Chapter 3

Sebastian's POV

The sound of bone breaking is different in a warehouse at night.

It’s sharper and colder with no background noise to soften it… only the echo of pain against concrete walls.

The man on his knees in front of me wheezed, blood dripping from his nose. His wrists were bound behind him with cable ties. He had been crying for the last fifteen minutes, but I didn’t mind. Fear was useful. Fear kept people quiet. Fear made people bend to your every whim.

‘You had three weeks,’ I said, my voice calm. Calm always scared them more. ‘Three weeks to pay what you owed.’

‘I—I tried, Mr. Wolfe—’

‘You bought yourself a car,’ I said, glancing at the sleek keys in his jacket pocket. ‘A car instead of paying me.’

He stammered something about needing it for work. I didn’t care. Behind me, Lucien stepped forward. He was my enforcer. He was silent, big, and with a look in his eyes that said he would kill for fun.

Lucien didn’t wait for my nod. The crowbar in his hands came down hard on his legs.. The man screamed, his leg twisting in a way it shouldn’t.

I watched without flinching. Pain was a language. And in my world, everyone spoke it sooner or later. I loved the language better than the 9 languages I could speak fluently.

I stepped closer, crouching so the debtor could see my face. ‘You broke the first rule,’ I said. ‘You don’t cheat me. Ever.’

He was trembling so hard the cable ties cut into his skin. ‘Please… please don’t—’

‘You’re already dead,’ I said softly. ‘The only choice you have left is whether you die quickly or slowly.’

Lucien’s crowbar answered for him. He hit him with it on the head nonstop. Not when the blood spilled from his head like a broken pipe. Not when the man gurgled out blood and spit and certainly not when he broke his arm out of his entire body. 

By the time we walked out, I’d almost forgotten his name. That was the thing about business. Debtors were numbers, not people.

But there was one face I hadn’t been able to forget for months.

Hers.

Ivy Laurent. She was twenty-two. A waitress at a café so small it was horrible when it closed. Her hair was the color of the morning sun when the light caught it. A smile too soft for the world she lived in.

I’d been watching Ivy Laurent long before she knew my name. I knew her favorite coffee order. I knew she hated the sound of velcro tearing. I knew she had a small scar along her jaw from when she was nine years old and fell off a bike…something she thought no one noticed.

I knew because I’d made it my business to know.

The first time I saw her, she was closing the café alone at night and I was coming back from dealing with a rat. The streets were quiet, and I’d been following someone else. But then she stepped outside, struggling with the lock, her hands shaking from the cold. She looked up and caught me watching from across the street. Most people look away when they feel danger. She didn’t. She met my gaze in the shadows. 

I'd had her followed after that. Not because I was interested in the usual way… at least it didn't seem so at first. But because I knew her type. She was kind, trusting. The kind of woman who didn’t survive long without someone owning her.

I learned everything I could get my hands on about her. Where she lived. Who she spoke to. That she was late on rent… years late. That her sister, Emily, was her whole world. That she took extra shifts at the café and still barely ate because bills were eating her alive.

She didn’t know it, but I’d been circling her life for months. Watching and waiting.

And when the accident happened, I stepped in.

Some people call that fate. I call it strategy.

She thought she had nothing worth taking. She was wrong. So wrong.

Now, standing in my lobby, dripping from the rain, she looked up at me with that same mixture of defiance and fear I had seen in her at the hospital.

‘Send her up,’ I told the receptionist without looking at her.

‘Yes, Mr. Wolfe.’

‘Also, you're fired. Leave the premises before lunch break.’ 

I made my way to the elevator, expecting her to follow. She did. Good girl. 

She didn’t speak as we rode to the top floor. The doors opened into my private office. It was a space of black marble, glass, and a view that stretched across the whole city. The skyline lights gave me a view into the clouds, making the night look endless.

‘Sit,’ I said, moving behind my desk.

‘I didn’t come here to—’

‘Sit.’

Her lips pressed together, but she obeyed.

The pen and papers were already laid out. My lawyers had sent the final draft an hour ago.

‘You sign, your sister lives. Basically. She has brain damage. She can't survive outside the hospital without proper treatment.’ I said. 

Her eyes went to the contract. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Everything I told you. You’re my wife in public. My property in private. For one year. No leaving the penthouse without an escort. No contact with your past life. You’ll attend all scheduled events. You’ll follow my training. And you’ll obey when you’re told to do something. Without hesitation.’

She swallowed, her pretty eyes rounding like saucers as she thought of my proposition. I could practically see the wheels turning in her head. ‘And if I break the rules?’

I leaned back in my chair. “Then I’ll make sure your sister’s life is collected back by me.’

Her hands trembled, but she didn’t look away. ‘You’re a monster.’

I smiled faintly. “And you’re out of time.”

The door opened. Jaxon stepped in first, broad-shouldered, tattoos winding up his throat, a smirk on his lips like he was already thinking of all the ways to break her spirit. I'd already told them she'd be here today. I was so right. 

Behind him came Rafael. He wore a dark suit, darker eyes, the kind of man whose silence was louder than anyone else’s voice.

And last was Lucien. He had sharp-features. He was pale, his expression unreadable, as if he was studying her for weaknesses the way a scientist studies a specimen.

‘Ivy,’ I said, ‘these are my business partners. You’ll get to know them very well.’

Her knuckles whitened around the armrest of her chair. She tensed.

Jaxon chuckled. ‘She’s prettier than you described, Wolfe.’

Her eyes flickered from them to me, her breathing uneven. ‘Excuse you?’