Chapter 2: The Ultimatum

Damien Black stepped into my apartment and suddenly the cramped space felt even smaller. His dark eyes swept over the peeling walls and scattered bills with detached assessment before settling on me.

I stumbled backward, my back hitting the kitchen counter. My pulse hammered so violently I was sure he could hear it. Up close, he was devastating in a way the magazines hadn't captured.

Six-foot-five of controlled danger wrapped in a suit that probably cost more than I made in a year. Every line of his body radiated money and power and the kind of authority that had never been questioned.

His gaze dropped to the contract scattered across my floor.

"You read it."

"I—" The words barely made it past my constricted throat. "I — I — Don’t understand. ”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why are you threatening me?”

Those dark eyes held mine, studying me until I had to resist the urge to fidget under the weight of his attention. "Sign it.”

"Sign it?" My voice cracked on the word. "You're threatening to kill people and you think—"

"Alex Brooks, twenty two, junior studying engineering. Dating Emma Smith from his thermodynamics class. Lives in Palmer Hall, room 247." Each word fell like a blade, surgical and precise. "Mara Blair, twenty six, graphic designer at Morrison Designs. Lives alone on Fifth Street, drives a blue Honda with a dent in the back bumper."

The blood drained from my face so fast I thought I might faint. "How do you know—"

"I know everything about you." He placed a fresh contract with deliberate care beside my abandoned crossword. "And I know everything about the people you care about."

My knees buckled. I collapsed into the kitchen chair, staring up at this stranger who'd just shattered my entire world in a few words. The room spun like I was trapped on some sick carnival ride.

"Why are you doing this?" The question came out as barely a whisper.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he took out an expensive pen and set it beside the contract with the same deliberate precision.

I shook my head. "Why?” I asked again, my palms pressing so hard against the table’s surface they had begun to hurt. “I don't understand what you could possibly want from someone like me."

He studied me with the cold calculation of someone appraising livestock. The silence stretching until it became deafening.

"So I'm just supposed to sign my life away? Just like that?" My voice rose. "And you won't even tell me why?"

Something shifted in his stillness. It made every survival instinct I possessed scream at me to run.

"You misunderstand your position here." Each word was delivered with deadly quiet. "This isn't a negotiation. You sign, or people die."

"But—"

"I will not repeat myself again."

The finality in his tone hit me like a physical blow. I could see it in those merciless eyes, he meant every word. This wasn't some elaborate prank or psychological game. This was a man who'd made life-and-death decisions before and would sleep perfectly well after making them again.

I stared at the papers through blurring vision. Real legal documents, dense with clauses about shared assets and obligations that made my business degree brain scream warnings even through my terror.

"If I sign this, what happens to me?" I could barely force the words out.

His eyes held mine. "Your life as you know it ends. You become my wife. Live where I live, and do whatever it is I need of you."

"What do you mean by that?" I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly freezing despite the stuffy apartment air.

Something flickered across his features. "It means you do what I tell you, when I tell you."

I stared at him, my mouth falling open. "What?"

The absurdity hit me like a tidal wave. I shook my head violently, hysteria bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest. "You're insane." The word tore out of me as I gripped the counter edge hard enough to leave marks. "You can't just show up here and threaten me and—"

"Lena."

Hearing my name on his lips stopped me cold. Not a shout, not harsh, just spoken with such quiet, deadly certainty that it cut through me like a blade.

My breath caught in my throat. My entire being trembling as I stared into his ruthless dark eyes.

This man who knew everything about my life, who could hurt Alex and Mara whenever the mood struck him. Tears burned behind my eyes as I thought of the two people who mattered more to me than breathing.

"And if I refuse?" I managed to ask, though we both knew the answer.

His eyes narrowed and my hand shook."Do you really want to find out?"

I looked around my pathetic little apartment. Sketch pad buried under ignored mail, half-finished puzzles, the photo of Alex and me at his high school graduation. Everything I'd scraped together from nothing after our parents died. Every sacrifice, every sleepless night, every dream I'd deferred.

The thought of Alex hit me hard. My baby brother who texted me terrible engineering puns because he knew they made me smile even on my worst days. My best friend Mara, who still believed I could make something of myself even when I'd given up hope. I couldn't let anything happen to them. I wouldn't survive it.

With hands that shook so violently I could barely grip the pen, I reached for the contract. "Okay." The word came out broken. "But I need you to promise me one thing."

His eyebrows rose a fraction. It was the first crack in his perfect control.

"Promise me you'll keep them safe." My voice splintered like glass. "Alex and Mara. Promise me you'll keep them safe from whatever all of this is. I need them alive. I need them safe."

He watched my face for what felt like an eternity, those dark eyes reading something in my expression I didn't even know was there.

"You have my word."

I believed him, even though I had every reason not to.

I signed my name with the elegant cursive my mother had drilled into me as a child. She'd always said beautiful handwriting was a sign of character, of strength. I wondered what she'd think about what I was using that strength for now.

Damien took the contract, sliding it into his jacket with the same fluid efficiency he'd used to enter my life. Then he produced a small package wrapped in brown paper.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Black." The title sounded like the mockery it was. "Your first task."

I accepted the package with numb fingers, surprised by its weight. "What is it?"

"Deliver this. Tomorrow morning, nine am. Angela Martinez. The Metro Tribune, fifth floor. Give it to her personally and leave. Don't open it. Don't ask questions.."

"A delivery?" Confusion pierced through my shock. "That's what this is about?"

"That's what tomorrow is about."

The careful phrasing told me there was more coming. How much more, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"What if she's not there?"

"She will be." His certainty was absolute, unshakable.

He moved toward the door with the same ease and confidence in which he’d entered, then paused with his hand on the knob.

“Pack light. You'll be picked up tomorrow.”

"But I need to quit my job, tell people—" Panic crept back into my voice like rising water.

"You need to do what I tell you." The look in his eyes made my blood freeze. "The moment you signed that contract, any semblance of the life you had ended."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone with the package and the crushing realization that I had just traded everything I knew for a future I couldn't even imagine.

I sat in the deafening silence, my mind spinning through everything that had just happened. This had to be some kind of nightmare. Any second now I'd wake up in my lumpy bed, late for work, worried about nothing more serious than whether I would make it to work on time or not.

But the package in my hands was real. Solid. Heavy with implications I couldn't begin to understand.

The contract was real. The man who'd just upended my entire existence was terrifyingly, undeniably real.

My eyes caught the time from the clock hanging on the wall. Alex was probably cramming for his midterms while Mara worked late on some design project, both of them completely unaware that their lives now hung in the balance of decisions made by a stranger in an expensive suit.

I clutched the package to my chest and wondered how the hell was I going to get out of this.