Chapter 4

The photos slid off Brianna's lap and scattered across the floor mats of the Bugatti. Pictures of her walking to class. Pictures of her mother crying on a park bench. Pictures of Brianna sleeping in her old bedroom, taken through the window.

"You're sick," Brianna whispered. The air in the car suddenly felt too thin to breathe. "You and your father. You've been stalking us."

Dawson didn't even look at the photos. He pulled the keys from the ignition, the silence of the engine ringing in her ears.

"We were vetting an investment," Dawson said. His voice was devoid of shame. "My father doesn't marry for love, Brianna. He acquires assets. And before you acquire an asset, you inspect it for flaws."

"We aren't assets! We're people!"

"To Declan, everything is a line item." Dawson opened his door. "Get out."

"No."

Dawson paused. He leaned back in, his arm resting on the steering wheel, his face turning toward her. The warehouse shadow cut across his jaw, making him look more beast than man.

"You really don't get it yet," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. "You think you have a choice. You think if you sit there, I'll eventually drive you home and we can play happy family. Look at where we are."

Brianna looked out the window. The docks were desolate. A stray dog picked at a trash heap. The warehouse loomed like a tomb.

"If I leave you here," Dawson continued, his eyes scanning her face, "you won't make it back to the main road before someone finds you. And the men who work these docks? They aren't on the payroll because of their manners."

He got out and slammed the door.

Brianna looked at the desolate road. She looked at the heavy steel door Dawson was walking toward. Panic clawed at her throat, but survival instinct kicked harder. She scrambled out of the car, stumbling on the uneven pavement to catch up to him.

"You're a psychopath," she hissed, grabbing his arm to stop him.

It was a mistake.

Dawson spun around. He didn't just shake her off; he grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her back and pinning her against the rusted corrugated metal of the warehouse wall.

The move was so fast her head spun. His body pressed against hers, hard and unyielding. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart against her chest, the heat of his thighs locking her in place.

"Don't touch me," he warned, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. "You don't have the right."

"You touched me first!" she cried, trying to struggle, but he was like a statue.

"I own the right," he whispered. "I paid for it. Remember?"

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. His gaze dropped to her lips, and for a terrifying, electric second, the anger in his eyes bled into something else. Something dark and hungry. He inhaled sharply, smelling the vanilla of her shampoo, and his grip on her wrist tightened until it hurt.

"You smell like innocence," he murmured, almost to himself. "It's annoying."

He released her abruptly, stepping back and straightening his jacket. "Inside. Now."

Brianna rubbed her wrist, her skin burning where he had touched her. She followed him, not because she wanted to, but because the look in his eyes promised consequences she wasn't ready to face.

Inside, the warehouse wasn't abandoned.

It was a hive.

Rows of servers hummed in the back, cooling fans roaring. In the center, crates were being unpacked by men in tac-gear, not delivery uniforms. They were handling artwork. Statues. Gold bars. Weapons.

Brianna stopped dead. "This... this is smuggling."

"It's logistics," Dawson corrected, not breaking stride. "We move things that don't want to be found."

He led her up a metal staircase to a glass-walled office that overlooked the floor. He pushed the door open and pointed to a desk piled high with tablets and ledgers.

"Sit."

"I'm not doing this," Brianna said, her voice shaking. "I have a finance degree. I studied ethics. I'm not going to help you launder money or... or whatever this is!"

Dawson walked behind the desk and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He slammed it down in front of the empty chair.

"This is a non-disclosure agreement," he said. "And an employment contract."

"I won't sign it."

"Read clause four."

Brianna looked down. Her eyes scanned the legal jargon.

In the event of resignation or termination prior to the completion of the debt repayment period, the Employee agrees to assume full legal liability for the outstanding debts of Eloise Van Doren, totaling four million dollars.

"Four million?" Brianna gasped, looking up. "She said it was fifty thousand!"

"Your mother lies," Dawson said coldly. "Gambling. private loans. The sharks were going to break her legs, Brianna. My father paid them off. Now he owns the debt. And if you walk out that door, I transfer the debt to you. Immediate repayment."

"I can't pay that," she whispered. The room spun. "I'll go to jail."

"Exactly." Dawson leaned over the desk, his hands planted on the wood. He looked like a king passing a death sentence. "So you have two options. You go to prison for your mother's sins, or you sit in that chair and you cook my books."

"Why?" she asked, tears stinging her eyes. "Why me? You have accountants. You have lawyers."

"Because I can't blackmail them the way I can blackmail you," he said. The honesty was brutal. "I need someone smart who is too terrified to talk to the police. You fit the profile."

Brianna looked at the pen lying on the paper. It looked like a weapon.

"This is a trap," she said.

"It's a cage," Dawson corrected. He walked around the desk, coming to stand behind her.

He didn't touch her, but she could feel him. The heat of him. The sheer size of him. He leaned down, his mouth right next to her ear again.

"Sign the paper, Brianna," he whispered. "Be a good girl."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I call the police right now and report a fraud scheme involving your mother. She's fragile, isn't she? She wouldn't last a week in a cell."

A tear slipped down Brianna's cheek. She hated him. She hated the way he smelled like expensive cologne and gunpowder. She hated the way his voice made her shiver even though she was terrified.

She picked up the pen. Her hand trembled so bad she could barely hold it.

"That's it," Dawson encouraged, his voice dropping an octave, sounding almost like praise. "Sell your soul. It's not worth much anyway."

She signed her name. The ink looked black as oil.

Dawson snatched the paper away the second the tip lifted from the page. He checked the signature, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips.

"Welcome to the dark side, sweetheart."

He walked over to a safe in the corner of the office and spun the dial. "Now, your first task. I have a shipment coming in at midnight. It's off the books. You're going to verify the inventory."

"What's in the shipment?" Brianna asked, wiping her face.

Dawson pulled out a heavy, velvet-wrapped box. He placed it on the desk.

"That doesn't concern you. What concerns you is that if the count is off, it comes out of your mother's life insurance."

He tossed a heavy set of keys to her. She caught them against her chest.

"I have a dinner meeting," Dawson said, checking his watch. "You stay here. Finish the ledger on the tablet. I'll pick you up at one a.m."

"You're leaving me here? Alone?" She looked down at the men on the floor. They looked dangerous.

"They won't touch you," Dawson said, walking to the door. He stopped with his hand on the handle and looked back. "I told them you're mine."

"I'm not yours!" she shouted.

Dawson's eyes flashed. He opened the door, letting the noise of the warehouse flood in.

"You signed the paper, Brianna," he said, his voice cutting through the noise. "You're whatever I say you are."

He slammed the door, locking it from the outside.

Brianna ran to the glass. She watched him walk down the metal stairs, confident, arrogant, untouchable. He didn't look back.

She was trapped in a glass box above a criminal underworld, and she had just signed her life away to the devil.

She turned back to the desk, her heart hammering. She looked at the velvet box he had taken from the safe. He hadn't told her to open it.

But curiosity was a dangerous thing.

Trembling, she reached out and lifted the heavy lid of the box.

The blood drained from her face. She stumbled back, her hand covering her mouth to stifle a scream.

It wasn't money inside. It wasn't diamonds.

It was a gun. A silver pistol with a pearl handle.

And underneath it was a photo of a man. A man she recognized.