Chapter 3
The drive north was suffocatingly quiet. The heater blasted against Clara’s frozen legs, but the chill inside her bones refused to thaw. She watched the dark pines blur past the window, her mind racing through the calculus of her survival. She owed a debt to a monster, and another monster was trying to collect it.
They arrived in Seattle just as the sky began to bruise purple with the dawn. The SUV descended into a private, subterranean garage beneath a towering glass monolith. Julian led her into a private elevator that required a retinal scan to operate.
The penthouse was a fortress of glass and steel, suspended above the clouds. It was sterile, beautiful, and completely devoid of warmth. Victor was waiting in the kitchen, leaning against the marble island with a tablet in his hand. He looked up, his eyes scanning Clara from head to toe, categorizing her injuries, assessing her threat level.
"Finch?" Victor asked, not looking at Julian.
"Handled the scouts," Julian said, shrugging off his suit jacket to reveal a pristine white dress shirt. "Finch is making a play for the coastal route. He thought he could use Elias's ghost debt to leverage the territory."
"And the girl?" Victor asked, as if Clara were a piece of furniture.
"My name is Clara," she interrupted, stepping forward. The heavy coat slipped from her shoulders, revealing her bruised wrists and the blood-stained paramedic uniform beneath. "And I don't belong to either of you."
Victor raised an eyebrow, finally looking at her. "Elias owed us one hundred and fifty thousand dollars when he died. Finch bought the paper for nine. Since Julian just killed Finch's men, the paper defaults back to the original ledger. Which means you owe us."
"I don't have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Clara said, her chin lifting. "I stitch up loggers and drunks. My bank account has three digits."
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"Then you are a liability," Victor stated coldly.
"No," Julian interjected softly. He walked over to the mahogany wet bar, pouring two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal glass. He turned to face her, his dark eyes stripping her down to her core. "She isn't a liability. She’s an asset."
