Thorne’s Contract Bound by Obsession

The Price of a Soul

The message on the burner phone felt like a physical blow to the chest.

The fire that killed your parents didn't start in the basement. It started in the Thorne Industries server room.

My breath came in shallow, jagged hitches. I looked at the heavy door of my bedroom, then toward the hallway where the man who had just "saved" my brother was currently watching a surveillance feed of my ghost.

Was this his game? Destroy my life, wait for the dust to settle, and then step in as the hero so he could own the wreckage?

I forced myself to move. I couldn't stay in that room, vibrating with a terror that tasted like copper. I needed to see him. I needed to look into those glacial eyes and see if I could find a flicker of the arsonist behind the billionaire.

I stepped back out into the hallway. The penthouse was silent now, the screens in the living room dark. The only light came from the moon, casting long, skeletal shadows across the marble floors.

Alex was gone from the floor. He was standing on the balcony, the floor-to-ceiling glass doors slid wide open. The humid, post-storm air of Manhattan swirled into the climate-controlled perfection of the apartment.

He didn't turn around when I approached. He was leaning against the railing, his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that looked like they were corded with steel.

"You should be asleep, Evelyn," he said. He didn't sound angry. He sounded hollow.

"I can't sleep in a museum of my own life," I said, walking to the edge of the threshold. I kept the burner phone hidden in my silk robe pocket, my fingers white-knuckled around it. "Why the fire, Alex?"

He went perfectly still. The city hummed sixty stories below us—sirens, tires on wet asphalt, the heartbeat of a world that didn't care if I lived or died.

"The fire was a tragedy," he said slowly, turning to face me. The moonlight hit the sharp angles of his face, making him look like something ancient and unforgiving. "Your father was a brilliant architect, but a careless businessman. He took risks with the wrong people."

"And you're the right people?" I stepped out onto the balcony, the wind whipping my damp hair across my face. "My investigator said the fire started at your company. In your servers."

Alex’s eyes narrowed. A dark, dangerous energy rolled off him, more suffocating than the humidity. He walked toward me, his stride predatory. I refused to back away, even when he reached out and gripped the railing on either side of my waist, pinning me against the cold metal.

"You hired an investigator," he murmured, leaning down until our foreheads almost touched. "I told you, Evie. I know everything. I know about the man you hired. I also know he took a bribe from the same loan sharks holding your brother's life over your head to point the finger at me."

"You're lying," I whispered, though my heart was betraying me, thundering against my ribs.

"Am I?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, high-tech tablet. He tapped a command, and a bank statement appeared. It showed a wire transfer of fifty thousand dollars to my investigator. The source: Apex Holdings.

"That’s a shell company for the syndicate your brother owes," Alex said, his voice a low, terrifying silk. "They didn't just want your money, Evie. They wanted you isolated. They wanted you to believe the only man capable of protecting you was your enemy."

I looked at the screen, my head spinning. The world was a hall of mirrors, and I was lost in the center. "How do I know this isn't a fake? How do I know you didn't send that money just to discredit him?"

Alex’s grip on the railing tightened. He let go with one hand and cupped the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin behind my ear. It was a gesture of terrifying intimacy.

"Because if I wanted you destroyed, Evelyn, I wouldn't have spent two million dollars tonight," he growled. "I would have let them kick in that door. I would have let them take you. I wouldn't have spent three years making sure no other hand touched you but mine."

The confession hung between us, heavy and toxic. No other hand touched you but mine.

"You've been clearing the field," I realized, my voice trembling. "Every job I lost, every person who turned me away... that wasn't just my father's reputation. That was you."

"I was making sure you had nowhere else to go," he admitted, his eyes burning with an obsessive fire that made my skin crawl and my blood sing all at once. "I don't leave things to chance. And I don't share."

He leaned in closer, his lips ghosting over mine. I could taste the scotch on his breath, see the raw, jagged edges of a man who had everything but possessed nothing.

"You're mine, Evie. Not by contract. Not by law. But because I’ve woven myself into the very fabric of your survival."

I should have pushed him away. I should have screamed. But the power imbalance was so absolute, the magnetic pull of his darkness so strong, that I found myself reaching up, my hand hovering over his heart.

"You're a devil," I whispered.

"And you're the only angel I've ever allowed into my hell," he replied.

He crushed his lips to mine.

It wasn't a kiss of love. It was a claim. It was hard, demanding, and tasted of desperation and salt. It was the sound of a trap snapping shut. My hands flew to his chest to push him back, but the moment my palms met the heat of his skin, my fingers curled into his shirt. I hated him. I hated him with every fiber of my being, yet I was drowning, and he was the only thing solid in the ocean.

He pulled back just an inch, his breathing ragged. "The gala is in twelve hours. You will wear the red dress. You will smile. You will tell the world you love me."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll show you exactly how the fire started," he said, his eyes turning stone-cold again.

He stepped back, leaving me shivering in the wind. He turned to go back inside, but stopped at the glass door.

"Oh, and Evie?"

I looked up, my lips still burning from his touch.

"The investigator you're so fond of? He’s currently at the bottom of the East River. Don't bother checking the burner phone again. It’s already been wiped."

He slid the door shut and locked it.

I stood alone on the balcony, sixty stories above the world, trapped in a gilded cage with a man who had killed my hope to make himself my only savior.

I looked down at the street below. At that moment, a black SUV pulled up to the curb of the building across the street. A man stepped out, holding a long-lens camera. He aimed it directly at me, the flash invisible in the dawn light, but I felt the shutter click like a guillotine.

I wasn't just Alex's secret.

I was someone else's target.