All Chapters of The Debt Collector's Price: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ISLA'S POVThe SUV smells like heated leather and war.Gabriel is on three phones. Literally three. One pressed to his left ear, another to his right, and the third lying on the center console on speaker, vibrating against the trim."I want armed security at the medical facility in fifteen minutes... Triple their rate... Elias, full tactical gear authorized..."His voice is pure command. Clinical. Lethal.This isn't Gabriel Hunt, the billionaire businessman who quotes philosophy in a dim library at midnight. This is someone else entirely. Someone who mobilizes armies from the back seat of a luxury vehicle."Elena, I want Hale's source identified and destroyed by end of business... Vanessa, kill the story if it breaks... I don't care what it costs..."The $7,500 monthly allowance I negotiated suddenly feels heavy in my mind, like blood money.I'm watching my mother's life be bartered across three phone lines and a dozen tactical decisions. I am watching Gabriel turn his empire into a w

ISLA'S POVThe penthouse is silent at 10 PM.Not peaceful. Just empty. Ten thousand square feet of marble and glass pressing down like a tomb, amplifying the quiet until my ears ring.Gabriel pours whiskey into crystal. The sharp clink echoes off the stone walls.I collapse on the leather sofa, still wearing the clothes from the extraction. My body feels heavy, buzzing with residual adrenaline and the weight of Mom's question in my bones. How did you find a man who looks at you like you're his entire world?"We need to rehearse," Gabriel says.I look up, my neck stiff. "Rehearse what?""The lie. The story we told your mother." He sits across from me, the glass coffee table between us acting as a demilitarized zone. "She'll ask follow-up questions. We need consistent answers.""You were very convincing today.""Thank you.""That wasn't a compliment." I take the whiskey glass he offers even though I don't drink whiskey. The cold crystal feels grounding against my palm. "You lied to a dy

ISLA'S POV2:17 AM and I can't sleep.The penthouse feels like a tomb at this hour. Ten thousand square feet of marble and glass pressing down, silent except for the aggressive hum of climate control that probably costs more per hour than my old weekly wage. The distant sound of the city fifty floors below is just a vibration in the floorboards.I give up. I pull on the silk robe—the one that cost more than my first car—over my pajamas.I pad barefoot across the cold marble toward the kitchen. The stone sucks the heat right out of my soles.Maybe tea. Maybe just air. Maybe proof that someone else exists in this beautiful prison.I'm not expecting to find him there.Gabriel stands at the marble island, his back to me, shoulders tense even in stillness.No suit. No armor.Just dark pajama pants and a white t-shirt that clings to the breadth of his shoulders, showing the lean muscle of his back.Human. Raw. Real."Can't sleep either?"He turns. His hair is disheveled. No product, no styl

ISLA'S POVGabriel is already on the phone before we’re fully inside the car."Elias. Status on Mrs. Bennett. Now."The Mercedes peels away from the Metropolitan Club, tires screeching against the asphalt. The force of the acceleration pins me back against the leather seat.I'm still encased in the $18,000 emerald silk, but the glamour has evaporated. Gabriel has stripped off his tuxedo jacket, loosened his tie, and pressed his phone hard against his ear."What do you mean 'delivery'? Who signed for it? When?"His face goes hard, the muscles in his jaw bunching."We're five minutes out. Lock down the entire floor. No one in or out until I clear it personally."He ends the call. The silence that follows is heavy, pressurized. He looks at me, his eyes dark."Your mother is physically safe. But a package was delivered an hour ago.""What kind of package?""Elias didn't say. But Marcus wouldn't threaten unless he'd already acted."The city blurs past the tinted windows—traffic lights, ped

ISLA'S POVThe Hamptons estate is a fortress disguised as architecture.It sits perched on a cliff like a predator waiting to strike, all glass and steel and sharp angles. We arrive at 1 AM. The helicopter lands on a private pad behind the house, the rotors whipping the cold night air into a frenzy.The only sound is the Atlantic crashing against rocks a hundred feet below. A deep, rhythmic booming that you feel in your chest before you hear it.No neighbors for miles. No staff. No witnesses.Just us and the ocean and whatever war we're fighting.Gabriel leads me inside. Motion-sensor lights activate as we move through rooms, snapping on in sequence like eyes opening in the dark.Floor-to-ceiling windows line three sides of the structure. The ocean is invisible in the blackness, but I hear it. Feel it. A constant roar that sounds less like nature and more like a warning."Master wing is upstairs. Two bedrooms. Separate but adjacent." He's already moving, checking windows, testing lock