19. The Offer
THE OFFER
RILEY
Victor's voice cut through the speaker before I'd even closed the door to Luca's home office.
"Sign the term sheet by noon, Luca, or the funding freeze becomes permanent."
I stopped with one hand still wrapped around the brass handle.
Luca sat at the table in a white dress shirt, the sleeves shoved to his elbows, his jaw locked hard enough to make the muscle jump. Donny stood behind him, both palms braced on the back of an empty chair. They hadn't even noticed me yet.
Luca's voice stayed low. "You froze the funds to force me into a fight."
"I paused disbursement because the board lost confidence in your ability to protect its investment." Victor sounded almost bored. Polished. Reasonable. Like he hadn't just put hundreds of jobs behind a locked door and slid Luca the key. "The contract restores that confidence."
My gaze dropped to the packet in front of Luca. A black tab marked SIGNATURE waited at the bottom of the page.
Ten million dollars.
The number had already been everywhere online. One comeback fight. One arena. One night of Luca becoming the man strangers still believed they owned.
Donny leaned toward the speaker. "You mean the contract gives you a spectacle to sell."
Victor ignored him. "The resort's next funding release is scheduled for today. Without my authorization, it does not move. Construction stalls. Vendor payments stop. Expansion dies before the end of the quarter."
A cold pressure settled beneath my ribs.
The resort wasn't just marble floors and ocean-view suites. It was the kitchen staff, the housekeepers, the servers, landscapers, coordinators, security guards. People with rent due and families waiting at home.
Luca's thumb pressed against the edge of the term sheet until the paper bent.
"How long?" he asked.
"You have three hours."
"That isn't a board decision," Donny snapped. "It's extortion."
Victor's image flickered across the screen, his expression untouched. "Call it whatever helps you sleep. At noon, the offer expires. So does my patience."
The call disconnected. Silence dropped into the room, thick and immediate.
Luca stared at the blank screen as the contract's bent corner split beneath his thumb.
Then Donny said, "Tell me you're not considering this."
Luca didn't answer.
And that frightened me more than Victor's threat.
Donny moved first. He came around the table and slapped one palm over the contract. "No."
Luca's gaze lifted slowly. "Move your hand."
"You're not signing this."
"That wasn't a request."
The air between them tightened. I stayed near the door, suddenly aware of how little space there was between family and business when both were already bleeding.
Donny laughed once, but there was nothing amused in it.
"You think I don't recognize this? Someone corners you, questions you, tells you you're not enough, and suddenly you need to prove you're still the most dangerous man in the room.
Then come the cameras, the parties, the headlines, and every other excuse to turn yourself into a spectacle. "
Luca pushed back from the table. The chair legs scraped hard against the floor.
"Watch it."
"No. You watch it." Donny jabbed a finger at the term sheet. "Victor knows exactly which wound to press."
Luca stood. "This isn't about me."
"Bullshit."
The word cracked across the room.
Donny's face had gone pale beneath his anger. For the first time, I saw fear under it. Not fear of Luca. Fear for him.
"You said that before every bad decision," Donny continued.
"It was always the gym. The title. The sponsors.
The people depending on you. Never the rush.
Never the noise afterward—the clubs, the cameras, the strangers cheering every reckless thing you did.
Never the part where all of it was easier than sitting still long enough to feel anything. "
Luca's expression hardened into something blank and brutal. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I was there."
The quiet in Donny's voice cut deeper than the shouting had.
"I was there when you couldn't sleep unless you were exhausted enough to pass out. I was there when every win made you meaner because it still wasn't enough. And I was there when you almost let that cage take everything you had left."
Luca's hands curled at his sides.
Donny swallowed, then looked away for half a second. "I'm not watching it happen again."
Something shifted in Luca's face. Small enough that I might have missed it if I hadn't spent weeks learning every guarded version of him.
Then it vanished.
"You think letting this resort collapse protects anyone?" Luca asked. "You think the employees care whether I feel emotionally balanced while their checks bounce?"
"I think Victor gave you a false choice, and you're reaching for it because part of you wants him to."
Luca stepped closer.
"Get out."
Donny didn't move.
"Luca—"
"Get. Out."
