Chapter 6 Lena
LENA
I couldn’t stop thinking about his hands.
Three days since the labyrinth. Three days since Raphael Antonov had cornered me in the dark and offered me a lifeline wrapped in thorns. Three days since he’d reached for my face and stopped an inch away, close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin.
I’d wanted him to touch me. That was the part I couldn’t forgive myself for.
Every night since, I’d lain awake replaying it. The way he’d moved through the hedges like he owned them. Like he owned everything. The low rasp of his voice when he said my name. The scent of him, something dark and expensive that I couldn’t identify but couldn’t forget either.
I kept telling myself I was scared of him. And I was. But fear didn’t make your breath catch. Fear didn’t make heat pool low in your belly when you remembered the way a man looked at you.
The business card sat on my nightstand like an accusation. Black cardstock. Silver lettering. I’d picked it up a hundred times, memorized the phone number, imagined dialing it. Then I’d put it back down, convinced I’d find another way.
There had to be another way.
I threw myself into work. Reviewed the books again, searching for expenses I could cut. Called vendors to renegotiate contracts we’d already renegotiated. Pitched a corporate retreat package to every company in a fifty-mile radius.
Nothing was enough. The numbers didn’t lie. We were bleeding money faster than I could staunch the wound, and the payment deadline was five days away.
The mail arrived on Thursday morning. I sorted through it at the front desk, separating bills from junk from the occasional guest inquiry. My hands stopped when I saw the envelope.
UofM. Office of the Bursar.
I knew what it was before I opened it. First semester tuition. I’d been so excited when I packed my bags back in the summer, tossing out my bikinis because Huntington Harbor’s beaches were all cold pebbles and frigid water. That girl was a stranger now.
I unfolded the statement. The number stared back at me. Forty-two thousand dollars. Room, board, tuition, fees. My father had always handled these things. I didn’t even know if he’d already paid it, or if this was a reminder, or if I was supposed to set up a payment plan.
I didn’t know anything anymore.
I folded the bill carefully and slipped it into my pocket. Couldn’t throw it away. Couldn’t deal with it either. Another impossible number to add to the pile.
I wouldn’t be going to Huntington Harbor. Wouldn’t be going anywhere. My future had narrowed to this hotel, this debt, this impossible situation my father had left me to clean up.
The worst part was I couldn’t even be angry at him anymore. He was lying in a hospital bed, suspended between life and death, and all I could do was watch everything he’d built crumble around me.
I was so tired of watching things crumble.
Marjorie found me in the back office an hour later, staring at spreadsheets that all said the same thing. We’re drowning. We’re drowning. We’re drowning.
“Child.” Her voice was soft. She’d been calling me that since I was six years old, trailing after her through the apartment while she supervised the housekeeping staff. “You need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.” She set a plate in front of me. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, the same thing she used to make me when I was sick. The smell hit my stomach and I realized I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.
I took a bite. Then another. Marjorie settled into the chair across from me, watching with the quiet patience of a woman who’d seen three generations of Hughes family drama.
“Your mother used to do this too,” she said. “Work herself sick instead of asking for help.”
I wanted to ask what she meant. My mother had died in a skiing accident when I was four. That was the story I’d always been told. But sometimes I caught hints of something else. Shadows in the way people talked about her.
“She would be so proud of you,” Marjorie said. “Fighting like this. Not giving up.”
“I don’t feel like I’m fighting. I feel like I’m drowning.”
“That’s what fighting feels like sometimes.” She reached across the desk and squeezed my hand. “You’re stronger than you know, Lena. Your mother knew that. I know it too.”
I wanted to believe her. I really did.
The hospital that night felt emptier than usual. The corridors stretched long and silent, lit by the flickering glow of fluorescent lights. I walked the familiar path to my father’s room without thinking, my feet carrying me to the only parent I had left.
The antiseptic smell hit me first. Three weeks and I still wasn’t used to it. Couldn’t separate it from the memory of the night they’d called me, the night I’d run through these same hallways not knowing if he’d be alive when I got there.
He looked the same. Pale. Still. The ventilator pushed air into his lungs with mechanical precision.
