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.

The brake lights ahead were a river of red, bleeding into the wet asphalt. Traffic on the Long Island Expressway was grinding to a halt. It was the perfect excuse, but Dawn needed more than traffic. She needed a medical emergency.

She pulled down the visor and slid the cover off the vanity mirror. The light automatically flicked on, illuminating her face.

It was strange to see herself like this. Twenty-four years old. Her skin was pale, translucent almost, without the gray undertone of malnutrition. But it was her eyes that held her attention. They looked old. They looked like they had seen things that shouldn't exist.

She raised her right hand into the light. She spread her fingers, then curled them into a fist. She did it again. Flexion. Extension. The movements were smooth. The tendons danced under the skin.

She closed her eyes and visualized the procedure for a craniotomy. The steps flowed through her mind like a favorite song. Incision. Flap. Dura. The knowledge was there. The muscle memory was there. They had taken her license, destroyed her reputation, and locked her away, but they couldn't cut the skill out of her brain.

She was still an Asset.

Beside her, Catrina sighed loudly, tapping furiously on her phone screen. "This service is garbage. I can't even load my stories."

Dawn glanced sideways. On Catrina's screen, a chat bubble popped up. The name at the top was Dozier Buckley.

Is the little mouse with you?

Dawn felt a phantom pain in her stomach, a ghost of the ulcers she'd developed during the trial. Dozier. The man who treated bankruptcy like a sport.

She snapped the vanity mirror shut. The plastic click sounded like a gunshot in the quiet cabin.

Catrina jumped. "God, you're jumpy. What is wrong with you? Is it your... thing?"

She meant the anxiety. The family's favorite euphemism for Dawn's existence.

Dawn turned to her. She let her shoulders slump. She allowed her lower lip to tremble just slightly. It was a performance she had perfected to survive the guards in Block D.

"I don't feel well," Dawn whispered. "The air... it feels thin."

Catrina rolled her eyes, but she shifted away, pressing herself against the door as if anxiety were contagious. "Don't start this, Dawn. Not tonight. The Montgomery name can't afford another one of your public episodes. Do you have your pills?"

Dawn reached into her clutch. Her fingers brushed the orange bottle of Xanax. She didn't need the pills. She needed the prop.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Dawn said, adding a wet cough for effect.

O'Malley looked back again. "Miss Dawn? You look pale."

"I can't breathe," she gasped, clutching her chest. She leaned forward, putting her head between her knees. It wasn't entirely a lie. The proximity to Catrina, the memories, the looming threat of Dozier-it all made the air feel heavy.

"O'Malley, there's an accident ahead," Dawn said, her voice muffled by her knees. "I saw the alert on my phone."

"I see the slowdown, Miss," O'Malley said.

Dawn's mind raced. Her sources had confirmed it an hour ago: a high-value target was being moved tonight, and a rival firm had contracted a team to intercept. The resulting 'accident' on a quiet service road was the linchpin of her entire strategy. She had to get there.

She sat up, gasping dramatically. "I need to get out. I need air. Or I need to go home."

"We are not stopping on the highway!" Catrina shrieked.

"Turn around," Dawn commanded. The steel in her voice slipped through the cracks of her victim persona.

Catrina blinked. "What?"

"Take me back to the Hamptons house," Dawn said, gripping the leather armrest until her knuckles turned white. "I'm going to throw up. Do you want vomit on your vintage Valentino?"

Catrina looked at Dawn, then at her own dress. The threat was physical and immediate.

"Fine!" Catrina threw her hands up. "O'Malley, find an exit! We'll drop her at the estate and then you can drive me back. I'll just be fashionably late. Honestly, the drama."

O'Malley nodded. "Yes, Miss."

He signaled and merged into the right lane, heading for the upcoming exit ramp. As the car tilted, turning away from the city, away from Dozier, away from her old fate, Dawn felt a click in the universe.

She had changed the path.

But she wasn't just running away. She was running toward something.

