Cayla POV

The party finally bled out at 3 AM.

I was curled up in the guest room, shivering violently beneath the thin sheets.

The fever from the rain and the shock from the alcohol were warring in my body, leaving me trembling and weak.

The door banged open, shattering the silence.

Grafton stood there, impatiently loosening his tie.

"Get up. Cherrelle needs an escort to her car. She doesn't trust the drivers."

"Grafton, please," I whispered, my voice cracking. "I'm sick."

"You're hungover," he corrected coldly. "Get up."

I dragged myself off the bed, fighting the dizziness that threatened to topple me.

We went down to the lobby.

The hotel lobby had a massive decorative fountain in the center, filled with coins and water kept at a near-freezing temperature to discourage guests from touching it.

Cherrelle was waiting there, looking pristine and untouched by the night's excesses.

She saw me stumbling behind Grafton.

She smiled, a wicked glint lighting up her eyes.

"Oops," she said softly.

She threw herself backward, right over the low wall of the fountain.

Splash.

She screamed, thrashing in the shallow water like she was drowning.

"Help! She pushed me! Cayla pushed me!"

I was ten feet away.

But Grafton didn't care about physics or distance.

He turned on me, his face twisted into a snarl.

"I warned you."

He grabbed my arm and hauled me to the fountain.

"You want her in the water? Then you go in the water."

He shoved me.

I hit the water hard.

It was paralyzing.

I gasped, inhaling water, choking as the icy shock seized my lungs.

"Stay there," Grafton ordered the guards, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Don't let her out until morning. Let her cool off that jealousy."

He helped Cherrelle out, wrapping his coat around her shivering shoulders.

"My poor baby," he cooed.

I sat in the fountain, the water soaking my clothes, chilling me to the bone.

The guards looked away, embarrassed but too afraid to disobey the man who signed their paychecks.

I sat there until sunrise.

When I finally walked back up to the penthouse, I was numb. My legs felt like blocks of ice, and my clothes were a heavy, sodden weight dragging me down.

I went to the guest room to change.

Grafton was there, waiting.

He was holding my phone.

It had been on the table, charging.

The screen was lit up.

It was the photo of Justen.

He was smiling, wearing a leather jacket, standing by his motorcycle.

Grafton and Justen looked like twins, except for the eyes.

Justen's eyes were warm. Grafton's were ice.

Grafton stared at the photo, his brow furrowed.

"Is this... is this me?" he asked, his voice strange.

He looked closer.

"No. That jacket. I never owned that jacket."

He looked at me, disgust curling his lip.

"You Photoshopped me? You edited a picture of me to make me look... happier? To fit your fantasy?"

"It's not you," I said hoarsely, my throat raw.

"Don't lie!" He threw the phone onto the bed. "You are sick, Cayla. You collect photos of me, you attack my girlfriend, you drink yourself into a stupor."

He walked to the door.

"You're planning Cherrelle's birthday Gala next week. Make it perfect. Or you're done."

He slammed the door.

I picked up the phone.

I touched Justen's face on the screen.

"He doesn't even recognize you anymore," I whispered to the ghost in the picture. "He's forgotten you."

Cayla POV

The Gala was a masterpiece of gold and white, a visual symphony I had orchestrated from the shadows.

I had arranged everything. The cascading orchids, the vintage champagne chilled to perfection, the string quartet playing softly in the corner.

Yet, I stood in the shadows, wearing a plain black dress, holding a clipboard like a shield.

Grafton looked magnificent in his tuxedo, a dark prince amidst the light.

Cherrelle looked like a queen in red silk, vibrant and dangerous.

She was holding court near the champagne tower, basking in the adoration of the room.

Suddenly, she caught my eye and winked.

It was a predator's signal.

Then she reached out and "accidentally" knocked a glass from the tower.

It shattered with a crystalline crash that silenced the music.

She stumbled, landing hard on the shards.