The monitors beeped their steady rhythm, marking time that meant nothing to either of us.
His face had gone slack in a way that made him look older.
Smaller. Like the stroke had stolen not just his consciousness but some essential part of who he was.
I sat beside him and took his hand. Cold, like always. His fingers didn’t curl around mine the way they used to when I was little and scared of thunderstorms.
“I got my tuition bill today,” I told him. “Forty-two thousand dollars. I don’t even know if you already paid it or if I’m supposed to.” I laughed, but it came out broken. “I’m not going, obviously. Can’t exactly leave the hotel to attend freshman orientation.”
The ventilator hissed. The monitors beeped. Outside the window, the sun had set and the mountains were just dark shapes against a darker sky.
“I don’t know what to do, Papa. I’ve tried everything.
I’ve cut costs and increased revenue and renegotiated every contract I could find.
It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough.
” My voice cracked. “The payment is due in five days and I don’t have the money.
I’ve already sold everything I can without people noticing.
Mom’s jewelry. The first editions from your study.
If I start selling the artwork in the lobby, word will get out.
Our reputation will tank. We’ll lose the high-end clients and then we’ll really be finished. ”
Silence. Of course silence. He couldn’t help me. Couldn’t wake up and fix everything the way he always used to. Couldn’t tell me which vendors to call, which favors to cash in, which corners to cut.
“There’s a man,” I whispered. “A billionaire. He offered to pay off our debt, but I know there’s a price.
There’s always a price with men like him.
” I squeezed my father’s hand, willing him to squeeze back.
To open his eyes. To tell me I was wrong, that there was some secret fund I didn’t know about, some solution I’d missed.
“I’m scared, Papa. I’m so scared. And I don’t have anyone to tell me what to do. ”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
I stayed until my back ached from the hard plastic chair. Until the night shift nurse came in to check his vitals and gave me that look, the one that was half pity and half gentle suggestion that I should go home and get some rest.
In the parking lot, my phone buzzed. Joe again. The third text this week.
Can we talk? I think I overreacted. I miss you.
I deleted it without responding. Whatever we’d had, it was over. I couldn’t imagine going back to that life. Dating a boy who proposed to me like he was closing a business deal. Pretending I was someone who cared about country clubs and vacation homes.
As I pulled my phone away, something fluttered to the ground.
The business card. It must have been tucked in my pocket, waiting.
I picked it up. The silver lettering caught the parking lot lights. Just his name. Raphael Antonov. And a phone number.
Three days of telling myself I wouldn’t call. Three days of pretending I had other options.
I was out of options.
My fingers shook as I dialed the number. It rang twice before he answered.
“Ms. Hughes.” His voice was dark silk. He didn’t sound surprised. “I was wondering when you’d call.”
“I want to discuss your offer.”
“Of course you do.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Predatory. Patient. Like a wolf that had been waiting for its prey to walk into the trap. “My office. Tomorrow. Nine a.m.”
He hung up before I could respond.
The Volkov Capital building was a tower of black glass that cut the skyline like a dagger. I’d driven past it a hundred times without really seeing it. Now it loomed over me, casting shadows that felt personal.
The lobby was all marble and cold light. A receptionist directed me to a private elevator with a security code. The ride to the penthouse floor took forever and no time at all.
He was waiting for me in an office that was designed to intimidate. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Artwork that belonged in museums. A desk of dark wood that looked like it had been carved from a single ancient tree. Furniture that managed to be both minimal and obviously expensive.
And Raphael. Standing by the window with his back to me, perfectly still, perfectly controlled. He wore a charcoal suit that fit him like it had been sewn directly onto his body. Even from behind, he radiated power. Danger. The kind of presence that made you want to back slowly toward the exit.
“Sit down,” he said without turning around.
I sat. The leather chair was cold against the backs of my thighs. I’d worn a dress, something professional, something that said I was here for business. A shield. Or nothing at all.
He turned. Those dark eyes swept over me, cataloging, assessing. I felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch, traveling down my body with measured slowness. My skin prickled. My mouth went dry.
“You look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well.”