The ventilator hissed its steady rhythm.The only answer I would get.
I stayed until the night nurse gently suggested I go home and get some sleep.Until the sky outside the window began to lighten with the first hints of dawn.Until I had no choice but to return to the hotel and start another day of fighting a battle I was slowly losing.
The numbers were improving.But not fast enough.
The hotel was still standing.But for how long?
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a name kept surfacing.The man on the news with the predator’s smile.The man who’d stood in my father’s office and looked at me like I was something to be devoured.
Raphael Antonov.
He owned our debt.He owned our fate.And sooner or later, he was going to come collecting.
I just didn’t know what he would want in return.
5
RAPHAEL
Two weeks in New York, and I couldn’t get her out of my head.
The Blackmore Building was ours now.Six hundred sixty-six million dollars of prime Manhattan real estate, a gilded door into the world of politicians and old money.The deal had gone perfectly.Every piece falling into place exactly as I’d planned.
And all I could think about was the girl.
I’d fucked two women in New York.A model at a charity gala, bent over the bathroom sink while her husband waited at their table.A hedge fund manager’s wife in her own bed while he was in Tokyo.Both beautiful.Both willing.Both utterly forgettable the moment I was done with them.
Neither of them smelled like apples and cream.
Neither of them made the wolf pace and snarl and demand things I couldn’t afford to give.
Parsons met me at the airport with the daily report.I skimmed it in the back of the town car while the lights of Paradise Peaks grew closer.Surveillance photos.Activity logs.Every detail of Lena Hughes’s life for the past fourteen days, documented by men I paid to watch her sleep.
She was running herself into the ground.
Eighteen-hour days.Meetings with staff, vendors, creditors.She’d renegotiated three contracts and launched a marketing campaign that was actually showing results.The hotel’s occupancy was up four percent.
Not enough.Not even close.But more than I’d expected from a sheltered heiress who’d never worked a day in her life.
She’s struggling,the wolf observed.She needs us.
I looked at a photo of her leaving the hospital at two in the morning.Dark circles under her eyes.Shoulders bowed.Alone.
She needs to suffer,I corrected.That’s the point.
The wolf disagreed.The wolf was becoming a problem.
“Take me to the hotel.”
Parsons didn’t question it.He never did.
The Hughes Palace rose against the evening sky as we pulled into the circular drive.I’d seen it a hundred times in surveillance photos, but seeing it in person was different.The building had presence.Five generations of wealth and ambition, carved in stone and lit with warm light.I understood why she was fighting so hard to keep it.
It would make destroying her that much more satisfying.
The dining room was busier than it had been in months.I requested a corner table with sightlines to the lobby.The hostess recognized me.I saw it in the slight widening of her eyes, the nervous flutter of her hands as she led me to my seat.She knew who I was.Knew what I represented.
“Is there anything else I can get you, Mr.Antonov?”
