that moment, when Landon had pressed her against the glass, forcing her to watch New York burn beneath her, she had tasted the sweetness of revenge. And the sweetness of being utterly possessed.

Terrifyingly, she wanted to taste it again.

Dawn broke, pale as a fish's belly. Ava threw the phone into the trash. She lit a new cigarette and this time, she inhaled deeply.

The smoke made her cough. She laughed, tears falling with the smoke.

"Landon Voss," she whispered to the darkness before dawn, her voice hoarse as if she’d been weeping. "Just you wait."

"I will make you kneel and pay back this carload of shame, with interest."

At the same time, on the top floor of the Voss Tower.

Landon stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, shirtless. His back and shoulders were a map of fresh scratches and bites; a crescent-shaped blood mark sat on the web of his hand. He looked down at his phone, a satisfied, dangerous smile playing on his lips.

He opened a drawer and pulled out a photo. It was Ava, taken today in his office, pinned against the window at the moment of orgasm—tear tracks, flushed skin, broken gaze, all frozen in the lens.

He rubbed his thumb over her wet, red lips in the photo and cursed softly.

"F*ck. Little maniac."

He locked the photo in the deepest part of the drawer, like locking away a bomb that could detonate at any moment.