The iron gates of the Fitzgerald estate groaned as they swung open. The house loomed in the darkness, windows blazing with light.
Delia walked into the foyer. The air was thick enough to choke on. The maids were gone. The silence was heavy.
Her father, Hubert Fitzgerald, sat in the center of the living room. He looked like a man waiting for a firing squad. His face was gray.
Sterling was pacing by the fireplace, running his paint-stained hands through his hair.
"You have the nerve to come back?" Hubert shouted the moment he saw her. He stood up, his hands shaking. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Delia tossed her purse onto the sofa. "Dad, Ansel broke it off. He said I make him vomit. Literally."
"I don't care about his stomach!" Hubert slammed his hand on the table. "You insulted the Gibson family! You walked away from the contract!"
"Contract?" she asked. "It's a marriage, Dad. Not a business merger. And I'm not marrying a man who can't perform."
Sterling snorted. Hubert shot him a glare that could peel paint.
"You don't understand," Hubert whispered. He collapsed back into the chair. "It's not just business. It's... it's a debt. An old debt."
"What kind of debt?" Delia pressed.
Hubert looked at the floor. "A blood debt. The parchment... the marriage contract... it wasn't signed with ink."
Her heart stuttered. Parchment. Blood debt. This wasn't corporate jargon; this was Old World underworld law. Her father was terrified, not of bankruptcy, but of execution.
"Where is it?" she asked.
"You don't ask questions!" Hubert snapped, fear spiking in his voice. "Tomorrow, you are going to the Gibson estate. You will apologize to Ansel. You will beg him to take you back."
"No," she said.
Hubert stood up, raising his hand.
Sterling stepped between them, catching Father's wrist. His artist's hands were surprisingly strong. "Dad! Don't. You're not hitting her because that freak Ansel has a weak stomach."
Hubert's hand hovered in the air. He looked at it, then dropped it to his side. He looked old. Defeated.
"If you don't marry him," Hubert said, his voice cracking, "they will destroy us. Not financially, Delia. They will wipe us out."
He turned and walked out of the room.
Delia stood there, her blood running cold. Her father was a powerful man. He didn't scare easily. But the mention of that contract had terrified him.
She went to her room and locked the door.
She sat at her vanity, staring at herself in the mirror.
Parchment. Blood debt.
She opened her laptop. She pulled up a secure browser. She typed: Gibson Family History + Origins.
Results: Philanthropy. Real Estate. Shipping.
She typed: Gibson + Pama.
Access Denied.
The screen went black for a second, then reset. Her own firewall had kicked in to stop a trace.
She sat back.
They were scrubbing the internet.
She remembered the look in Killian's eyes in the garden. The absolute authority. The violence.
If she wanted to know what her father was hiding, she couldn't rely on Google. She needed access. She needed to get inside the beast's belly.
She opened the top drawer of her desk. Buried under a pile of lipstick and old receipts was a business card. She had swiped it from a charity gala months ago.
Killian Gibson. CEO, Gibson Corp.
It was a generic card. But it was a way in.
She picked it up. The card stock was heavy. Expensive.
"You want an apology?" she whispered to the empty room. "Fine. I'll give you one."
But not to Ansel. Ansel was the puppet.
She was going for the puppet master.
