Bound By Blood: The Billionaire's Contract

Dawn Hoffman gasped, a sharp, violent intake of air that felt like shards of glass expanding in her lungs. Her eyes flew open, but the world was a blur of gray and black. Her hands clawed at the leather seat beneath her, expecting the cold steel of a sterile operating table or the rough concrete of a holding cell. Instead, her fingers sank into plush, expensive leather.

The smell hit her next. Not the antiseptic sting of a hospital or the mold of the penitentiary, but the cloying sweetness of Chanel No. 5 mixed with the scent of rain on asphalt.

"God, Dawn, you're making a scene before we even get there," a voice drawled from beside her. "My hair is going to frizz in this humidity, and you're hyperventilating like a fish."

Dawn turned her head. The movement was stiff, mechanical. Her vision sharpened, focusing on the woman sitting next to her. Catrina Keller. Her cousin. Her tormentor. The woman whose carefully crafted lies, whispered to the right people, had helped orchestrate Dawn's professional and personal ruin five years ago. Hoffman was her father's name, a name now synonymous with failure, but she was trapped in the orbit of her mother's family: the Montgomerys.

But Catrina looked younger here. Her skin was unblemished by the botox she would abuse in three years. She was holding a compact mirror, checking her lipstick, completely indifferent to the fact that Dawn felt like her heart was trying to batter its way out of her ribcage.

Dawn looked down at her own body. She was wearing the silver silk dress. The one she wore the night everything was supposed to change. She looked at her wrists. No handcuffs. No needle marks. She flexed her fingers. They moved fluidly, without the tremors that the nerve damage from the prison fight had caused.

The plan was in motion.

The realization didn't bring joy. It brought a cold, heavy nausea that settled in the pit of her stomach. She turned to the window. The I-495 sign flashed by, blurred by the gathering storm clouds. It was October 14th. The night of the gala. The night the dominoes were set to fall.

"Are you even listening to me?" Catrina snapped the compact shut. "I said, Dozier is going to be there. He specifically asked if the 'quiet cousin' was coming. You know what that means. He smells blood."

Dawn didn't answer. She was busy controlling her breathing. In, for four counts. Hold, for four. Out, for four. It was a technique she learned to stop herself from screaming during the night terrors.

Catrina leaned in closer. Her eyes dropped from Dawn's face to her neck. A predatory gleam sparked in her pupils.

"You know," Catrina said, her voice dropping to a faux-sweet register that made Dawn's skin crawl. "The theme tonight is 'Vintage Glamour.' That Van Cleef necklace... it really clashes with your silver. It's too gold. But it would match my dress perfectly."

Dawn went still. She remembered this exact manipulation from their childhood. The pattern was always the same. In the past, she had hesitated. She had said no, politely. Catrina had pouted, then accidentally spilled champagne on Dawn later, forcing a trip to the bathroom where the necklace was stolen from her purse. That theft was the first piece of "evidence" used to paint Dawn as unstable in the public eye.

Catrina reached out, her cold fingers brushing against Dawn's collarbone as she pretended to adjust the silk strap.

"Come on, Dawn," Catrina whispered. "Don't be selfish. You're just going to stand in the corner anyway. Let the jewelry shine on someone who actually matters."

The rage that flared in Dawn's chest was hot and white, but she extinguished it instantly. She wasn't the victim anymore. She was a fixer. And Catrina was just a tumor that needed to be excised. But not yet. First, she needed to sedate the patient.

Dawn raised her hands. She undid the clasp at the back of her neck. The metal was cool against her skin. She felt the weight of the gold and the clover-shaped onyx stones. It was heavy. Heavier than she remembered.

She pulled the necklace free and held it out.

Catrina's eyes widened. She hadn't expected it to be this easy. A flicker of suspicion crossed her face, but greed washed it away in a second.

"Here," Dawn said. Her voice was raspy, unused. "Take it."

Catrina snatched it from her palm. "Finally. You're learning."

Dawn watched as Catrina fastened the necklace around her own throat, preening in the reflection of the darkened window. Catrina didn't know she had just put a target on her back. That necklace was a custom piece, easily traceable. If things went according to plan, it would be evidence, not a loss.

"It's heavy," Dawn said softly. "Be careful you don't drop it."

"Please," Catrina scoffed. "Unlike some people, I can handle beautiful things."

Dawn turned back to the window. O'Malley, the driver, caught her eye in the rearview mirror. He looked concerned. He was a good man. He had visited her once in prison before the family fired him.

Dawn closed her eyes. Two hours to the gala. One hour until she was supposed to meet Dozier Buckley, the man who would ruin her father's company.

She wasn't going to meet him.

She opened her eyes. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, clinical calculation. She wasn't going to New York.