The man was insane. He had surely drunk away the last brain cells he had left. He didn’t just sell away my mother’s company—her pride and joy, the legacy she left behind—he sold my company. A company I had built and carried like my own child for the past three years. Gone. Just like that. All because my father wanted more money to drown himself in drugs and liquor.

Why do I have to suffer for his mistakes? Why should I marry a man I don’t know, a devil no less, to fix what my father destroyed with his own hands?

I stormed out of the office thirty minutes ago, immediately after Pierson’s little threat, and drove home in a fit of rage. Now I lay curled on my bed, fists clenched in the sheets, cursing my father—and cursing Pierson even more.

I wanted to be strong, to believe that I could hold firm to my decision never to marry him. But something about him told me he wasn’t a man who heard “no” very often. He didn’t look like the kind of man who ever took it for an answer.

Still, I swore to myself: I would not be his. It would be a cold day in hell before they dragged my dead body to an altar to marry him. That was the only way this wedding would ever take place.

Fools. The lot of them.

…

I woke to the sound of something breaking. Glass, maybe. That usually meant father of the year was back. Probably stumbling through the door reeking of booze and despair.

Bang. Bang. “Christiana, sweetie, I’m home!”

I rolled my eyes and shoved my face deeper into the pillow.

Of course, he wouldn’t take the hint.

“Christiana,” his voice slurred through the wood, “please, open the door. Let’s talk about this.”

“Go away, Dad,” I snapped, my throat raw. “There’s nothing to talk about. You’ve already done your part. That much is clear.”

“Sweetheart, please. I… I didn’t have a choice.” His hand rattled the doorknob. “I did what I had to do to save us both.”

“Save us?” I barked a laugh with no humor in it. “The people you owe are your problem, not mine.”

“They’re dangerous people, Christiana. They will kill us.”

I pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw stars. “You don’t save us by selling us. You don’t save us by gambling away everything Mum loved.”

There was silence, then his voice—low, almost defeated. “You don’t understand, Christiana. Men like Pierson… when they want something, they get it.”

My chest tightened.

“You will marry him,” he said, almost a whisper now. “For both our sakes.”

“Just go away, Dad.”

The footsteps eventually retreated, uneven and heavy down the hall. For a moment I thought maybe—just maybe—he’d let me be.

But the words stuck in my head, repeating like a mantra. Men like Pierson… when they want something, they get it.

And I hated that my father might be right.

…

The next morning, I stumbled downstairs, still in yesterday’s clothes, hair tangled and throat aching. The smell of coffee hit me first. Odd. My father hadn’t brewed coffee in years.

Then I saw him.

Jordan Pierson.

Sitting at my kitchen table as though it belonged to him, suit fitted and dark, watch gleaming in the light. A stack of papers rested neatly in front of him. My father hovered by the counter like a guilty child caught stealing candy.

My stomach twisted violently. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even glance up immediately. He poured coffee into the mug in front of him—my mug, the one with the chipped handle—and only then did his green eyes flicker to mine.

“Good morning, Christiana.” His voice was smooth, like silk stretched over steel. “We have unfinished business.”

I crossed my arms. “We don’t have anything.”

“On the contrary.” He slid the papers across the table with a controlled flick. “We have this.”

I didn’t want to look. But my eyes betrayed me.

The papers bore my mother’s signature. Real. Faded, but real. Legal transfers. Ownership percentages. Clauses I couldn’t even begin to process.

My chest tightened, and I felt my throat close. “No,” I whispered. “No, that’s impossible.”

He leaned back in his chair, his fingers brushing the rim of his coffee cup. “Impossible,” he echoed, almost amused. “And yet here we are.”

I turned on my father, rage surging hot through my veins. “You bastard. You really did sell her company. You sold my company.”

He winced, looking anywhere but at me. “Honey, I was desperate—”

“Desperate doesn’t sign away legacies!” I screamed. “Desperate doesn’t erase the one thing Mum loved more than anything—more than you, more than this miserable life—”

“Enough.”

The single word cracked like a whip.

Pierson hadn’t raised his voice, but the command was absolute. My body froze before I could stop it.

His eyes locked onto mine, burning and unyielding. “This tantrum of yours changes nothing. The contract is sealed. Your father has no power left. Which means,” he leaned forward, elbows on the table, “you are all that’s left. And I don’t make offers twice.”

My chest heaved, and I forced the words out through clenched teeth. “I will never marry you.”

Something shifted at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. The ghost of one. “You will. Because if you don’t—”

He let the silence stretch, deliberate, cruel. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Finally, he said it. “Your father won’t live to see the end of the month. And neither will that precious company your mother built.”

The world tilted.

I gripped the back of a chair, fingers digging into the wood so hard they hurt. Every muscle in my body screamed to lunge across the table, to claw that smug expression from his face. But I couldn’t move.

Pierson stood, buttoning his jacket with calm precision. He was taller than I remembered, larger somehow, filling the entire room with his presence. “You think you have choices, Christiana. You don’t. The only choice you have now is whether you walk into this marriage willingly… or kicking and screaming.”

His gaze lingered on me, sharp and cold, before he walked out. The front door clicked shut behind him, his untouched coffee still steaming on the table.

I didn’t breathe until he was gone.

Cold day in hell. That’s what I’d said.

Maybe hell had just come home.