The Winters Industries building loomed above me like a monument to everything I'd spent years escaping. Forty-three floors of steel and glass, my family's name etched in gold letters across the entrance. I'd always hated this place—the sterile luxury, the false smiles, the suffocating weight of legacy.
Today, it felt like a mausoleum.
I pushed through the revolving doors, my sneakers squeaking against pristine marble floors. The security guard, Robert, usually greeted me with a warm smile. Today, he wouldn't meet my eyes.
"Miss Winters," he mumbled, waving me through without the usual small talk.
My stomach churned.
The elevator ride to the top floor felt endless. I watched the numbers climb, each one tightening the knot of dread in my chest. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. The executive level. My father's domain.
The doors opened to reveal Judith, Dad's assistant, sitting at her desk with red-rimmed eyes. She looked up at me, and something crumpled in her expression—pity, maybe, or grief.
"He's waiting for you," she whispered. "Conference room."
"Judith, what's—"
"Go on, sweetheart." Her voice cracked. "They're waiting."
I walked down the hallway on legs that didn't feel like my own. The conference room doors were heavy oak, imported from somewhere expensive and unnecessary. Through the frosted glass, I could see silhouettes moving, gesturing. Voices leaked through—low, urgent, angry.
I pushed the door open.
The argument died instantly.
Dad stood at the head of the massive table, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan. He looked smaller than I remembered, diminished. His usually impeccable suit hung loose on his frame. Gray circles shadowed his eyes.
Uncle Victor paced near the far wall, his face flushed red, jaw tight with barely contained rage. He stopped when he saw me, his expression shifting into something calculating.
"Isla." Dad's voice was hollow. "Thank you for coming."
"What's going on?" I closed the door behind me, my pulse hammering. "Dad, you're scaring me."
"Sit down, sweetheart."
"I don't want to sit down. I want you to tell me what's happening."
Victor laughed—a bitter, harsh sound. "What's happening is that bastard Blackwood is destroying us. That's what's happening."
"Victor, not now." Dad's tone carried a warning.
"Not now?" Victor whirled on him. "When, Malcolm? When she's signing the papers? When we've lost everything?"
"Lost what?" I looked between them, fear climbing my throat. "What are you talking about?"
Dad sank into a chair, suddenly looking decades older. "We've been... there's been a situation. A financial situation."
"A situation?" Victor spat. "Call it what it is. We've been systematically destroyed. Every loan called in, every line of credit frozen, every investor spooked. Lucian Blackwood orchestrated it all."
The name meant nothing to me. "Who?"
"A monster," Victor said. "A vindictive, ruthless—"
"A businessman," Dad interrupted quietly. "With resources and reach we underestimated."
My hands trembled. "I don't understand. How bad is it?"
Dad wouldn't look at me. "Everything. The company, the properties, the accounts. Your grandfather's estate in the Hamptons. The Park Avenue penthouse. All of it was leveraged as collateral. I signed personal guarantees on loans I thought were safe." His voice broke. "I was wrong."
The room tilted. "That's not possible."
"It's already done, Isla." Dad finally met my eyes, and what I saw there made my blood run cold. "Blackwood holds everything. He could liquidate it all tomorrow if he wanted. Winters Industries would cease to exist. The family name would be—"
"Destroyed," Victor finished. "Just like he planned."
I gripped the edge of the table. "Why? Why would someone do this to us?"
Silence stretched between them, heavy with secrets.
"That doesn't matter now," Dad said finally. "What matters is he made an offer. One offer."
Something in his tone made my skin crawl. "What kind of offer?"
Victor turned away, disgust twisting his features.
Dad's hands shook as he reached for a folder on the table. "He'll absorb the debt. Transfer the company intact to a trust. Leave the family with... enough to survive. In exchange for—"
"In exchange for what?" My voice came out sharper than intended.
"A marriage." Dad pushed the folder toward me. "Between you and Lucian Blackwood."
The words didn't make sense. They couldn't. I stared at the folder, at my father's trembling hands, at Uncle Victor's rigid back.
"You're joking."
"I wish I was."
"No." I shook my head, backing away from the table. "No. This is insane. You can't trade a person like property. This isn't the eighteenth century. There are laws—"
"There are also contracts," Victor cut in coldly. "Legal obligations. Debts that must be paid. And Blackwood structured everything perfectly. If we refuse, we lose it all. If we fight, we'll be tied up in lawsuits for years. Bankrupt. Ruined."
"So ruin us!" I spun to face my father. "Let him take the company. Let him take everything. I don't care about the money. I never did."
"It's not just the money." Dad's voice was barely a whisper. "He'll destroy us publicly. Every dirty secret, every questionable deal, every corner we ever cut—he has documentation for all of it. He'll drag the Winters name through every courtroom, every newspaper, every media outlet until there's nothing left."
My laugh was wild, hysterical. "And you think selling your daughter is better?"
"I think survival is better than obliteration."
"For who? For you?" Tears burned my eyes. "I have my own life, Dad. My exhibition. My career. My future."
"You'll still have those things," he said weakly.
"As someone's wife? As payment for your debts?" I wiped my eyes furiously. "How could you even consider this?"
"Because I don't have a choice!" Dad slammed his hand on the table, the sound cracking through the room. "You think I want this? You think I wanted any of this?"
We stared at each other, both breathing hard.
"The meeting is in two days," Victor said quietly. "Wednesday morning. Ten o'clock. Blackwood's office."
"I won't go."
"You will." Dad's voice had gone flat, emotionless. "Because if you don't, everything ends. Not just for me and Victor. For everyone who depends on this company. Two hundred employees who'll lose their jobs. Shareholders who'll lose their investments. The charities we fund. All of it, gone."
"That's not fair." My voice broke.
"No," Dad agreed. "It's not."
I looked at the folder on the table, at the documents inside that would define my future. Everything I'd built, everything I'd fought for—my independence, my art, my life—reduced to a bargaining chip.
"Who is he?" I whispered. "This Lucian Blackwood?"
Dad and Victor exchanged a look I couldn't read.
"You'll meet him Wednesday," Dad said.
But something in his expression, in the way he wouldn't hold my gaze, told me he knew exactly who Lucian Blackwood was. And why this man wanted to destroy us.
The truth sat between us like a living thing, terrible and unspoken.
And I
realized with crystalline clarity that my father wasn't just afraid of losing everything.
He was afraid of me learning why.