Chapter 5: The Predator In The Hallway

The silence between Theo and me was a physical weight. It was heavier than the handcuffs I had managed to avoid for now. His proposal hung in the air like a velvet-wrapped ultimatum. Marrying the Executioner by sunrise was the perfect escape and a gilded cage all at once.

"Tick-tock, Elena," Theo murmured, his thumb grazing the edge of that charred photograph. "Time isn't on your side and the excavators don't sleep, and neither does Sarah’s greed."

Before I could find my voice, the heavy double doors of the precinct swung open with a violent bang. The sound echoed off the tiled walls like a gunshot.

A man stepped in, flanked by two other men I'm thinking are lawyers whose suits cost more than the average person’s yearly salary. He wasn't Julian. He was younger, sharper, with the kind of polished cruelty that only comes from a lifetime of being told the world is your playground.

It was Lucius Blackwood. My cousin. The mischievous man who had spent the last three years trying to convince the Blackwood board that I was dead so he could inherit my grandfather’s seat and my shares.

"Well, well. There you are," Lucius drawled, his voice a smooth, oily tenor as he walked toward us. He didn't even look at the police officers; he looked at me like I was a stain on a pristine carpet. "I heard a rumor that a certain orphan was causing trouble for the Thorne family and the description perfectly matched yours. I didn't believe it was really going to be you, Elena. I thought you had left us. You look so... diminished."

I stood my ground, my spine a steel rod. "Lucius. I see you have finally found time to look for your long, lost niece by leaving the shadows. Is the inheritance that close to slipping through your fingers?"

Lucius’s smile didn't reach his eyes. "Grandfather is aging, Elena. He has become senile. I got to know about your existence from his seeping memory. He actually believes you are a genius playing a long game. But looking at you now, his favorite grandchild and the little princess of the Blackwood's empire all soaked in cheap wine, standing in a police station, clutching the sleeve of a Sterling..."

"What have you done to him, you evil, greedy and mischievous b*stard?" I yelled at him.

He turned his gaze to Theo, his expression hardening. "Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see a girl who has lost her way. And a girl who is mentally unfit to hold the Blackwood Seal."

"Ahh!" I exclaimed. "Now I understand what you are driving at."

The air in the room turned arctic. This was the play. They weren't just trying to divorce me or frame me for theft; they were trying to declare me legally incompetent. If Lucius succeeded, he wouldn't just take my money, he would have the power to lock me away in a private sanitarium for the rest of my life and Julian would also be a major stakeholder since we still had the Reconciliation clause binding us.

"But you need not worry, my dear cousin. I have already filed the emergency injunction with the state," Lucius continued, stepping closer until I could smell his expensive, sterile cologne. "By tomorrow morning, your power of attorney will be transferred to me. You will be safe, of course. And most importantly, you will be safely tucked away where you can't embarrass the family name any longer."

"Nobody even knows who I am, except for a few you, grandfather and Mr. Sterling here. And I am sure it will remain that way if you desperately want the empire to yourself. In essence, nobody thinks or knows I am 'embarrasing' the family's name."

He looked at Theo, a mocking glint in his eyes. "And you, Sterling? I am still yet to know how you got to know about Elena while I was in the dark. But you need to stay out of family business. You might be the Executioner in the boardroom, but you are a stranger to the Blackwood bloodline. You have no rights to interfere in my family's business."

Theo didn't move a muscle, but I felt the temperature drop another ten degrees. His hand shifted from the wall to the small of my back, a possessive, territorial gesture that sent a jolt of electricity through my skin.

"Is that so?" Theo’s voice was a low, lethal purr. "Because as of five minutes ago, the Blackwood bloodline was about to get a lot more complicated for you, Lucius."

Theo pulled a slim, black fountain pen from his breast pocket and held it out to me, alongside a single sheet of paper he had pulled from his folder. It wasn't a marriage license. It was a Transfer of Guardianship and Asset Protection.

"Sign this, Elena," Theo whispered, his eyes locked on mine, ignoring Lucius entirely. "If you sign, I become your legal protector before Lucius’s injunction even hits the judge's desk. I stop the excavators, I help you regain your freedom and I will also stop the sanitarium."

He leaned in closer, his breath hot against my ear. "But there is a clause Lucius hasn't seen yet. If you sign this, you aren't just giving me your protection. You will be giving me the controlling interest in the Blackwood Trust for the next twelve months. You will also be safe... but you'll belong to me."

I looked at the pen, then at Lucius’s triumphant, sneering face, and finally at the police officers moving toward me with a set of medical transport papers.

I had two choices: to either lose my soul to the man who might have burned my world down, or lose my mind to the cousin who wanted to bury me alive.

Biting my lower lip, waiting for a miracle that wasn't going to happen, I finally reached for the pen.