Chapter 10 Lena #2
“I am scared,” I admitted. “I’m terrified, actually. I’m twenty years old and I’m running a hotel that’s falling apart and someone is trying to destroy me and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
My voice cracked on the last word. I pressed my knuckles against my mouth and breathed until I was sure I wouldn’t cry.
“You never taught me any of this.” The words came out harder than I intended.
“You never let me learn. I asked you, Dad. Over and over. I wanted to understand the business, wanted to sit in on meetings, wanted to prove I could handle it. And you always said ‘tomorrow.’ You always patted my head and told me not to worry about grown-up things.”
The anger felt good. Better than the fear, anyway.
“Well, now I have to worry about grown-up things. Now I have to figure it all out on my own because you’re lying here and you can’t help me and you never prepared me for this.”
I reached out and touched his hand. His skin was papery, cool despite the blankets. The IV line ran into the back of his wrist, held in place with surgical tape.
“I signed a contract,” I said quietly. “With Raphael Antonov. You probably know who he is. Everyone with money in this town knows who he is.”
The machines kept their steady rhythm.
“He’s paying off the debt. All of it. Twenty million dollars. In exchange, I… I belong to him. For a year.” The words tasted strange in my mouth. Shameful. “I’m living in his house. Doing whatever he wants. And I can’t even tell if that makes me brave or stupid.”
No response. Of course no response.
“You’d probably be horrified,” I said. “Your daughter, sold like property to save the family name. Or maybe you’d be relieved. At least someone’s handling the mess you made.”
I sat there for a while longer, holding his limp hand, listening to the machines. The heart monitor beeped. The ventilator breathed. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang and was answered.
“I’m going to save the hotel,” I told him finally. “I’m going to figure this out, even though you never thought I could. Even though you never gave me the chance.”
I stood and smoothed the blanket over his chest.
“I’ll come back when I have good news. When I’ve proven you wrong about me.”
I walked out of the ICU without looking back. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The smell of disinfectant followed me to the elevator, down to the lobby, out into the cold January morning.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number: Twenty-three minutes with your father. You told him about our arrangement.
I stopped dead on the hospital steps, my breath forming white clouds in the cold air. He had people here? At the hospital? Watching me visit my comatose father?
Another message: Don’t look so shocked. I told you, Lena. You belong to me now. That means I know everything. Where you go. Who you see. What you say when you think no one’s listening.
My hands shook as I typed back: He can’t hear me. He’s in a coma.
His response came immediately: I heard you.
Three words that made my blood run cold. I heard you. Not “my people heard you.” Not “I was informed.” I heard you. As if he’d been standing right there in the room, invisible, drinking in every confession I’d made to my father’s silent form.
It wasn’t possible. It had to be a figure of speech. But the certainty in those words, the intimacy of the claim, made my skin crawl.
My phone rang. His name on the screen.
I almost didn’t answer. Almost walked to the car and pretended I hadn’t seen it. But something in my gut told me that ignoring Raphael Antonov would be far worse than whatever conversation awaited me.
“What do you want?”
“That’s no way to greet the man who just paid twenty million dollars for you.” His voice was smooth, unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world. “Try again.”
“I’m not in the mood to perform for you.”
“Interesting. You seemed perfectly happy to perform for your comatose father. All that righteous anger, all those pretty accusations. ‘You never taught me any of this. You never let me learn.’” He quoted my exact words back to me, his tone mocking. “Very touching.”
My stomach turned over. “How did you—”
“I told you. I hear everything.” A pause, weighted with something dark. “Now. Let’s discuss what I actually called about. You left the manor without permission this morning.”
“The note said you requested I stay. It didn’t say I was a prisoner.”
“You’re not a prisoner, Lena. You’re mine. There’s a difference.” His voice dropped lower, silkier. “Prisoners can refuse to cooperate. You cannot.”
“I had plans with Clara. Plans that were made before any of this started.”
“And you prioritized those plans over my explicit request that you remain on the premises.”
“Your request was delivered via your housekeeper’s handwriting on a notecard. Forgive me for not treating it as a royal decree.”
Silence stretched between us. When he spoke again, his voice had gone cold.
