جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 8

The biggest one was missing two front teeth. Sophia noticed that first—the gap in his grin, dark and wet, like something had been knocked out of him a long time ago and he’d never bothered to fix it.He was close enough now that she could smell him. Cigarettes and sweat and something sour underneath, like old beer left in the sun.“Here’s how this works, sweetheart.” He pulled a folded paper from his jacket. “You sign this. The apartment goes to Mr. Hale. You walk out of here with your legs working. Everybody wins.”The other two fanned out behind him. One was lean with a shaved head and dead eyes. The other was shorter, thicker, bouncing on his toes like he was hoping she’d say no.Sophia’s back pressed harder into the concrete pillar. The cold seeped through her dress and into her spine. Her purse was upstairs. Her phone was upstairs. Every person who might help her was upstairs, sipping wine and pretending they hadn’t just watched her marriage die on a white tablecloth.“I’m n

She stayed.She told herself it was because of the kitchen.Three industrial-grade ovens with digital temperature controls. A marble countertop so wide she could roll out pastry dough for twelve people without running out of space. A copper KitchenAid mixer that probably cost more than two months of her old rent. And the flour—imported Italian tipo 00, stacked in neat white bags on the shelf like they’d been placed there by someone who knew exactly what a pastry chef needed.It was a lie. She knew it was a lie even as she pulled the flour down at 5 AM on her second morning in Dominic Cross’s penthouse, unable to sleep, unable to stop replaying the sound of his voice through the intercom—stay, and I’ll tell you.She hadn’t stayed for the kitchen.She’d stayed because she had nowhere else to go.The butter was European. Unsalted, high-fat, the kind that turned croissants into something religious. She cut it into cold slabs and started the laminating process—fold, roll, quarter-tur

Sophia’s hands hadn’t stopped trembling since last night.She stood at the kitchen island in Dominic’s penthouse at seven in the morning, cracking eggs into a bowl, and every time she lifted one from the carton her fingers shook hard enough to send tiny fractures through the shell before she was ready.Not from fear. Not from regret.From power.She kept replaying it. Marcus’s face. The way his knees buckled. The way his mouth opened and closed like a man drowning on dry land. The rehearsed speech dying on his tongue. The four years of groveling and killing and begging all of it collapsing in the time it took for Dominic to say your ex-wife tastes better than any deal you could ever offer me.And her. Standing there in nothing but Dominic’s jacket, lipstick smeared, looking Marcus dead in the eye and saying miss me like she’d been waiting her whole life to say it.She cracked another egg. Her hand shook. She didn’t care.Nico arrived at eight. He came through the elevator with two phones in

Sophia threw her first clean punch on day five.Kira was holding the focus pad at shoulder height, calling out combinations jab, cross, hook and Sophia had been drilling the same sequence for forty minutes, sweat sticking her tank top to her spine, her wrapped knuckles raw under the tape. She was tired. She was sore. Her arms felt like bags of wet sand.But when Kira called the hook, something clicked. Sophia’s hip rotated. Her shoulder followed. Her fist connected with the pad so hard that the crack echoed off the gym walls and Kira’s arm snapped sideways.Kira grinned. There she is. Sophia shook out her hand. Her knuckles were singing. She grinned back, and it felt wild on her face feral, unfamiliar, like smiling with teeth she’d just grown.She caught movement at the edge of her vision. Dominic was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching. His expression wasn’t the one she expected. Not pride. Not amusement. Something heavier. Something that sat in the space between admira