The rain in London didn't wash away sins; it only made them colder.
Nyra Solange stood at the edge of the fresh grave, her black lace veil damp against her cheeks. The soil was still dark and loose—the final resting place of Julian Thorne-Vane, the man who had been her husband for exactly six months.
She didn't cry. Her grief had been frozen out of her the moment the police told her about the car crash.
"The grieving widow. It's a pathetic look on you, Nyra."
The voice was like a blade of ice cutting through the graveyard's silence. Nyra didn't need to turn around to know who it was. The scent of expensive sandalwood and aged bourbon reached her first.
Alaric Thorne-Vane.
Her late husband's elder brother. The man who sat on the throne of the Thorne-Vane empire with a heart made of cold flint. He stepped beside her, his tall, broad-shouldered frame blocking the wind. He didn't look at the grave; his piercing, predatory gaze was fixed entirely on her.
"Alaric," Nyra whispered, her voice rasping. "This is a funeral. Have you no shame?"
"Shame is for the poor," Alaric replied, his lip curling in a signature chauvinistic sneer. He reached out, his gloved fingers gripping her chin, forcing her to look up into eyes that burned with a dark, forbidden intensity. "My brother is dead because he was chasing after your father's failing company. He died trying to save a woman who wasn't worth his breath."
Nyra tried to flinch away, but his grip was a velvet vice. "It was an accident."
"It was a waste," Alaric corrected. He let go of her chin and pulled a crisp, vellum envelope from his inner suit pocket. He tapped it against her chest. "Your father's textile empire collapsed this morning. I bought his debt. Thirty million pounds, Nyra. Every penny of your family's blood now belongs to me."
Nyra's breath hitched. "What?"
"The bank was going to throw your father in prison by sunset. I stepped in." Alaric leaned down, his breath ghosting against her ear, sending a traitorous shiver down her spine. "But I don't give gifts. I make investments."
"I don't have thirty million," Nyra hissed, her eyes flashing with a spark of her old fire.
"I know you don't. But you have a mind that Julian always bragged about. A forensic accountant's brain and a face that... well, a face that causes trouble." Alaric's gaze dropped to her lips for a fraction of a second before hardening. "You will move into my penthouse tonight. You will work as my personal Shadow. You will fix the Thorne-Vane books until every cent of that debt is repaid."
"You want me to be your servant?"
"I want you where I can see you," Alaric said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, possessive growl. "You destroyed my brother. Now, you'll spend the rest of your life paying me back. Welcome to the cage, Nyra."
He turned on his heel, leaving her standing alone in the rain. As his black Maybach rolled away, Nyra looked down at the envelope.
She was a widow. She was a debtor. And as of today, she belonged to the one man who hated her as much as he wanted her.