The kiss ended as abruptly as it began. Clayton pulled back, leaving Chloe gasping for air, curled in the corner of the seat like a wounded animal. Her mind was a maelstrom of shame and fury.

He calmly adjusted his tie, his composure absolute, as if he hadn't just shattered what was left of her world. He looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Tears don't suit you, Chloe."

Before she could form a reply, his phone buzzed again. Nathaniel's name flashed on the screen. Clayton answered, his voice once again the epitome of calm authority.

"Uncle, sorry to bother you again," Nathaniel said, his tone bright and oblivious. "Hillary and I were just finalizing the guest list. The party is next weekend, at the Murphy estate. You have to be there."

Hillary Murphy. The name was a shard of glass in Chloe's heart. Her stepsister. The girl who had made her life a living hell since the day her father remarried.

Her ex-boyfriend was engaged to her stepsister. The news, delivered so casually, was a poisoned dagger twisting in a wound she didn't even know she had. A cold, hollow numbness spread through her chest.

Clayton's sharp eyes caught the flicker of pain on her face. A flicker of something else—interest? calculation?—passed through his own.

"Of course, I'll be there," he said into the phone, his gaze never leaving Chloe's. "I'll bring a date."

He hung up and tossed the phone onto the seat. "What's wrong?" he asked, his voice laced with mock sympathy. "Upset that your ex is marrying your sister?"

"She's not my sister," Chloe bit out, the words raw. "And I just feel sick for him."

"Crying over a boy who threw you away is a waste of time," Clayton said, and for a moment, his tone was almost serious.

"What would you know about it?" she retorted, her grief turning to anger. "You've been having me investigated, haven't you?" A sudden, chilling thought struck her. "How did you know my last name? I never told you."

"There is very little I don't know, if I choose to know it," he said dismissively. He leaned closer, his voice dropping. "For example, I know your stepmother, Annette, had a difficult pregnancy. I know she almost lost the baby, Hillary, until your mother, Adelaide, donated her blood to save them both."

Chloe froze. That was a family secret, whispered behind closed doors. How could he possibly know that?

He wasn't finished. He delivered the next words like a surgeon making a precise, fatal incision. "I also know that when your mother's car went off that bridge, the brake lines had been tampered with. The police report was... exceptionally clean. Too clean."

The world tilted on its axis. Her mother's accident. She had always been told it was a tragic accident, a result of icy roads. The thought that it could have been attempted murder had never even crossed her mind. Her entire body went cold.

"Who are you?" she whispered, the words barely audible. "What do you want from me?"

He regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he spoke, his voice low and deliberate. "I need you to stay close to me. In return, I will make sure the people who hurt you face the consequences. Your mother's accident was not an accident, Chloe. Let me help you uncover the truth."

She stared at him, searching his face for the lie, for the catch. "Help me?" she echoed, her voice dripping with disbelief. "You want to help me? After everything you've done?"

"What I've done," he said, his tone hardening, "is offer you something no one else can. Answers. Justice. A way back in."

"And what do you get out of this?" she demanded. "Men like you don't help people for nothing."

His jaw tightened. For a fleeting instant, something flickered in his storm-gray eyes, gone before she could name it. "Let's just say I have my own reasons."

"Reasons you won't explain," she said bitterly.

"Reasons you don't need to know yet," he countered smoothly. "All you need to know is that you need protection and resources you don't have. I can give them. The question is whether you want the truth badly enough to take them."

She gritted her teeth, the taste of blood and defeat filling her mouth. "And if I agree... what do you want from me?"

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a murmur. "I want your presence. Your loyalty. Your time. You stay at my side for as long as I need you. In exchange, the Murphys will pay for what they've done."

Chloe closed her eyes, a single tear escaping and tracing a hot path down her cold cheek. This was a deal with the devil. She was trading her freedom for a chance at justice.

But for her mother... for the truth... she would do anything.

She opened her eyes, and the look in them was as cold and hard as his. "Fine," she said, her voice a dead, flat thing. "I agree. But I have one condition."

"Oh?"

"We never, ever, speak of Nathaniel Rhodes again."