Chapter Three - Deals in the Dark

Sophia’s POV

"I heard someone is looking for me?" I asked the nurse over the entrance counter as I rushed to her, nearly out of breath.

She looked up from her paperwork, blinking as if I’d startled her. “Who are you, please?”

"I'm Sophia Jenkins,” I replied quickly, my voice shaking as I stuttered, placing a palm to my chest in desperation, trying to breathe through the swirl of panic and adrenaline. “I’m the patient’s daughter… at room 301. I... I—”

She narrowed her eyes — not with suspicion, but with a sort of what’s with this girl? kind of look. The kind that made me feel instantly smaller, like I didn’t belong in such urgency.

“We heard that someone paid Ava Jenkins’s surgery f*e,” Maria interjected, stepping beside me. Her calm voice cut through my chaos like a grounding force. “We wanted to confirm that.”

The nurse nodded slightly and flipped open a large file with smooth, practiced fingers. The pages whispered like secrets as she skimmed through them, then paused.

“Ohh! Yes. Her surgery got paid this morning,” she said with a note of surprise, tapping the page gently.

“By who?” Maria asked, her voice tight with curiosity.

The nurse glanced at the paper again. “It says Sophia Jenkins. But… the payment was made by a tall man. Broad-shouldered. In black. He didn’t leave a name, but he mustn’t have gone far.”

Before she finished, I was already halfway out the door.

The cold slap of wind greeted me as I burst into the hospital courtyard, eyes darting left and right. The rain had died down to a light drizzle, but my heart still thundered like a storm.

Then I saw them.

A line of four black SUVs, gleaming like onyx under the hospital lights. Each one had a pair of suited men stationed beside it — all tall, all stone-faced, their eyes scanning everything and nothing. Their postures screamed power, danger, and discipline.

My pulse spiked. My feet slowed.

Could it be one of them? I asked myself.

I was so absorbed, I didn’t notice the shadow approaching behind me.

“Looking for me?” a voice whispered near my ear, low and deliberate.

I spun around, my breath hitching.

“You?” I breathed, stepping back instinctively. The air between us shrank and then shattered.

Leonard Morano stood in front of me like a sculpture cast in midnight. He wore a tailored black suit, its fit sharp enough to cut glass. His beard traced a clean line from his thick hair down to his angular jaw, and everything about him — his stance, his silence, his stare — radiated unapologetic dominance.

He kept his hands in his pockets, like he wasn’t in a rush, like he owned this moment.

"Baby girl," he said, smirking as he leaned slightly forward, “I don't like that expression on your face.”

He reached out, casually, to brush my cheek.

I slapped his hand away. Hard.

“You think paying for my mom’s surgery gives you the right to control my life?” I snapped, anger bleeding into every syllable. “I’ll never marry you.”

He chuckled, the sound deep and amused — like I was a joke he enjoyed.

“You're ungrateful,” he said, his voice shifting into something more authoritative, more commanding. “I'm offering you a life of luxury and protection. You’d be foolish to refuse.”

I clenched my fists. “Luxury at the cost of my freedom and happiness? No, thank you. I deserve better than being treated like a commodity.”

His smile faded into something darker.

“You became a commodity the moment you were born,” he said, voice like steel.

“What?” I asked, stunned. “I’m your friend’s daughter! How could you think of doing this to me?”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes and slid down before I could stop them. He flinched — not visibly, but something in his gaze flickered. Brief discomfort, maybe regret. But it vanished as quickly as it came.

"You don't understand how the world works," he said coldly. "I'm doing you a favor. You'll learn to appreciate my generosity. And you'll do as I say. My friendship with your father has nothing to do with this. I’m not betraying anyone."

He stepped forward again. "And clean those tears off your face."

His voice had turned to stone.

My fury erupted. “Are you a f***ing pedophile?” I yelled, hitting his chest hard with both hands.

In a flash, he caught my wrists and shoved me backward — not violently, but with enough force to pin me against a metal pole beside the hospital wall. My breath caught as he leaned in. The distance between us dissolved. I could feel his heartbeat through his suit, his warm breath on my cheek, and the restrained rage in his clenched jaw.

“If you hit me again, you—”

“Or what?” I shot back, glaring into his eyes.

His nostrils flared. Our faces were so close I could smell his expensive cologne. The tension twisted tighter, sharp as glass.

And in that breathless second, something shifted.

Rage, fear, defiance — all of it crashed inside me like a hurricane. I hated how how close he was, how my body trembled not just from fear but something darker, more complicated. His grip on my wrists wasn’t bruising, but it was firm enough to remind me that he held the power. I should’ve been terrified. I was. But underneath that terror was a low, smoldering ember of adrenaline-fueled clarity.

He didn’t just want obedience. He wanted to break me — to bend me, reshape me into something that would fit into his world, by force if necessary.

And I wasn’t going to let him.

But even as I thought it, I felt a confusing pull inside me — a war between my pride and the strange gravity he exuded. The kind of pull that made it hard to look away, even when every instinct screamed to run. His closeness was suffocating.

Was he angry I’d hit him or because I called him a pediophile?

Or was it something else?

He looked at me like I was the one who’d broken something.

The silence stretched, loud with everything we weren’t saying. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out the world, while I felt every inch of his presence press into me like a dare.

He wanted control.

Suddenly, a voice cut through the static.

"Sophia?"

We both froze. Slowly, together, we turned.

My father stood at the edge of the hospital steps. His expression unreadable.

The world stopped.

The thunder in my chest wasn’t from the weather anymore.

Had he seen what happened?

His eyes flicked from me — breathless, pinned to a pole, tears running — to Leonard, whose hands still gripped my wrists.

The air turned to ice.

“Dad…” I whispered.