Chapter 2

The gray morning light cut through the penthouse shears like a dull knife.

Hazel woke to a throbbing ache that ran from her hips to the base of her skull. Her eyes felt swollen, her throat raw. She lay frozen on the king-sized bed, clutching the torn edge of the top sheet to her chest.

Beside her, the man was fast asleep.

Even in rest, his features carried a lethal, aristocratic sharpness. A straight, high nose, a square jaw covered in dark stubble, and broad shoulders marked with long, angry red scratches. On his left wrist rested a platinum Patek Philippe with a crest of a falcon clutching a sword.

Hazel's stomach dropped into a bottomless void. She knew that crest. It belonged to the Montgomery family, the ruthless conglomerate that owned half of Wall Street.

Her fingers trembled as she reached down to the floor, fishing her cracked‑screen phone out from under her torn jeans. Fine spiderwebbing fractures spread across the display, yet it still powered on.

The screen lit up with five missed calls and a text from Saint Jude's Memorial Hospital sent at 3:15 AM:

"Patient Liam Hayes has passed away due to cardiac arrest following respiratory failure. Please contact the front desk."

The breath caught in Hazel's throat. A cold numbness washed down her arms, freezing her fingers solid.

Liam was gone. The only boy from the orphanage who had ever shared a crust of bread with her, the gentle soul who had wasted away in a state hospital bed, was dead while she was trapped in this billionaire's bed.

Beside her, the man shifted with a low, gravelly groan. His heavy arm reached across the mattress, searching for her warmth.

Hazel flinched, rolling off the edge of the bed. Her bare feet hit the cold floorboards, and a sharp, tearing pain in her lower abdomen nearly brought her to her knees. She grabbed her torn clothes from the rug and bolted into the master bathroom, slamming the lock home.

She leaned against the marble counter, staring into the vanity mirror. Her neck, collarbone, and shoulders were covered in dark purple bruises. The scarlet flame birthmark on her collarbone was swollen from his teeth.

She turned on the faucet, cupping freezing water in her hands and scrubbing her skin until it burned bright pink. She hated the water. She hated the bruises. She hated the man sleeping on the other side of the mahogany door.

She pulled on her torn shirt, buttoning it from the third loop down, and tucked it into her jeans. When she stepped out of the bathroom, the man had not moved.

She looked at the platinum watch on his wrist. Men like him bought women for sport, threw them away, and erased their names from security logs. If he woke up and realized what happened, his legal team would crush her like an ant to protect his reputation.

Hazel unzipped her canvas wallet. Inside was a single, crumpled one-hundred-dollar bill. Her entire emergency food budget for the week.

She smoothed the paper against the nightstand, grabbed her red lipstick from her purse, and wrote five words on the mirror beside the bed:

"Thanks for the service. Keep the change."

She slapped the hundred-dollar bill directly under the glass.

Outside the suite door, heavy footsteps and the low crackle of security radios echoed through the hallway. His guards were approaching.

Hazel looked toward the suite's glass door. The main exit was blocked. She stepped onto the narrow private terrace. The cold morning wind whipped her dark hair across her face, sixty stories above the Manhattan pavement. Below her lay a narrow metal maintenance gantry leading to the adjacent fire stairwell.

She gritted her teeth, swung her legs over the concrete parapet, and dropped.

Her sneakers hit the metal grating with a dull clank. Pain shot through her right ankle, stealing her breath. She didn't stop. She limped down the iron stairs into the alley below.

Thirty minutes later, the suite door was kicked open.

Arthur Foster, head of Alistair's personal security, rushed in with two bodyguards. "Boss! Are you alright?"

Alistair sat up on the edge of the bed. The lingering toxins made his temples pound, but his eyes were already clearing, turning into pools of obsidian. He ran a large hand over his face, feeling the dried blood on his lower lip.

His gaze swept across the empty side of the bed. The faint scent of gardenia still hung in the air.

Then his eyes locked onto the nightstand.

The crumpled hundred-dollar bill lay beside the mirror, right beneath the mocking message scrawled in blood-red wax.

Alistair went completely still.

He reached out, took the hundred-dollar bill between two fingers, and crushed it into a tight ball in his fist. The veins on his forearm bulged against his skin.

"She treated me like a street gigolo?" Alistair's voice was a low, lethal whisper that made Arthur freeze mid-step.

"Boss... the hotel's internal cameras were looped from two to five in the morning," Arthur stammered, his face pale. "It was a coordinated hit by Boone Capital's affiliates. We have no footage of who entered."

Alistair stood up. The bedsheet pooled at his waist, revealing the vicious nail marks scored across his back and chest. He walked to the open terrace door, his gaze dropping to the scuff marks on the metal gantry.

"She jumped from here," Alistair said, his eyes narrowing to razor slits. "With that drop, her leg is damaged."

He tossed the crumpled bill onto the floor and turned back to his assistant. "Lock down every private orthopedic clinic and emergency room in Manhattan. Check every female patient admitted with ankle fractures or blunt leg trauma in the last two hours."

He touched his own collarbone, the memory of that burning red flame mark searing his mind through the drug's fog.

"Find the woman with the flame mark," Alistair commanded, his voice shaking the quiet room. "Even if you have to turn this city upside down, bring her to me."