Chapter Twelve
Sloane
The green numbers on the tablet have stopped looking like data. They look like glowing insects, crawling across a glass cage.
Thirty-seven thousand, nine hundred and five.
Thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two.
My vision blurs, the edges of the room fraying into grey static. I've been in this position for hours—cheek pressed against the silk of Vane's mattress, my body a crumpled heap on the rug, while his fingers continue their slow, rhythmic torture through my hair. The sensation is hypnotic. Every time his knuckles brush against my scalp, a wave of traitorous warmth washes over me, fighting the cold ache in my joints.
I am hovering in the "grey zone"—that dangerous territory where the brain begins to eat itself to stay awake.
I start to hallucinate. The sound of the crashing waves outside morphs into the steady, mechanical hum of the ventilator in my mother's room. I can almost smell the antiseptic and the lilies I brought her last week—the scent of a life suspended in amber. In this half-dream, Vane isn't a monster. He's just a shadow at the door, a silent guardian paying for a miracle I can't afford.
Just close your eyes for a second, Sloane, a voice in my head whispers. The contract is just paper. Paper burns.
My eyelids feel weighted with lead. I feel my chin dip. The tablet slips a fraction of an inch in my numb grip. The transition from reality to sleep is like falling into a deep, dark well of velvet. For a blissful, terrifying heartbeat, the sixty-first floor, the Hamptons, and the debt all vanish.
I am nowhere. I am safe.
Splash.
The shock is so violent I think my heart has actually stopped.
Ice-cold water hits the back of my neck and plunges down my spine, soaking into my ruined blouse. I gasp, my body jerking upright, my lungs burning as I suck in the chilled air of the bedroom. I scramble backward on the rug, my hands scraping against the floor, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs.
I look up, blinking through the water dripping into my eyes.
Vane is leaning over the edge of the bed, an empty crystal glass in his hand. He looks bored. He looks like a man who has just performed a minor, necessary calibration on a piece of machinery.
"You were drifting, Sloane," he says, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "The Nikkei just dropped another forty points while you were busy dreaming of your exit strategy. That's a breach."
"I... I was checking the... I was..." I can't even form the lie. My teeth are chattering, the cold water making the silk cling to me like a freezing second skin.
"Don't lie to me. It's beneath your pay grade." He sets the glass on the nightstand with a definitive, bone-chilling clack. "You were choosing comfort over compliance. You were choosing yourself over the contract. Do I need to call the clinic, Sloane? Do I need to tell them that your 'exhaustion' is more important than your mother's respiratory support?"
"No," I whisper, my voice trembling as much as my hands.
I crawl back toward the bed, the wet rug squelching under my knees. I reach for the tablet, my fingers fumbling with the screen. "No, Sir. It won't happen again."
"See that it doesn't. If I see your lashes touch your cheek one more time, I won't use water. I'll find a much more... invasive way to keep you awake."
He reaches out, his wet fingers catching my chin and forcing me to look at him. His eyes are like twin lasers in the dark—devoid of sleep, devoid of mercy.
"Look at me," he commands. "Keep your eyes on mine until the sun clears that horizon. If you want to sleep, you have to earn the right to close your eyes. Right now, you haven't even paid the interest on your failures."