Chapter 6
By eight that morning, Lena was dressed in the only outfit she owned that had ever made her feel powerful: a charcoal pantsuit she’d bought for her grandmother’s funeral — the only thing in her closet that fit like armor. She tied her hair back. She put on the lipstick she’d been saving for a job interview that apparently had never been real. She put the contract in her bag, unsigned. She put the photograph in her bag, too. And the velvet box, and the key, and the note.
Then she walked out of her apartment, down four flights of stairs, into the New York morning, and got in a cab.
“Where to?”
“Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh.”
The driver pulled into traffic. Lena’s heart was pounding. Her hands were ice cold. She wasn’t going to her job today. She wasn’t going to Ronan Moratini’s office.
She was going to his lawyer.
It had taken her until four in the morning to find the name. Buried in the contract’s footnotes, attached to a notarization stamp, was a name she recognized from a Wall Street Journal profile she’d read two years ago: Eleanor Reyes. Senior partner at one of the most prestigious firms in the city. The woman who had drafted Ronan Moratini’s prenuptial agreement before his first marriage, and his divorce settlement after his first marriage, and apparently every contract he had signed for the last twelve years.
And Eleanor Reyes had a public office. And Eleanor Reyes took walk-in consultations from prospective clients between 8:30 and 9 on Tuesday mornings. Because Eleanor Reyes did not technically work only for Ronan Moratini.
Lena was banking everything on a technicality.
She arrived at the building at 8:22. She gave her name at the desk. She sat in the waiting area, holding her bag in her lap so tightly her fingernails left half-moons in the leather. At 8:41, a receptionist appeared and said, “Miss Carter? Ms. Reyes will see you now.”
The office was exactly what Lena had expected — floor-to-ceiling windows, a view of the park, furniture that cost more than her entire life. Eleanor Reyes was a woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair and the kind of bearing that could silence a courtroom without raising her voice. She regarded Lena with sharp, assessing eyes.
“Lena Carter,” she said, not as a question. “I’ve been wondering when you’d walk in.”
The words hit Lena like a bucket of cold water. “You— you know who I am?”
Eleanor gestured to the chair across from her desk. “Sit down, Miss Carter. Forgive me if I don’t offer you coffee. I have a feeling you’re not here for pleasantries.”
Lena sat. Her hands were still shaking. “Ms. Reyes, I need to ask you something. And I need you to answer honestly, because I don’t know who else to ask.”
“You’re here about Ronan’s contract.”
Lena’s mouth opened, then closed. “So you know about it.”
“I drafted it.” Eleanor’s voice was calm, unhurried. “All thirty-seven pages. Every clause, every section, every carefully placed comma. I know more about that document than Ronan does.”
“Then you know it’s—” Lena stopped, searching for the word. “You know it’s cruel.”
Eleanor studied her for a long moment. “Is it?”
“Ms. Reyes, he bought my mother’s mortgage. He built me a fake job. He had a photograph taken of me sleeping in my own bed. He is holding every part of my life hostage, and you drafted the contract that makes it legal.”
“I did.” Eleanor leaned back in her chair. “And I also drafted the clause that makes it void the moment he touches you without your consent. I drafted the clause that gives you everything — absolutely everything — if you walk away with your dignity intact. I drafted the clause that protects you from every single thing you’re afraid of, Miss Carter.”
“Then why draft it at all?”
Eleanor was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer. “Because I have known Ronan Moratini for twelve years. I have watched him destroy men who crossed him. I have watched him acquire companies and governments and people, and never once — not once — have I seen him build a cage for someone he wanted to set free.”
Lena blinked. “What?”
“Read the contract again, Miss Carter. Not for the loopholes. For the truth.” Eleanor reached across the desk and opened a drawer. She pulled out a second document — a copy of the same contract, covered in her own handwriting. “I’ve been drafting contracts for men like Ronan for thirty years. A man who wants a hostage writes a contract that’s impossible to break. A man who wants a prisoner writes a contract with no exits.” She slid the document across the desk. “Ronan wrote a contract with a door in every room. Every clause has an escape hatch. Every obligation has a termination date. He built you a cage, yes — but he built it with a door, and he gave you the key.”
Lena stared at the document. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not sure he does either.” Eleanor’s voice was gentle. “Ronan Moratini has spent his entire life believing that the only way to keep something is to own it. His father taught him that. The world taught him that. And then, two years ago, a girl in a black dress walked past him three times without seeing him — and he fell in love with the only person who never wanted anything from him. He doesn’t know how to love you, Miss Carter. He’s never been taught. So he’s doing the only thing he knows how to do. He’s building.”
“Building a prison.”
“Building a home. He just doesn’t know the difference.” Eleanor paused. “You have a choice now, Miss Carter. You can treat this contract as a cage, and you can be a prisoner. Or you can treat it as a door, and you can be the one who decides when to walk through.”
Lena sat very still. She thought about the photograph. She thought about the key. She thought about the way Ronan’s voice had cracked when he said I am offering you a cage — and the way he had said I would have let you go.
“Ms. Reyes,” she said slowly. “If I signed this contract, and I wanted to leave — really leave — would he let me?”
Eleanor looked at her for a long time. “I have drafted every contract Ronan Moratini has signed for twelve years. Every exit clause, every termination clause, every escape hatch — he has never once objected to them. He has never once tried to remove them.” She paused. “He has never once asked me to write a contract for a woman before this one. And he has never once looked at any of his holdings the way he looks at your photograph.”
Lena’s heart was pounding. She didn’t know what to do with any of this. It was too much, too fast, too strange — a mafia boss who blackmailed her into a contract because he didn’t know how else to love her.
“Thank you,” she said finally, standing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But thank you for telling me the truth.”
Eleanor nodded. “Miss Carter — one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Ronan has a meeting in the east wing of his building at two o’clock this afternoon. He clears his office between one and two. If you want to see him before Friday, that’s your window.” She smiled, just slightly. “Consider it a professional courtesy.”
Lena walked out of the office into the bright New York morning, the contract heavy in her bag, Eleanor’s words heavy in her mind. She had come looking for a weapon. She had found a map instead.
And Lena Carter, who had been planning to play a game, suddenly understood that she had been playing the wrong game all along.
May you like
She wasn’t going to beat Ronan Moratini.
She was going to change the rules.
