Chapter 10: The Devil’s Ransom

The tires of my rental screeched as I slammed to a stop outside Lily’s art studio. The neon “OPEN” sign flickered erratically, casting a sickly green glow over the empty easels. It was eleven PM. She never worked this late without texting me.

My phone buzzed. Unknown number. I almost swiped it away, but a cold hand closed around my heart. I answered.

“Miss Bennett.” The voice was gravel, laced with amusement. “Your sister is… comfortable. For now. But her comfort expires in twelve hours. Bring the ledger, or she becomes a very expensive piece of art.”

The line went dead. A photo landed in my inbox. Lily, duct-taped to a chair, her wide dark eyes—so much like our mother’s—staring into the camera. A single red tear painted on her cheek, like a grotesque signature.

The ledger. The one thing my father had hidden before his death. The one thing I’d sworn to destroy. The enemies had found me—the Bennett heiress, living under a fake name, married to a stranger to hide. And now they had my sister.

I was dialing Adrian before I could stop myself. He answered on the first ring.

“Penny—” His voice was rough, raw. “I was coming after you. I’m in the car. I should have stopped you. Please, just talk to me.”

“It’s Lily.” My voice cracked. “They took her. Adrian, they have my sister.”

The line went quiet. I could hear his engine roar to life. “Where are you?”

“The studio. But Adrian, this isn’t your fight. They want the ledger—it’s a list of every dirty account, every family connection. It’s poison. If you touch it, you’ll be caught in the fallout.”

“I don’t care about the fallout,” he said, and the steel in his voice made me shiver. “I care about you. And if someone took your family, they took mine. I’m six minutes out. Don’t you dare leave without me.”

I shouldn’t have waited. But I did. And when his black SUV screeched around the corner, when he vaulted out and pulled me to him, the warmth of his arms was a shock I hadn’t realized I was dying for.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his chest. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

“I was a coward.” He tilted my chin up, his grey eyes burning. “I’ve been fighting this since the day you signed that contract. But I’m done fighting. You’re mine, Penny. And anyone who touches your family answers to me.”

He pulled out his phone, and I saw it—the Bennett crest on a screen full of encrypted files. “I have the ledger.”

My blood ran cold. “How?”

“Your father and I had… overlapping interests before he died. I found it sealed in a vault under his old shell company two years ago. I was going to burn it, but something told me to keep it. Stupid instinct.”

“It’s a bargaining chip,” I said, mind racing. “They want it. We give them a fake, we spring Lily, we burn the real one.”

“They’ll verify it on the spot.” He shook his head. “We go in armed. I have a team on standby—five men, ex-military. We’ll do this clean.”

I looked at him—this cold, calculating CEO who had once seen me as a transaction. Now he was offering me his guns, his men, his life.

“Why?” I asked, voice barely a whisper. “Why risk everything for me?”

He stepped closer, his forehead resting against mine. “Because I love you, Penny. Not the heiress. Not the contract. *You.* The woman who paints in her spare room at dawn. The woman who demanded sushi on our first date just to watch me squirm. The woman who is the strongest damn person I’ve ever met—and who terrifies me, because losing you is the only thing I can’t calculate.”

My heart stopped. Then restarted at double speed.

“Say it back,” he demanded, a hint of his usual arrogance bleeding through. “Tell me you feel the same.”

But before I could speak, his phone buzzed. A new video. Lily, now with a split lip, gagged, a clock counting down in the background—02:14:33. A text scrolled across the bottom:

*“No heroes, Mr. Sterling. We know you’re playing house with the Bennett girl. Bring the ledger and the original marriage certificate—proof she’s legally bound to you, so the estate can’t contest our take. Come alone. The abandoned Hastings Warehouse, Pier 9. Two hours. Bring anyone else, and we’ll send your bride’s sister back in pieces.”*

Adrian’s jaw tightened. I grabbed his arm. “You can’t go alone. It’s a trap—they’ll kill you and take me anyway.”

“I know.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, fierce and desperate. “Which is why you’re coming with me. As my wife… and as the secret weapon they don’t know about yet.”

He opened his trunk. Inside, a case of tactical gear—and something else. A small, ancient-looking box with the Bennett crest.

“Your father left this for you,” he said. “On the condition that you opened it only when you had no other choice. I think that time is now.”

My fingers trembled as I unlatched it. Inside, nestled in black velvet, was a delicate ring—a single black diamond, and a USB drive shaped like a key.

“What is this?”

“Insurance,” Adrian said, eyes dark with knowing. “The kind that burns empires to the ground.”

The clock on my phone ticked down. Two hours to save my sister. Two hours to face the devils who’d killed my father. And I was doing it beside the man I’d just realized I couldn’t live without.

We drove into the night, the city lights bleeding into the black of the harbor. The warehouse loomed ahead, dead and silent. And as Adrian’s hand found mine in the dark, I prayed to a God I’d stopped believing in that my sister was still alive.

Our footsteps echoed on wet concrete. A light flickered ahead. And then—a voice, cold and familiar.

“Welcome, Mr. Sterling. And the lovely Miss Bennett. So glad you could make the funeral.”

The door slammed behind us, sealing us in the dark.