A jagged piece of glass sliced deep into her forearm.

Blood sprayed over the white tablecloth, a violent bloom of red against the pristine setting.

Chaos erupted.

"Get the car!" Grafton roared, pressing a napkin to her arm to stanch the flow.

We sped to the Family hospital, tires screeching as we tore through the city.

The doctors were frantic the moment we burst through the doors.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Dr. Evans said, his voice tight with stress. "We need a transfusion immediately. But her blood type is AB Negative. We don't have enough in the bank."

Grafton drained of color. "Find it! I don't care who you have to bleed!"

"I'm AB Negative," I said, my voice cutting through the panic.

The room went quiet.

Grafton looked at me, his eyes unreadable.

"Do it," he said.

No 'please.' No 'thank you.'

Just a command.

I sat in the chair, rolling up my sleeve as the nurse hooked me up.

"Take two bags," I said.

"Miss Bass, you're already anemic," the nurse warned, glancing at my pale skin. "Two bags could put you in shock."

"Take it," I ordered.

I watched my blood flow through the tube, leaving me, going into her.

Into the woman who tormented me.

But the Code said the Don's woman must be protected, and I lived by the Code even if it killed me.

I passed out when the second bag was half full.

I woke up to the sensation of water filling my nose.

I was choking, burning.

I thrashed, realizing I was tied to a lounge chair.

I was by the penthouse pool.

Grafton was standing over me, holding a bucket.

He poured another bucket of water over my face.

I sputtered, gasping for air, my lungs screaming.

"Wake up," he growled.

"What..." I coughed, expelling water. "What is this?"

"The maid confessed," Grafton said, his voice devoid of humanity. "She said you paid her to poison the champagne glass. The one Cherrelle cut herself on."

"That's a lie," I gasped. "I gave her my blood!"

"Guilt," Grafton said coldly. "You realized you went too far."

He kicked the chair, sending it sliding toward the edge of the pool.

"Who are you working for? Is it the Triads? Or are you just a jealous psycho trying to kill your competition?"

"I am loyal!" I screamed, the injustice burning hotter than the water in my lungs.

He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look at him.

"You are nothing. You are not an Associate anymore."

He leaned close, his eyes like black holes.

"From this moment, you are Cherrelle's personal servant. You will wash her clothes. You will clean her shoes. You will sleep on the floor at the foot of her bed if she asks."

He let go of my hair, shoving me back against the chair.

"If you try to leave, I will find your mother's grave and dig it up."

He knew exactly how to break me.

He knew I had no one left but the dead.

"Yes, Mr. Mcleod," I whispered, broken.

He walked away.

I lay by the pool, shivering, wet, and empty.

The five years were up.

But the debt, it seemed, was eternal.

Grafton Mcleod POV

I watched her lying there on the tiles, shivering in the aftermath.

She looked small. Broken.

For a second, a sharp pain twisted in my chest.

Why didn't she fight back?

Why did she just take it?

I looked at my hands. They were shaking.

I told myself it was rage.

I told myself she deserved it for what she tried to do to Cherrelle.

But deep down, in a place I refused to look, I wondered why the blood she gave Cherrelle looked so much like the blood Justen spilled the night he died.

Red.

Warm.

And wasted on me.

Cayla POV

I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the grout of the master bathroom floor with a toothbrush when the news broke, the bristles turning pink from the raw and bleeding skin on my knuckles.

"Turn it up," Cherrelle commanded from the bathtub, her voice echoing sharply off the marble.

I reached for the remote with trembling hands, careful not to drip soapy water on the pristine tiles.

The reporter on the screen was breathless, standing in front of a white expanse of snow that looked too serene, too beautiful to be a graveyard.

Breaking News: Avalanche in the Swiss Alps claims three lives. Chicago businessman Grafton Mcleod reported missing.

My heart didn't just stop.

It shattered.

Cherrelle sat up, water sloshing over the sides of the tub.

