Chapter 1 - The Enemy of My Enemy
“...the center of the web,” Julian finished, his voice slicing through the heavy silence of the luxury sedan.
Clara froze. The breath trapped in her lungs felt like shattered glass. She looked from the glowing screen of his phone—where Victoria Sterling’s name had just vanished into darkness—up to Julian’s impassive, chiseled face. Panic, pure and primal, hijacked her senses. She lunged for the door handle, her bruised fingers clawing at the lock.
“Let me out!” she screamed, the terror ripping the civility from her voice. “Stop the car! Let me out right now!”
Julian didn't flinch. He simply pressed a button on the armrest, and the child locks engaged with a heavy, definitive thud.
“Marcus, lose them,” Julian ordered the driver, ignoring Clara’s frantic struggles.
“Yes, sir.”
The Maybach’s engine roared, a deep, guttural sound of immense power. The car violently veered off the paved road, fishtailing into a narrow, unmapped logging trail hidden by the dense forest. Mud sprayed against the tinted windows. Behind them, the pursuing SUV missed the turn entirely, skidding past the hidden entrance and continuing down the main highway, its headlights swallowed by the torrential storm.
Clara collapsed against the leather door panel, gasping for air, her wide eyes locked on the man who had just kidnapped her.
“How much is she paying you?” Clara choked out, her voice trembling violently. “Whatever Victoria offered you to bring me back, it’s not worth it. I’ll run again. I’ll fight. I will never go back to that house.”
Julian slowly turned his head to look at her. The ambient light from the dashboard illuminated the sharp angles of his jaw and the dangerous, predatory calm in his storm-gray eyes.
“Your stepmother was not offering me money, Miss Sterling,” Julian said, his tone dripping with an icy disdain that sent a shiver down Clara’s spine. “She was begging for an extension on a fifty-million-dollar loan her late husband’s company owes my firm. A loan she intended to pay off by selling you to Arthur Gallagher.”
Clara’s heart skipped a beat. “You… you know who I am?”
“I make it a point to know everything about the parasites who owe me money,” Julian replied smoothly, picking up a plush, heated blanket from the center console and tossing it into her lap. “Wrap yourself up before you freeze to death and ruin my upholstery. You aren't going back to that house. You’re coming with me.”
May you like
“Why?” Clara demanded, clutching the blanket to her soaked, shivering frame.
Julian’s lips curved into a dark, humorless smile. “Because Victoria Sterling just proved she is desperate. And in the business of destroying one's enemies, a desperate woman’s most valuable pawn is the greatest weapon I could ask for.”
