The apartment felt different now.Emptier.I’d lived here my whole life, and suddenly it was someone else’s space, a place I was just passing through on my way to somewhere worse.
I closed the door behind me, leaned against it, and let myself fall apart.
The sobs came in great heaving waves, ugly and uncontrolled.I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, and cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned like sandpaper.The smell of death still lingered in my nostrils, phantom and persistent.Winston’s broken body.The cut-out letters of that note.
I’M WATCHING.
Who would do this?Why?
The questions circled like vultures.I ran through the possibilities, each one worse than the last.
Angry employees.We’d had to let go of three people last month, and there would be more cuts coming after today’s losses.Someone could be retaliating, punishing me for decisions I’d been forced to make.But this felt too planned, too calculated.Too personal.Firing someone didn’t usually result in mutilated pets.
Debt collectors.If the hotel failed, then Apex Lending would take the collateral.Maybe this was designed to force us into default, to accelerate the timeline.But I’d signed the contract with Raphael this morning.The money would start flowing.There was no reason to?—
Raphael.
The thought surfaced like something rotten, and I couldn’t push it away.
He benefited from my fear.The more isolated I felt, the more dependent I became.If someone wanted to make sure I had nowhere else to turn, that I was too frightened and overwhelmed to think clearly, this was exactly how they’d do it.
My phone buzzed.Unknown number.
I answered before I could think better of it.
“Someone left you a gift today.”Raphael’s voice was ice.No greeting.No pretense of concern.Just that cold, controlled fury that somehow felt more dangerous than shouting would have.
“How do you know about that?”
“I know everything that happens to you, Lena.”A pause.“I told you.You’re mine now.Someone sent a message to my property.That’s not something I take lightly.”
Property.The word landed like a slap.I’d signed a contract that made it true, but hearing him say it stripped away any illusion of dignity.
“Did you do it?”The question came out before I could stop it.“Is this part of your… process?Break me down so I’m easier to control?”
Silence.Long enough that I thought he might have hung up.
“If I wanted to break you, Lena, I wouldn’t need a dead dog.”His voice dropped, taking on that edge that made something clench low in my belly despite everything.“I have far more efficient methods.And far more pleasurable ones.”
“Then who?—”
“I’m looking into it.My people are already reviewing your hotel’s security systems.They’re inadequate, by the way.We’ll discuss improvements later.”Another pause, weighted with something I couldn’t name.“Someone threatened what belongs to me.That’s not something I forget.Or forgive.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone, heart pounding.He hadn’t asked if I was okay.Hadn’t offered comfort or reassurance.He’d called to inform me that someone had touched his property and that he would handle it.
The thought made me sick.But I couldn’t dismiss it.I was about to walk into the house of a man who’d told me he wouldn’t be gentle, who’d looked at me like I was prey.Was it really such a stretch to think he’d try to break me down first?
There was also my father.Richard Hughes had run this hotel for thirty years.He’d hosted politicians, celebrities, business leaders from around the world.Who knew what enemies he’d made?What secrets he’d kept?He was lying in a hospital bed, silent and unreachable, and I had no way to ask him what I was inheriting along with his debt.
I didn’t know anything anymore.That was the worst part.I was supposed to take over this legacy, and I didn’t even know what it was.
A knock at the door made me scramble to my feet, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
“It’s Marjorie, child.”
I opened the door.She stood there with a tray of food I knew I wouldn’t eat, her eyes soft with worry.Marjorie had been our family’s housekeeper since before my mother died.She’d helped raise me, dried my tears, snuck me cookies when my father wasn’t looking.She was the closest thing to family I had left.
