Dalia sat in her apartment that night, surrounded by the remnants of a life she was about to abandon. The contract lay spread across her kitchen table like a map to a foreign country, each clause a border crossing that would take her further from the person she'd been and closer to someone she couldn't yet imagine.
Twenty-four hours, he'd said. As if twenty-four hours was enough time to decide whether to sell your soul.
She'd tried calling her mother three times, hanging up before Elena could answer. What would she say? That a stranger was offering to solve all their problems in exchange for Dalia's complete surrender? That the man who might save them was the same one who'd destroyed them, though he didn't know she'd figured that out yet?
Because she had figured it out.
After leaving Cassian's office, she'd spent hours researching the Meridian Tower project, following the paper trail through news articles and legal documents until she found what she was looking for. Ward Enterprises had been the primary investor. They'd pulled their funding when Moreno Construction hit delays, triggering the cascade of lawsuits and creditor demands that had killed her father as surely as a bullet to the heart.
Cassian Ward had ruined her family. And now he wanted to save her from the ruin he'd caused.
The symmetry was so perfect it almost seemed planned.
Her phone buzzed against the table. A text from an unknown number, but she knew who it was before she opened it.
Time is running out, Dalia. Some decisions can't be unmade.
She stared at the message until the screen went dark, showing her reflection ghosted over his words. In twelve hours, a car would either come to collect her or it wouldn't. The choice was still hers to make.
Except it wasn't, really. It never had been.
She picked up her phone and dialed before she could change her mind.
"Ward Enterprises, Margaret Chen speaking."
"It's Dalia Moreno. I've made my decision."
A pause. Then, "I'll let Mr. Ward know immediately. The car will be there at eight AM sharp."
The line went dead before Dalia could say anything else, leaving her alone with the weight of what she'd just done. In the silence that followed, she could almost hear her father's voice, the careful way he'd taught her to read blueprints when she was twelve.
Every line means something, mija. Every measurement matters.
She wondered what he'd think of the contract she was about to sign, what measurements he'd take of the man who'd destroyed his life and now claimed to want to save his daughter's.
She wondered if he'd understand that sometimes survival meant building on a foundation of lies.
The morning came too quickly and not quickly enough. Dalia stood at her window, watching the street below for the car that would change everything. Her belongings were packed in two suitcases and three boxes, the physical remnants of twenty-six years reduced to what could fit in the trunk of a sedan.
The car that arrived was not a sedan.
Black, sleek, and expensive enough to buy her apartment building, it whispered power and money as it glided to the curb. The driver who emerged was built like a bodyguard and dressed like a funeral director, all professional courtesy and eyes that missed nothing.
"Ms. Moreno? I'm James. I'll be driving you to the estate."
Estate. Not house, not home, but estate, as if she were going to visit nobility instead of signing her life away to a man who collected people like art.
The ride through Manhattan was quiet except for the whisper of expensive tires on asphalt and the soft hum of climate control. Dalia watched the city pass outside bulletproof windows, each familiar landmark a goodbye she hadn't expected to feel so sharply.
They crossed the bridge into the suburbs, where money grew quieter but no less evident. Mansions hiding behind gates and hedges, private drives that disappeared into carefully maintained wilderness. The further they went from the city, the more isolated she felt, as if each mile was another layer of protection between Cassian's world and the one she was leaving behind.
The Ward estate announced itself with understated menace. Iron gates that probably cost more than her father's house, security cameras disguised as decorative elements, and a driveway that curved through manicured grounds for what felt like miles before revealing the house.
Calling it a house was like calling the ocean a pond.
Three stories of glass and stone that seemed to emerge from the landscape itself, all clean lines and architectural precision that spoke of unlimited budgets and uncompromising vision. It was beautiful in the way that glaciers were beautiful: cold, imposing, and utterly indifferent to human warmth.
"Mr. Ward is waiting in his study," James said as he helped her from the car. Her luggage disappeared into the hands of staff who materialized from nowhere, moving with the silent efficiency of people who'd learned that being noticed was a luxury they couldn't afford.
