Chapter 8

Donovan straightened up, his massive frame towering over her.

He didn't look angry at her rejection. He looked amused.

He reached into his tailored slacks, pulled out a heavy, matte-black card with gold lettering, and pinched it between his fingers.

He turned his back to her, walking slowly toward the shattered remains of the floor-to-ceiling window.

"Pena Group's debt is currently sitting at three hundred million dollars," Donovan stated, his voice devoid of emotion, reciting the numbers like a machine. "Your father's ICU bed costs ten thousand dollars a day. Your brother's surgeries will cost triple that."

He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers.

"There is exactly one man on Wall Street with the liquid capital and the power to make those debts disappear by tomorrow morning."

Abigayle gripped the lapels of his jacket so tightly her knuckles ached.

She knew he was telling the truth. The math was a death sentence.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep it steady.

Donovan walked back to the sofa.

"You," he said brutally. "Be my woman. Be available whenever I call. In exchange, your father lives, and your brother gets his surgeries."

The blunt, transactional nature of his demand hit her like a slap to the face.

The blood rushed to Abigayle's cheeks in a wave of pure humiliation.

She grabbed a velvet throw pillow from the sofa and hurled it directly at his chest.

"You opportunistic bastard!" she screamed.

Donovan merely tilted his head, letting the pillow bounce harmlessly off his shoulder. His eyes darkened, a dangerous warning flashing in his irises.

Before he could speak, Kevin Rich stepped quietly into the room.

Kevin held a freshly printed, thick stack of documents. He handed them to Donovan with a slight bow.

Donovan took the papers and tossed them onto the glass coffee table in front of Abigayle.

"The bankruptcy liquidation report," Donovan said coldly.

Abigayle leaned forward, her eyes scanning the dense legal text.

Her gaze dropped to the final page, to the section listing the primary creditor who had aggressively bought up Pena Group's debt overnight.

Sullivan Holdings LLC.

Abigayle's breath hitched.

Her head snapped up. She stared at the man standing before her, her mind racing, connecting the sharp jawline, the dark eyes, the sheer, terrifying power.

She had seen his face in Forbes. She had heard Jeffery whisper his name with a mix of awe and terror.

"Donovan Sullivan," Abigayle breathed, the name tasting like ash in her mouth.

He was the patriarch. The true power behind the Sullivan family. Jeffery's uncle.

The pieces slammed together in her mind, forming a horrifying, perfect picture.

Jeffery framing her. Elmer Sullivan crashing her family's stock. And now, Donovan Sullivan standing in her living room, offering to buy her body with the very money his family had stolen from hers.

It was a coordinated slaughter.

Abigayle shot up from the sofa, the oversized jacket slipping off her shoulders.

"You planned this," she screamed, her voice tearing at her throat. She pointed a shaking finger at the door. "Your family destroyed mine, and now you come here to play the savior? To make me your whore?"

Donovan's expression didn't change. He didn't offer a single word of defense.

He simply watched her chest heave with rage, his silence confirming her worst fears.

"I would rather bleed to death on the street than take a single cent from a Sullivan," Abigayle vowed, her eyes burning with a hatred so pure it physically hurt her chest. "Get out!"

Donovan picked up the black-and-gold card from his fingers and tossed it onto the glass table.

The heavy card slid across the smooth surface, stopping right at the edge, inches from her knees.

He adjusted his cuffs, looking down at her with absolute, suffocating arrogance.

"Your pride is a luxury you can no longer afford, Abigayle," Donovan said softly.

He turned and walked toward the door.

He paused at the threshold, looking back over his shoulder.

"Three days," Donovan predicted, his voice cold and certain. "Within three days, you will realize exactly what the real world is. And you will crawl back to me, begging for this deal."

He stepped out. Kevin and the guards followed like shadows.

The heavy double doors slammed shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the empty apartment.

Abigayle stood frozen for ten seconds.

Then, her knees gave out.

She collapsed back onto the sofa, burying her face in her hands.

Her shoulders shook violently as the adrenaline crashed, leaving behind nothing but the crushing, suffocating weight of reality.

She didn't cry out loud. The silent sobs tore through her chest, agonizing and deep.

Minutes later, Thaddeus limped into the room, a white bandage wrapped tightly around his head.

He held a glass of warm water in his trembling hands and offered it to her.

Abigayle took the glass. The warmth seeped into her freezing fingers.

She looked down at the black-and-gold card sitting on the table.

She reached out, picked up the card, and held it over the rim. Before her fingers released it over the trash can, her eyes involuntarily memorized the stark gold numbers etched onto the black surface. Then, she let it drop.

"I will never beg him," she whispered to the empty room.