PAIGE
The night was endless. I just lay there on the couch, staring at the ceiling, watching the headlights from passing cars paint shifting patterns across the walls.
The light would slide slowly from one side of the room to the other, briefly illuminating the familiar shapes of my apartment before leaving them in darkness again.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it all again—the cold smirk on Reomen's face, the flashing red and blue lights of the NYPD squad car, the sterile white walls of the 1st Precinct holding cell. The number 1.8 million seemed to be burned onto the back of my eyelids, appearing whenever I blinked.
I was trapped. More trapped than I'd ever been under my family's thumb. At least then, the cage had been gilded, comfortable in its own way. This was a different kind of prison, with Reomen Daki as the warden, and a debt so large I couldn't even properly comprehend it.
A faint, clean scent still clung to my sleeve from his Mercedes-Maybach. Every time I moved, I caught another whiff of his expensive Creed Aventus cologne, a ghost in the dark that reminded me exactly who owned me now.
Just after 3 AM, a key turned quietly in the lock. The door creaked open, and Leon slipped inside, moving softly so as not to wake me. He jumped a little when he saw me lying there in the dark, wide awake.
"Paige? What are you doing up?" he whispered, his voice rough from a long night at The Rusty Nail. He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door where they landed with a familiar clatter.
He came over, sitting on the edge of the coffee table which groaned slightly under his weight. He smelled like sweat and faintly of whiskey, the familiar scents of his bartending shift. "Did you just get home? I texted you."
I shook my head, finally pushing myself up to sit. The movement made me dizzy, and I had to put a hand out to steady myself against the back of the couch. "No. I've been here." My voice was hoarse from silence and unshed tears, scratching in my throat.
He reached out and turned on the small lamp next to the couch. The sudden light made us both blink, throwing the room into sharp relief. His eyes scanned my face, and his own expression shifted from tired concern to outright alarm.
"Whoa. What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost." He leaned closer, his brow furrowed with worry. "And why do you smell like... money?"
A broken, half-hysterical laugh escaped me, sounding strange even to my own ears. "That's not money. That's Reomen Daki's two-thousand-dollar cologne."
Leon's eyes widened, the sleepiness vanishing from them completely. "What? Why do you—" He stopped mid-sentence. His gaze dropped to my wrists, as if he could still see the marks from the cuffs that had been there hours earlier. "Paige. Talk to me. What happened after I left?"
And so I told him. Everything. The arrest that had felt like a bad dream. The cold holding cell with its hard bench. And the smug, infuriating arrival of my new boss, looking like he owned the entire police station.
The astronomical bail amount made my stomach hurt to even think about. The crushing debt that now hung over my head.
Leon listened, his face growing more and more grim with each new detail. When I finished, he let out a long, low breath, running a hand through his already messy hair. "1.8 million dollars," he repeated, the number sounding even more insane and impossible when said out loud. "That's... that's a different league of trouble, Paige."
"I know," I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. The position made me feel small, but also somehow safer.
He was quiet for a moment, just looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Then he nodded, a determined set to his jaw that I knew well. "Okay. First, you're going to sleep. You can't fix anything like this." He stood up and went to the linen closet, pulling out a soft, worn Pendleton blanket that smelled faintly of Tide laundry detergent. He tossed it to me, and I caught it automatically. "We'll figure it out in the morning. All of it."
He turned off the lamp, plunging the room back into a friendlier, softer darkness that felt easier on my tired eyes. "And for the record," he added, his voice a gentle grumble from the doorway to his room, "he can take his fancy cologne and shove it. You're still you. They haven't broken you yet."
His door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the living room. I wrapped the blanket around myself, the soft fabric a small comfort against the chill that seemed to have settled in my bones.
The debt was still there. Reomen was still there. The memory of the handcuffs is still fresh. But for the first time all night, the silence in the apartment didn't feel quite so alone.
---
The next morning, the walk from the elevator to my desk at Daki Tech felt like a mile-long parade of shame. I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on the scuffed toes of my thrift-store loafers, but I could feel them. The stares from other employees.
The whispers cut off the second I got too close, leaving an awkward silence in my wake. News traveled fast in a place like this. Everyone knew. The new hire. The girl who got arrested right outside the office building on her first day.
