Chapter 3 - The Sold Inheritance
Sloan's eyes snapped wide, her voice trembling as she tried to pull away from his touch. “Excuse me?” Dante ignored her confusion, turning his dark gaze back toward the terrified crowd.
“The debt is settled, Richard. The slate is clean.” Richard pushed his way through the stunned onlookers, pale, sweating, and desperate.
“Valente, please.” He glanced frantically at Paige, then back to Dante. “Take the Belmont property. Take the shipping routes on the East Side. You can't take Paige. She's just been married. The scandal will ruin us!” Dante tilted his head slowly, a terrifying stillness settling over his broad shoulders.
“Did I say I wanted the bride?” Richard blinked, confusion momentarily overriding his terror. His eyes darted to Paige, then shifted slowly to Sloan. Understanding dawned on his face, followed instantly by something far more sickening: profound relief.
“Sloan,” Richard breathed, his shoulders sagging as if an unbearable weight had been lifted from him. He didn't look at his youngest daughter with pity or remorse; he looked at her the way a desperate accountant looks at a ledger balancing out at the eleventh hour.
“No,” Sloan whispered, stepping back until her spine hit the wall again. “No. Dad, what is he talking about? What debt?” Richard refused to meet her blazing eyes, wringing his hands together.
“Sloan, please. Just do as the man says.” The betrayal cut deeper than any knife. She had spent twenty-four years knowing she was the outcast of the Hayes family, but the sheer speed of her father's sacrifice stole the breath from her lungs.
“You sold me?”
“It's not selling,” Richard stammered, his voice rising defensively. “It's an arrangement to preserve the family. Sloan, if I don't settle this debt, he takes the entire holding company. Carter's family will pull out of the merger. We'll lose everything.”
“Then let it all burn!” Sloan shouted, the white-hot fury bursting through her chest. She looked at Paige, hoping, praying her sister would show a shred of humanity. Paige only clung tighter to Carter, tears streaking her makeup, utterly silent. Nobody moved. Nobody protested. They were all entirely willing to feed Sloan to the wolf if it meant the party kept going. A warm, unbreakable hand closed around her upper arm.
“We're leaving,” Dante commanded. Sloan glared up at him, shaking off her paralysis.
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“I am not collateral!” she snarled, pulling against his grip. Dante looked down at her, a flicker of dark amusement crossing his stone features.
“You're walking out those doors with me, Sloan.”
