The Deal
THE LETTERS DIDN'T make sense.
Maika had been sitting on the floor of her apartment for two hours, her father's papers fanned out around her in a semicircle that she had initially organized by date, then reorganized by level of terror.
But it didn't work. If anything, seeing all those numbers typed in red ink, encircled, and in bold just made everything worse.
She understood "balance due." She understood "final notice." She understood the one that had IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED stamped across the top in red ink, because she was a literature major, not illiterate.
But the rest of it, the paragraphs about "collateralized obligations" and "outstanding principal with accrued interest" and something called a "demand note" that was exactly as threatening as it sounded? They might as well have been written in a different language.
She had Googled "what happens if you can't pay someone else's debt" and the answers alone were enough to delete her browser history and start again. She had thought to herself, maybe...
Maybe if I'm more specific, the answers might be...kinder?
So she had asked Google if it could find any real-life stories about nineteen-year-old college sophomores who only had less than fifty dollars (no, wait, if she had to be specific, make that $46.
23) in their bank account but were suddenly obliged to pay for their father's debts.
And that father—it had to be said, just to be really specific—happened to have been absent their entire life since he was behind bars in another country.
Unfortunately, Google hadn't any answer to that, and so she had asked ChatGPT the same thing, but nope. Not a single story. And that was why she had ended up here, on the floor, surrounded by someone else's bills, and she just didn't know—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Maika's heart hammered against her chest the moment she heard this.
Two men had come to her door yesterday. Her father had owed them money, they said quite pleasantly, and it was her duty to pay them. She was blood, after all, and they weren't interested to hear about how she had never even seen her father, and he had never even tried to contact her.
Ever.
The men had only told her they would be back tomorrow, and unfortunately, their words had sounded more like a threat than a promise. Worse, yesterday's tomorrow was today, and when they knocked again, she was so, so tempted to just crawl under her bed and hide until they went away.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Please just go away.
"Ms. Nolan? This is campus security."
C-Campus security?
Maika's legs shook as she forced herself to get to her feet. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt like she was about to have a heart attack at any moment. She raised herself on her toes and pressed one eye to the peephole—
Oh, thank goodness!
Maika quickly opened the door, her body shaking in relief. "Uh, w-what is it?"
"My name is Officer Anson." The older man showed her his security badge and ID. "We've been informed you received unwanted visitors yesterday?"
"I...yes."
"Our deepest apologies for the lapse in security," Officer Anson said gravely.
Maika quickly shook her head. "It's not your fault—"
"We've already filed a report regarding yesterday's visit. It won't happen again. May we invite you to the security office to confirm certain details?"
Maika nodded in quick agreement. "Yes, of course."
And that was how she ended up in this small bare room, and they even offered her coffee and pastries, which she was quite grateful for, but at the same time it also made her question her priorities in life.
She couldn't even remember the last time she had been able to buy herself any kind of pastries.
Her whole life, she had just been so busy making ends meet and keeping up with the requirements of her scholarship—
The door opened, and Maika straightened, expecting the kind Officer Anson to return, but instead it was someone else. An older man in a suit, with a smile she initially thought as kind, until he stepped to the side to hold the door open—
Oh no.
When Maika was old enough to understand how the Internet worked, the first thing she had done was to search anything she could find about her father, and it was how she eventually learned that her mother had lied to her.
Her father Homer was not a good man. But he was loyal to the person he worked for, Diogenes, who at his peak had been the head of the most powerful Greek-American mafia family. Homer's refusal to cooperate was why he had ended up serving a life sentence...and his daughter fatherless.
Maika had asked her mother if she could contact Homer, but her mother had said 'no.'
This is the only good thing your father has done for us. For as long as there's no contact between him and us, we stay alive. Don't let his sacrifice be in vain.
And that was that.
Maika was a girl who always kept her promises.
She never tried to contact Homer, but she had kept herself in the loop (secretly).
She had made herself familiar with the people connected to his past, just in case any of them went after her.
She just felt that was important, having watched Narcos and all, and well...
It actually paid off.
Because all that sleuthing was the only reason why she recognized who the man was that was now seated at the head of the table like he was the one calling shots.
Mykos Ravensworth.
Dark-haired, devastatingly handsome, and possibly the deadliest man she was ever likely to meet. The world knew him as a self-made billionaire...and the only son of her father's former boss. He was also the first man to make her heart race in sheer terror and shameful desire at the same time.
Oh, Maika, you idiot!
She slowly tried to stand up, thinking that she should at least be on her feet in case either of them wanted to kill her or anything—
"Please stay seated, despoinís."
But you know what? Sitting down was a good idea, too. She was currently outnumbered 2:1, and so another good idea was not to argue with a man who wielded so much power he and his bodyguard had easily commandeered a room right inside the campus security office like they owned the entire university.
Maika's hands curled around the armrests as the man she formerly thought was kind closed the door behind him. Then he turned back to her and smiled again, but nope, she wasn't buying it this time. It was like a gentle old shark smiling at her. A shark was still a shark, regardless of their age.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Nolan."
Why wasn't she surprised that they knew her name? Had they been surveilling her all this time?
"My name is Orion."
As in the constellation? That had to be a fake name. Right?
"We'd like to ask you a few questions regarding an unauthorized visit that took place yesterday."
Maika's attention was torn between Orion's words and the fact that Mykos Ravensworth's golden gaze was slowly traveling over her from head to toe even as the chiseled features of his handsome face remained coldly impassive.
She tried to put herself in his shoes, but her imagination simply wasn't up to the challenge.
She knew what he was seeing when he looked at her: a girl with shoulder-length blond hair and green eyes, dressed in a sweater that had seen better days, and ripped jeans that actually weren't ripped when she first bought them.
