The Reunion

MICHAELA

The drive to the penthouse takes four hours.

I sit in the back of a black SUV with tinted windows, my heart pounding with dread about what the meeting will be like. The leather seats are cold against my legs. The driver doesn't speak. The two men in the front don't speak. We just move through the city in silence like a funeral procession.

I feel like a prisoner being transported. Which, I suppose, is exactly what I am.

My mind will not stop replaying every memory I have of Richie Moore. I can't make it stop, and frankly I don't want to. I need to remember who he was so I can understand who he has become.

I was ten when I first saw him.

A new school. Another one of Gloria's fresh starts that always ended the same way. I walked into English class with secondhand clothes and a chip on my shoulder and he was already there, sitting in the back corner. Dark hair falling into his eyes. A leather jacket that had seen better days. He didn't look at the teacher, didn't take notes. He just stared out the window like the whole world bored him.

Everyone else avoided him. The rich kids because he was poor. The poor kids because he was strange. He had a reputation for fighting, for skipping class, for being the kind of boy mothers warned their daughters about.

I sat beside him because it was the only empty seat.

"You're new." His voice was deeper than I expected. He still did not look at me.

"You're observant."

He turned then. Our eyes met and something shifted in the air between us. Something I did not have words for at ten years old. Something I still don't have words for now.

"I'm Richie."

"Michaela."

"Stupid name."

"Stupid face."

He laughed. The first genuine laugh anyone had heard from him in months, I later learned. Just like that, we were something. Friends first, then something more. Something that always felt inevitable.

Our first kiss came years later, behind the bleachers during a football game neither of us cared about. He tasted like cigarettes and rebellion and his hands were gentle on my waist. My heart beat so fast I thought I would die from it.

"I've wanted to do that for a while now," he said.

"Then why did you wait?"

"Because you scare me, Mickie. You scare the hell out of me."

No one had ever called me Mickie before. No one has called me Mickie since.

"I'm going to marry you one day, Mickie." He traced patterns on my bare back with his fingertips. "I'm going to get us out of this ugly town and give you everything."

I believed him. Every word.

Three weeks later, he was gone.

No note. No call. No explanation. His family moved overnight like they were running from something terrible. I stood in front of his empty house and cried until I had nothing left. I never saw him again. Never heard from him again. I spent years picking through what I did wrong, wondering if I was simply not enough. Wondering why everyone I loved eventually left.

Now the SUV pulls into an underground garage beneath a glass tower that touches the sky. I am led through lobbies made of marble and soft gold light and delivered to him like a package. Like property. Like the collateral his lawyer said I was.

The office door opens.

Richie Moore at thirty-two is devastating.

The boy I loved is gone. In his place stands a man carved from stone and cold money. His jaw is sharper. His shoulders are broader. His eyes are cold in a way they never were before. He wears a suit like armor and it probably costs more than everything I own combined.

His gaze moves slowly from my face to my body and back again. Assessing. The way you look at something you are considering purchasing.

"Michaela." My name in his mouth sends electricity straight down my spine. I hate that. I hate that fifteen years apart haven't dulled this reaction at all. "You've grown up."

"And you've become a kidnapper." I keep my voice steady. My chin high. "Interesting career pivot."

His lips twitch. Almost a smile. "Your mother is the criminal. I'm simply collecting what I'm owed."

"I'm not responsible for her debts."

"Legally?" He leans back in his leather chair, every movement controlled and deliberate. Nothing like the impulsive boy who kissed me behind the bleachers. "Debatable. Practically?" He spreads his hands. "You're the only leverage I have and I intend to use it."

I want to scream at him. Want to demand answers for fifteen years of silence, ask why he left, why he never called, why he let me stand in front of his empty house like a fool. But I learned a long time ago that wanting things only leads to disappointment.

"What do you want from me, Richie?"

"Richard." He corrects me without blinking. "No one calls me Richie anymore."

I huff and cross my arms. "What do you want from me, Richard?"

He stands. Moves around the desk and leans against the front of it so only a few feet separate us. He is so close I can smell his cologne, something expensive and dark, charcoal and something warmer underneath. I can see the fine lines around his eyes, the tension held in his jaw, the way his hands grip the edge of the desk like he is holding himself back from something he has not decided to do yet.

He slides a thick contract across the mahogany surface.

"One year of service. Then you're free and your mother's debt is settled."

"What kind of service?"

He smiles. Dark and dangerous, carrying echoes of the boy I used to love and something far more predatory layered underneath.

"The kind you're uniquely qualified for, Michaela." His eyes drop to my body again, slower this time. More deliberate. "I remember how flexible you used to be. I remember exactly what that body can do."

My face burns. My hands clench into fists at my sides.

"I hope you can do more now." He pushes the contract toward me. "Read it, sign it, or don't. The choice is yours. But the alternative involves lawyers and courts and a very long time in a very small cell."

I look at the contract. I look at him. The life I thought I escaped is standing in front of me wearing a bespoke suit and a smile that promises nothing good.

"You've changed," I say quietly.

"Everyone changes, Mickie."

The name hits me like a punch to the chest and he sees it land. His smile widens.

This absolute jerk.

"I'll give you an hour to read the terms. Then we'll discuss your first assignment." He walks back around the desk and settles into his chair like a king returning to his throne. "Welcome home, Michaela. We're going to have a very interesting year."