“You’re going to apologize.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re going to say, ‘I’m sorry I left without your permission, Raphael. It won’t happen again.’”
A laugh escaped me, sharp and incredulous. “I’m not going to say that.”
“Then let’s talk about Michael.”
The name landed like a slap. I stopped walking, my heels frozen on the hospital sidewalk. “What about Michael?”
“Your assistant manager. The one who’s been handling the crisis at the hotel while you’ve been dealing with your family drama. The one who looked at you too long when you left yesterday. The one who kept touching your arm during your conversation in the lobby.”
“He’s been working at the hotel for three years. He’s a colleague. A friend.”
“He’s a man who wants you.” Raphael’s voice was flat, factual. “And he’s a man whose employment depends entirely on whether you stay in my good graces.”
The threat hung in the air, poisonous.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” Something shifted in his tone, something almost amused. “I own your hotel’s debt. I could call in favors, make his life very difficult. References that never get written. Future employers who suddenly aren’t hiring. It would be such a shame for someone with his potential.”
“This is insane. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Neither have you. Not yet. So let’s keep it that way.” His voice softened, turning intimate in a way that made my skin prickle. “Say the words, Lena. ‘I’m sorry I left without your permission.’”
I closed my eyes. Saw Michael’s earnest face, his dedication to the hotel that was the only thing keeping us functioning during this nightmare.
“I’m sorry I left without your permission.”
“Good girl.” The praise slid through me, warm and awful. “Now add ‘I understand that where I go and who I see is your business now.’”
“That’s not—”
“Lena.” Just my name, but it carried the weight of all the leverage he held. Twenty million dollars. My family’s legacy. Michael’s career.
“I understand that where I go and who I see is your business now.” The words tasted like ash.
“And finally: ‘I belong to you.’”
“I already signed the contract. You know I—”
“I want to hear you say it. Right now. While you’re standing outside your father’s hospital, where you just told him all about how you’ve sold yourself to save his mess.
” His voice dropped to barely a whisper.
“Say it, or I’ll find something else to take from you.
Something you’ll miss more than your pride. ”
The January wind cut through my coat. My hands shook.
“I belong to you.”
“Again. Like you mean it.”
“I belong to you.”
“There it is.” Satisfaction curled through his voice. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now go enjoy your brunch with Clara. Tell her all about the monster who owns you. But remember this conversation when you’re tempted to disobey me again.”
The line went dead.
I stood there for a long moment, the phone clutched in my frozen fingers, my pulse hammering against my ribs. He had made me say those words. Made me capitulate with nothing but the threat of harming someone I cared about.
And the worst part, the part I couldn’t admit even to myself, was how some small, twisted piece of me had thrilled at the command in his voice.
The fresh air hit me when I stepped outside the hospital’s sliding doors.
I hadn’t realized how much the house had felt like a gilded cage until I was out of it, breathing in January air that smelled like pine trees and snow and freedom.
The cold stung my cheeks and made my eyes water, and I welcomed it.
I felt more awake than I had since I’d opened my eyes this morning.
Parsons drove in silence, which I appreciated. I watched the mountain landscape blur past my window, the pine forests giving way to the manicured grounds of Paradise Peaks’ luxury estates, and tried to organize the chaos rattling around in my skull.
I had a year of this ahead of me. Three hundred and sixty-five nights in that house, in that room, subject to his whims and his desires and whatever dark games he wanted to play. Last night had been just the first. Twenty-nine more nights to go before I’d earned my first payment.
I could survive this. I had to survive this.
But the memory of his fingers sliding between my lips, the chocolate melting on my tongue while his dark eyes watched me with an intensity that made my stomach flip, suggested that survival might be more complicated than I’d anticipated.
Clara was already waiting when I arrived at Café Montagne, one of those upscale brunch establishments where the coffee cost eight dollars and the avocado toast cost twenty-five.
She’d claimed a corner table near the windows, her dark hair catching the winter sunlight, her posture perfect even in casual clothes.
She took one look at me and her perfectly sculpted eyebrows climbed toward her hairline.
“You look like death warmed over and then frozen again.”
“Thanks.” I collapsed into the chair across from her, grateful for the padded seat. “You look annoyingly perfect, as always. It’s exhausting.”