Donny stared at him, hurt flashing raw before anger covered it again. He lifted his hand from the contract and walked toward the door. That was when he finally saw me.
His eyes flicked from my face to Luca's, and whatever he read there made his mouth tighten.
"Good luck," he muttered.
I couldn't tell which one of us he meant.
Donny brushed past me without another word, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft click that somehow felt louder than the shouting.
Luca turned toward the windows.
For one second, I considered following Donny. Everything in the room told me I had walked into something private, something carved out long before I knew either of them. But Luca's shoulders stayed rigid beneath his shirt, and the contract remained under his hand like a live wire.
"Is Ava okay?" he asked.
The question came flat. Controlled.
"She's in her room with her headphones. She asked for some no-talking time."
"That makes two of us."
I waited for him to look at me. He didn't.
Outside, sunlight flashed off the water hard enough to sting my eyes. Just a few feet away, the resort kept moving as if no one had just threatened to pull the foundation out from under it.
"I heard Victor," I said. "And Donny."
That earned me a glance—brief, guarded. "Then you heard enough."
The dismissal landed harder than it should have.
I folded my arms, more to hold myself together than to make a point. "I came because you left breakfast without saying anything."
"I had business to handle."
The word business built a wall between us in a single breath.
I looked at the contract. "This affects more than business."
His expression closed further. "Not now, Riley."
"Then when?"
His jaw tightened. "I don't have time to manage everyone's feelings."
Heat crawled up my neck.
Cameras had followed me from the curb to the lobby. Strangers had dissected my clothes, my job, and my place in Luca's life. None of it had shaken me as badly as the way he was looking through me now.
Standing there, I suddenly wasn't sure.
"I'm not asking you to manage me."
"Then don't make this harder."
The words were quiet. That made them worse.
I stared at him, waiting for the softness he saved for Ava. For the man who had held my hand in his and looked at me in a way that made me feel more than temporary.
He gave me nothing.
"Right," I said. "Business only."
Something flickered in his eyes, but he looked back at the term sheet before I could name it.
I reached for the door.
"Riley."
My hand paused on the handle.
He didn't tell me to stay. He didn't apologize. He only stood there with ten million dollars between us and three hours bleeding away. So I opened the door and walked out, carrying the ugly realization that the paparazzi had made me feel exposed.
Luca had made me feel invisible.
When I left Luca's office, the tension still clung to me like a second skin. Ava was still in her room for her quiet time, the door pulled nearly shut, a soft barrier between her world and everything else.
I didn't go in.
Instead, I wandered into the living room and found the low table scattered with her things—colored pencils, a half-finished drawing, a small box of seashells she'd collected earlier in the week.
I sank onto the rug and picked up one of the pencils, turning it between my fingers, trying to steady the restless energy inside me.
A few minutes later, the door creaked open.
Ava stepped out, her expression calm in that way that always felt older than her years. She paused when she saw me on the floor, then walked over without a word and sat beside me.
She studied the table, then reached for her shells. "We can sort them."
"Okay."
For the next twenty minutes, we sat cross-legged on the rug, arranging and rearranging the shells. Ava sorted them by color, then size, her careful precision giving order to a morning that had none.
"Daddy is working," she said without looking up.
"He is."
"Hard working?"
My throat tightened. "Very hard."
She placed a pale scallop beside a darker one, frowned, and switched them. "His face was loud at breakfast."
The accuracy of it stole my answer.
Ava noticed the things adults worked hardest to hide. She might not name fear or anger the way other children did, but she understood when the air around someone changed.
"Daddy has a difficult decision to make," I said.
She rubbed her thumb along the scallop's ridged edge. "You help him."
"I tried."
Ava finally looked at me, her expression solemn. "Try again."
Apparently, seven-year-olds didn't believe in emotional surrender. Or tact.
A small laugh slipped out of me, loosening something tight beneath my ribs. "Okay. I'll try again."
Satisfied, she carried her shells to the cushioned window seat in her room and announced that she needed "no-talking time." Maria promised to stay nearby while I went looking for Luca.
I found him in the office, the door slightly ajar. He stood inside with both hands planted on the table, unaware of me in the hallway. The fight contract lay open beneath him. Donny was gone. Victor's face had disappeared from the screen. Even the assistants who usually hovered nearby had vanished.