Clareire pressed her palm against the cold mahogany panel of the hallway wall. Her left ankle throbbing with a pain so
sharp it felt like a thousand shards of glass were grinding into her bones with every breath she took. The crystal
chandelier hanging above her blurred through the rising burn of tears she refused to let fall because she’d
learned 6 months ago that showing weakness in this house was the same as bleeding in sharkinfested waters. She
wouldn’t let him see her break. I told you to walk straight, Clare. Damian Cross’s voice cut through the silence
like a blade drawn slowly across skin, low and unhurried. Each word measured with the precision of a man who’d never
needed to raise his voice to make people kneel. He stood at the far end of the endless corridor, arms crossed over a
black three-piece suit that cost more than her father’s entire debt had been before the interest multiplied it into a
death sentence. His gray eyes tracking her unsteady steps the way a predator watches wounded prey, deciding whether
to run or collapse. At 37, Damian Cross controlled half the ports in Boston,
owned judges and politicians the way other men owned cars, and had built his empire on bones he’d buried so deep no
one would ever find them. And for the past 6 months, he’d owned her, too. “You’re making a fool of yourself,” he
said. And the words weren’t shouted, weren’t snarled, just delivered in that
same calm, even tone that made her skin crawl. because angry men she understood.
But a man who could order someone’s death with the same inflection he used to order coffee was something else entirely. Clare tried to straighten,
shifting her weight onto her good leg. But the pain in her left ankle flared so violently she had to catch herself
against the wall just to stay upright. The ache shot upward through her thigh, and sweat gathered at the nape of her
neck despite the November cold seeping through the sealed windows of the Beacon Hill mansion. Two nights ago, his sister
Vivien had pushed her down the grand staircase, and Damen had stood at the bottom, watching her crumple like a
broken doll, then simply called for his private physician the way someone might call for a maid to clean up spilled
wine. No anger toward Vivien. No concern for Clare, just cold, efficient problem
solving. “I can’t,” she whispered, her voice cracked and thin as paper about to tear. “Can’t or won’t.” He took three
measured steps toward her, and Clare pressed herself harder against the wall, as if the wood might swallow her whole
and hide her from those winter storm eyes. His face didn’t change, and that was what terrified her most because
other cruel men showed their darkness in their expressions. But Damen Cross wore his brutality like a second skin, so
natural it didn’t even register on his features. My fianceé doesn’t limp. My fianceé stands straight beside me at
every gala, every meeting, every moment that matters. The fundraiser begins in two days. Clare, you will be ready. You
will be perfect. And you will not embarrass me in front of people who control half this country’s fortune. She
nodded because what choice did she have? 6 months ago, she’d been a nurse working double shifts at a free clinic in South
Boston, coming home to a cramped studio apartment, and a father drowning in gambling debts he’d accumulated, trying
to fill the hole her mother left when she walked out 22 years ago. Then the men in black suits came, and Damen Cross
stepped out of a Rolls-Royce, into her crumbling life like a devil, offering a deal she couldn’t refuse. one year as
his fake fiance, a pretty face to polish his public image, and in exchange her father’s $250,000 debt would disappear
along with the threat of him disappearing into the Charles River. She’d signed her freedom away to save a man who’d already sold her once. Damen
turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing through the corridor like a funeral march, and Clare watched him
disappear around the corner before her body finally gave out, and she slid down the wall, one leg no longer able to hold
her weight. She sat on the polished hardwood floor, her back against the mahogany panel, the pain in her ankle
burning like fire while the bruise spread beneath her skin dark as spilled ink. 3 hours. She had 3 hours to learn
how to walk like nothing was broken, or to find a way out of this gilded cage before it became her tomb. If you’re
drawn into Clare’s world and want to walk beside her through what comes next, hit that subscribe button and tap the
bell so you won’t miss a single chapter. Drop a like if this story’s already got its hooks in you, and share it with
someone who loves tales of survival, power, and dangerous love. Now, let me tell you how Clare ended up signing her
life away to a man whose empire was built on blood 6 months earlier, on the
fateful night that changed everything. Clare had just finished a 12-hour shift at the free clinic in South Boston and
was climbing the rickety staircase of the aging apartment building where she and her father rented a studio on the
third floor when a strange sound drifted down from above. The crash of breaking objects, a man’s groan, and the survival
instinct she had sharpened over 11 years since the horrific night when she was 17 took over instantly, driving her to run
faster, taking the steps three at a time until she kicked open the apartment door and saw the scene that made the blood in
her veins turn cold. Her father, Thomas Ashford, was kneeling in the middle of the floor with blood streaming from his
nose and lips, surrounded by three men in black suits, one of them delivering another punch to his face that sent him
sprawling onto the rotten wooden floor. Clare didn’t scream, didn’t cry. She lunged straight into the kitchen,
grabbed the largest meat cleaver she could find, and spun back around, planting herself in front of her father
with the blade pointed at the strangers, her voice shaking, but her eyes steady as she said that anyone who took another
step would lose a finger. One of the three men, the tallest with salt and pepper hair and eyes cold as stone,
looked at her with something closer to curiosity than fear, then pulled out his phone and made a call, his voice low,
and even as he said into the receiver that there was something interesting he should come see. And Clare didn’t know
then that the man he was calling was the devil who would buy her life outright. 20 minutes later, a gleaming black
Rolls-Royce stopped in front of the decrepit building like an object from another world. And when Damian Cross
stepped through the narrow doorway of her cramped apartment, he carried with him an air that made the entire room
seem to shrink, as if even the walls wanted to bow to his presence. He didn’t look at his men, didn’t look at her
father groaning on the floor. He only looked at her, at the knife in her hand, at the long scar on her left arm,
exposed by her rolled up sleeve. And his gray eyes didn’t blink when he said she had 10 seconds to put the knife down
before he changed his mind about letting her father live. Clare set the knife down. not out of fear, but because she
knew when she was beaten. And Damen Cross smiled for the first time she ever saw a cold. The humorless curve of the
lips, then laid out the terms in a voice as calm as if he were reading a business contract. Her father’s life now carried
a price tag of $250,000 plus interest, and Clare was the only currency he was
willing to accept to clear the ledger for the next 12 months. Clare refused, and Damen Cross nodded to the salt and
pepper-haired man, Theodore, who immediately drove another kick into her father’s ribs, making him scream in