The interior was no less impressive than the exterior, all soaring ceilings and artwork that belonged in museums. But it felt more like a mausoleum than a home, everything perfect and untouchable and utterly without the casual chaos that made a space feel lived in.
Cassian's study was smaller than his office but no less intimidating, lined with books that looked like they'd actually been read and furnished with leather and wood that had been aged to perfection. He stood when she entered, dressed casually in dark jeans and a white shirt that probably cost more than her monthly rent, but somehow the informal clothes made him seem more dangerous, not less.
"You came," he said, as if there'd been any doubt.
"Did I have a choice?"
"There's always a choice. The question is whether you're strong enough to make the hard one."
The contract waited on his desk, multiple copies printed on paper so thick it felt substantial in her hands. Next to it, a pen that was probably worth more than her car.
"Before you sign," Cassian said, moving to stand beside her chair close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, "I want to be clear about what this means. Once your name is on that paper, you belong to me. Not as property, but as responsibility. Everything that happens to you becomes my concern. Every decision you make becomes mine to guide or override."
She looked up at him, this man who spoke of ownership like it was a gift, and felt the last of her illusions crumble away.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then James drives you back to your apartment, and we pretend this conversation never happened. You go back to your life, your problems, your mother's exhaustion, and your father's grave." His voice was soft, almost gentle, but the words cut like razors. "And when the eviction notice expires and you're sleeping in your car, you'll remember this moment and wonder what would have happened if you'd been brave enough to take what I was offering."
"Brave." She almost laughed. "Is that what you call this?"
"What would you call it?"
She looked down at the contract, at the clauses that would govern every aspect of her existence, at the salary that would solve every problem she had while creating new ones she couldn't yet imagine.
"Survival."
Something shifted in his expression, a flicker of what might have been approval or satisfaction. "Good. Survival is honest. Survival is practical. Survival is what separates the living from the dead."
The pen felt heavier than it should have in her hand, weighted with the gravity of what she was about to do. Each signature required would bind her more tightly to this man and his world of beautiful cages and velvet chains.
"My mother," she said suddenly. "She can't know about the real terms of this arrangement. She thinks I got a normal job."
"Your mother will receive a generous monthly allowance from Ward Enterprises employee assistance program. She'll be able to quit her night job, maybe take a vacation. She'll think her daughter finally caught a break."
Of course he'd already thought of that. Of course he had a plan for every contingency, every person who might complicate his perfect acquisition of her life.
"Why does it matter to you what she thinks?"
"Because it matters to you. And what matters to you matters to me now."
The casual way he said it, as if her emotions were just another asset he'd purchased, should have horrified her. Instead, she felt something dangerously close to relief. Someone else would make the decisions now. Someone else would bear the weight of keeping her world from collapsing.
Even if that someone was the man who'd helped destroy it in the first place.
She signed her name on the first page, then the second, then the third. Each signature felt like a small death, the Dalia Moreno who'd struggled and scraped and fought to survive disappearing line by line, replaced by someone new. Someone owned.
When the last page was signed, Cassian gathered the documents with the same care a collector might show a newly acquired masterpiece.
"Welcome to your new life," he said, and his smile was sharp enough to cut diamond.
Outside the study windows, the grounds of the estate stretched toward horizons that suddenly felt very far away. Somewhere beyond those carefully maintained borders was the world she'd known, the life she'd just traded for the promise of safety and the certainty of beautiful imprisonment.
She'd made her choice.
Now she had to live with it.
"Margaret will show you to your rooms," Cassian continued, pressing a button on his desk that summoned his assistant with supernatural efficiency. "Dinner is at seven. Dress code is formal. We have a great deal to discuss about your new responsibilities."
As Margaret appeared to escort her away, Dalia caught Cassian's reflection in the window, his dark eyes following her movement with the satisfaction of a predator who'd successfully lured his prey exactly where he wanted it.
She was no longer Dalia Moreno, struggling graphic designer.
She was his now, whatever that meant.
And something told her she was about to find out.