My face burned with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. I didn't look left or right, just beelined for the small, thankfully enclosed office they'd given me. I slipped inside and shut the door, leaning against it for a second while my heart hammered against my ribs. The silence of the four walls was a relief, a barrier between me and the curious eyes outside.
I dropped into my chair, the leather sighing under my weight. I booted up my laptop. The familiar whirring sound was a small comfort as I tried to pretend the outside world didn't exist. I could do this. I just had to keep my head down and work. I had a debt to pay, and I couldn't afford to fail.
The illusion of safety lasted about ten minutes.
My office door swung open without a knock. I didn't need to look up to know who it was. The air in the room changed, growing colder, charged with a dangerous energy that made the hair on my arms stand up. The faint, expensive scent of his Creed Aventus cologne announced him before he even spoke, that same scent that had haunted me all night.
Reomen Daki stood in my doorway, his imposing frame filling the space and blocking out the light from the hallway. He was holding a thick, intimidating stack of files in a Saddleback Leather portfolio that looked heavy enough to be a burden.
His expression was unreadable, a mask of professional detachment, but his eyes were sharp, missing nothing as they scanned me and my small office.
He didn't say hello. He didn't mention yesterday's events or my time in the cell. He just stepped inside and dropped the heavy portfolio onto my desk with a loud thump that made me jump and sent a few pens rolling toward the edge.
"Your first project," he said, his voice flat and business-like, devoid of the smugness from the night before. This was worse. This was a cold, hard expectation without the mocking amusement. "I need it done by the end of the week. Don't disappoint me."
He turned to leave, but paused at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. His gaze swept over me, from my tired eyes to my white-knuckled grip on the edge of my desk, taking in every sign of my stress and exhaustion.
A slow, calculated smirk finally touched his lips. It wasn't friendly. It wasn't even amusing. It was predatory.
"Welcome to your first day, Ms. Rimestone," he said, his voice a low, mocking purr that seemed to vibrate through the small space between us. "Let's see if you're worth the investment."
Then he was gone, closing the door softly behind him, leaving me alone with a mountain of work and the chilling certainty that he was going to make every single second of my employment pure, unadulterated hell designed to break me.
I stared at the mountain of files he'd dumped on my desk. The sheer physical weight of them was intimidating, a solid block of paper that seemed to loom over me. I pulled the top one toward me and flipped it open with hands that trembled slightly. Financial reports. Market analyses. Project proposals. Complex merger documents filled with terms and numbers that would take hours to properly understand.
My stomach dropped to my feet. This wasn't just a week's work. This was a month's work. For an entire team of experienced analysts. Not for one person who was still learning the company's systems. And he wanted it done, perfectly, by Friday.
He wasn't just testing me. He was trying to break me. This was his way of collecting on that debt immediately, by working me into the ground until I either quit or collapsed.
A hot wave of resentment washed over me, momentarily burning away the fear and exhaustion. I hated all-nighters. I hated the foggy-headed feeling that came with too little sleep, the Starbucks coffee jitters that made my hands shake, the way my body ached after hours hunched over a desk staring at tiny print.
But as I looked at the stack of papers, at the impossible task he'd set before me, I knew I had no choice. I had to at least try.
It was paramount.
I couldn't fail. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me break. I couldn't give my family, who were probably waiting for me to crash and burn, the victory they so clearly wanted. This was more than just a project. It was a battle in the war I'd started, and I couldn't afford to lose the first skirmish.
With a sigh that came from the very depths of my soul, I pulled my chair in closer to the desk until my knees bumped against the wood. I opened my laptop, the screen glowing to life with a soft blue light. I grabbed a pen from the holder, clicking it once, the sharp, decisive sound oddly comforting in the quiet office.
It was going to be a long week. A week of late nights and early mornings. A week of living on coffee and pure, unfiltered spite that burned in my chest like a small, determined fire.
I looked at the first page, my eyes already starting to ache in anticipation of the hours of reading ahead. Let him try to break me. Let him throw impossible tasks and ridiculous deadlines at me. He had no idea what I was capable of when I was backed into a corner with nowhere left to run.
I started to read, the words blurring together at first before finally coming into focus.