"Oh my god," she said, her eyes wide. "He actually went."

She looked at me, a twisted smile playing on her lips.

"He went to get me the Edelweiss. I told him it was the only flower that proved true love because it grows where people die."

She laughed, a high, tinkling sound that made my stomach turn.

"I didn't think he'd actually be stupid enough to do it."

I dropped the toothbrush.

"Where is he?" I asked, my voice hoarse from days of silence.

"Missing, didn't you hear?" She waved a dismissive hand. "Probably dead. Which is a shame. He hadn't signed the transfer papers for the villa yet."

I stood up.

My knees cracked in protest.

"I'm going."

Cherrelle scoffed. "You? You're a servant, Cayla. You don't have a passport. You don't have money. You belong to me."

"I belong to the oath," I said, the words meant more to myself than her.

I walked out of the bathroom, ignoring her screeching demands for a towel.

I stole cash from the safe in the study-Grafton never changed the code, it was still Justen's birthday-and booked the first flight to Zurich under a fake name I used for cleaning up the Family's messes.

The mountain was a beast.

The rescue teams had called off the search due to the storm.

"It's suicide," the lead guide told me, blocking the path. "No one survives a night out there."

"He isn't no one," I said, tightening the straps of my gear.

I climbed.

The wind was a physical weight, pushing me back, screaming in my ears.

My lungs burned.

My legs felt like lead.

But I had a map in my head, guided by a tracking beacon I had sewn into the lining of Grafton's coat three years ago without his knowledge.

Just a safety measure.

Just another way I kept him alive while he hated me.

The signal led me to a ridge buried under ten feet of snow.

I dug.

I dug until my gloves tore and my fingernails bled.

I dug until I hit something solid.

Black fabric.

I cleared the snow from his face.

He was blue.

His lips were cracked, his eyelashes frozen together.

"Grafton!" I screamed over the wind.

No response.

I checked for a pulse.

Faint. Thready. A ghost of a beat.

I couldn't carry him down. Not in this storm.

I dragged him into a small cave nearby, a fissure in the rock face.

It was freezing, but out of the wind.

With fumbling, frozen fingers, I stripped off my outer layers.

Then I stripped off his.

Skin to skin was the only way to share heat.

I wrapped us both in the emergency thermal blanket.

His body was a block of ice against mine.

I held him.

I pressed my face into his neck, shivering violently, giving him every ounce of warmth I had left.

"You don't get to die," I whispered against his cold skin. "Not yet. I haven't paid my debt."

I stayed awake all night, rubbing his back, his arms, keeping the blood moving.

By dawn, the storm broke.

The rescue chopper found us because I crawled out and lit a flare with hands that were black with frostbite.

I didn't remember the flight down.

I woke up in a hospital bed in Zurich, bandaged and broken.

I pulled the IVs out.

I had to see him.

I limped down the hallway, holding the wall for support.

Grafton's door was open.

Brooks was there, holding a tablet.

"Look at this, Boss," Brooks was saying, his voice thick with emotion. "The thermal cam from the chopper. She kept you alive with her own body heat for twelve hours. She saved you."

I stopped just outside the door.

Grafton was sitting up, looking pale but alive.

He watched the screen.

His expression didn't change.

It was stone.

"She did her job," Grafton said, his voice raspy but cold.

"Her job?" Brooks sounded incredulous. "Grafton, she almost died. A woman doesn't do that for a boss. She loves you."

Grafton looked away from the screen, staring out the window at the snow-capped peaks.

"It changes nothing," he said. "I will never love her. She's a reminder of everything I lost. She's a shadow, Brooks. And shadows cease to exist when the sun comes out."

He paused.

"Send her a check. And tell her to have my suit cleaned. It reeks of her cheap perfume."

I stood there.

The pain in my frostbitten fingers was nothing compared to the hollow ache in my chest.

I turned around.

I walked away.

He was alive.

My oath was kept.

But I was finally dead.