The Lincoln navigated the exit ramp, the tires hissing against the wet pavement. The rain had started in earnest now, drumming a frantic rhythm on the roof.

Dawn kept up the act, taking shallow, ragged breaths. Every time Catrina looked like she was about to protest the detour, Dawn would let out a dry heave, and Catrina would recoil, pressing a scented handkerchief to her nose.

"You are ruining everything," Catrina muttered. "Dozier is going to be furious. He hates flakes."

"Better a flake than a spectacle," Dawn wheezed.

O'Malley turned the car onto the secondary road that led back toward the East End. It was a darker route, lined with dense woods that swallowed the headlights. This was the road less traveled, the one the locals used to avoid the summer tourists.

"Why is it so dark?" Catrina complained. "This is creepy."

"It's the shortcut," O'Malley said. "Fastest way to the estate."

Dawn closed her eyes, counting the seconds. Her intel pinpointed the time of impact at 7:42 PM. She checked the dashboard clock. 7:38 PM.

They were close.

"Can't you drive faster?" Catrina snapped. "I'm missing the red carpet photos."

"The road is slick, Miss Catrina," O'Malley said, his voice tight.

Dawn felt the car sway as a gust of wind hit them. The storm was intensifying. A gray rhino. That's what they called a highly probable, high-impact threat that everyone ignored until it was too late. The storm was a gray rhino. The financial collapse of her father's company was a gray rhino.

And somewhere on this road, Jennings Stafford was about to meet his own gray rhino.

"Slow down," Dawn said suddenly.

"What?" Catrina looked at her. "You just want to make me later?"

"I said slow down!" Dawn shouted.

O'Malley, startled by the authority in her tone, tapped the brakes.

Just in time.

Ahead of them, the darkness was broken by a flash of sparks. A massive shape had sheared through the guardrail on the curve. It wasn't a normal car. It was a black SUV, tumbling down the embankment into the ravine.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" O'Malley slammed on the brakes fully. The Lincoln skidded, the anti-lock brakes pulsing against the sole of his foot.

The car came to a halt twenty yards from the broken rail.

Silence filled the cabin for a heartbeat, broken only by the slap of windshield wipers.

"Did you see that?" O'Malley's voice shook.

"Drive," Catrina whispered. "O'Malley, just drive. That's none of our business. We don't want to get involved."

Dawn was already unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Are you insane?" Catrina grabbed her arm. "It's pouring rain! You're sick!"

Dawn looked at Catrina's hand on her arm, then up at her face. "I'm feeling better."

She shoved the door open. The wind ripped it from her grasp. Rain lashed at her face instantly, soaking the silk dress within seconds. It was freezing, but the cold made her feel alive. It sharpened her senses.

"Miss Dawn!" O'Malley yelled, scrambling for his umbrella.

Dawn didn't wait. She hiked up her silver skirt and climbed over the guardrail. The mud was slippery, sucking at her heels. She kicked them off. Barefoot, she slid down the embankment toward the wreckage.

The SUV was on its side. Smoke was already curling from the engine block. The smell of gasoline was thick and pungent, masking the scent of the pine trees.

Dawn reached the vehicle. The windows were shattered but held together by the lamination-bulletproof glass. This wasn't a civilian crash.

She wiped the mud from the rear window and peered inside.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the interior in a stark, strobe-light effect.

The driver was slumped over the wheel, his neck at an impossible angle. Gone.

But in the back, a man was pinned. He was conscious. His face was a mask of blood, but those eyes... she would know those eyes anywhere. They were the color of steel and just as cold.

Jennings Stafford.

The man who, unbeknownst to him, had anonymously funded the appeal that shaved five years off her prison sentence. The man whose calculated disappearance for three months would cause his company's stock to plummet, creating the vacuum that Dozier Buckley would fill.

He hadn't disappeared. He had been here. Dying in the mud while she was meant to be sipping champagne at a gala.

Not this time.