But what he thought about Maika while looking at her, though...
Though she be but little, she is fierce.
The line came to her unbidden, because that was what Maika did when she was scared.
She quoted Shakespeare. She had first fallen in love with him when she read A Midsummer Night's Dream in middle school, and since then, it had somehow become her coping mechanism.
When one was afraid, one must quote Shakespeare, and—
"You're aware of who I am."
Maika nearly jumped in her seat when he suddenly spoke. He, as in Mykos Ravensworth himself, whose Greek accent was to die for.
Stop thinking about stupid things, Maika!
"Correct?"
Maika managed a nod.
"Then you're aware of the relationship between your father and mine?"
She nodded again, albeit jerkily this time.
"And you are aware of his recent passing?"
Maika nodded the third time. The less said, the safer. Thank goodness for all those movies and TV shows she had watched over the years.
"And the debts he incurred?"
Maika swallowed hard. "I..." Was this some kind of trick question?
"It's alright, Ms. Nolan," Orion assured her. "You have nothing to be afraid of."
She wished she could believe him, but what if they were lying?
"Your father was very loyal to the family, Ms. Nolan. We would like to repay the favor by providing assistance." Orion stepped forward and placed a brown envelope in her hands. "Inside is a list of all the documents pertaining to the loans taken out under your father's name without his knowledge."
It was Maika's first time to hear all this. "Are you saying...he was scammed?"
"Yes, unfortunately so. Based on our investigation, they didn't target your father for any reason connected to his history with our family. Your father was simply...unlucky. His data was leaked, and the scammers didn't hesitate to make use of it."
"And the...the money he owes?"
"It totals $240,000."
Maika's jaw dropped. "I'm sorry," she heard herself say unevenly, "did you just say—"
Orion repeated the amount, and it was exactly what she heard.
She nearly fell out of her chair.
"I'm afraid it gets worse."
Seriously? It wasn't enough that she was suddenly saddled with a debt amounting to almost a quarter million dollars? What could be worse—
"The scammers also borrowed money from loan sharks. The kind that cuts off fingers when debtors don't pay in time."
Okay, that wasn't just worse but the worst!
"Mr. Ravensworth, however, can make that all go away."
Her gaze flew to the billionaire's, just in time to see Mykos Ravensworth nod at Orion, and Orion nodded back, and wait, what did that mean? Was that a mafia signal for—wait! Where was Orion going? Was he—was he going to leave her alone with his boss?
She jumped to her feet when she saw that Orion had already reached for the doorknob.
She knew she was being silly. She knew it was mathematically safer for her to be in a room with just one man than two.
But...this was Mykos Ravensworth, and the stories that followed him like a shadow weren't just stories.
They were the truth stained in blood, and so—
Nooooooo!
The door had already closed behind Orion by the time she took a step.
But that was all she managed.
A step.
Because Maika...was clumsy as always, and the next thing she knew, she was already falling and falling and somehow, an arm had curved around her waist, and she found herself falling straight into the lap of the very man she had been desperate to avoid.
"Are you alright?"
He had her so, so nervous that she somehow ended up nodding and shaking her head at the same time while her mind was in a daze, and her heart, well, it seemed ready to leap out of her chest at any moment.
This...this...was the closest she had ever been to a man, and—
Oh!
Fingers cupped her chin, and she didn't know if it was because she was terrified or excited, but she couldn't find it in herself to refuse Mykos as he slowly turned her to face him.
"Would you like me to help you, matia mou?"
She had no idea what he had just called her, but one thing Maika was sure of was how impossible it was for his help to come without a price.
His golden eyes took hers captive, and try as she might, she just couldn't read anything in his gaze. Weren't their eyes the windows to their soul? Why then did his possess neither light nor darkness, but simply...
"Do you want to know," he asked slowly, in a voice that seemed to be lower and huskier, "what I want in return?"
Fear clawed her throat, and the part of her that was causing Maika to tremble wanted to say no. But there was another part of her. Another part of her that wanted something else, something she didn't yet know—
Somehow, it was that part of Maika that won by whispering, "Yes."
And that was when she finally saw something.
His eyes.
They finally came alive, his golden eyes glittering in a way that was almost feral...in its possessiveness.
"I want you to become my wife."
Maika could hardly believe her ears. "W-Why?"
"It's not for you to know right now."
"W-Will any woman do—"
"No."
He said it so easily, but also coldly, and she just didn't know what to make of that.
"And if I...if I refuse?"
"Then you'll lose what little you have."
This was her life on the line, but it was just so, so hard to think straight with Maika still seated on his lap, his arm around her waist, and—
"But if you say yes to becoming mine..."
Mykos didn't give her a chance to speak, not with him stealing her first ever first kiss as his mouth covered hers.
Oh. My. Gosh.
She could only clutch his shoulders as the kiss deepened, and by the time he pulled her close, she had given up trying to think, and she found herself slowly...clumsily...and actually kissing him back.
Because this kiss, oh this kiss...
My lips, two blushing pilgrims—
It was all her brain could offer. She always reached for Shakespeare when the world stopped making sense, but the rest of the line wouldn't come, because the rest of her mind had simply...surrendered.
Maika had never even let herself dream of what it would be like to be kissed. If she had to dream, she simply imagined herself living in that nice little midsummer world of magic that Shakespeare had created. That was the only dream she considered safe.
But not this.
Never this.
And so when Mykos finally lifted his head...
Her cheeks were on fire, her senses were reeling, and worst of all, she couldn't make herself run away, couldn't make herself look away or even say a thing when Mykos slowly traced her lips.
"I think I already have my answer. Don't I...matia mou?"