Chapter 3 - The Price of a Signature
The interior of the town car smelled of leather and clean rain. I sat as far on the edge of the leather bench as possible, my hands clamped tightly in my lap to hide the tremor in my fingers. Roman sat opposite me, the leather-bound ledger resting open on his knees. The partition to the driver's seat was fully raised, locking us in a private, suffocating capsule as the car glided effortlessly through the wet downtown streets.
"You don't know anything about my debt," I said, staring hard at the dark window where my own reflection stared back, pale and exhausted.
"I know that the restaurant you work for is three months behind on its property taxes, and that the owner shakes down his floor staff for breakage fees to cover his gambling losses," Roman said evenly, flipping a heavy page in the ledger. "I also know that your medical bills from St. Jude's Orthopedic exceed four thousand dollars, and that your landlord issued a three-day notice to quit this morning."
I whipped my head around to face him, the blood rushing in my ears. "How could you possibly—"
"Information is my primary asset," he interrupted, his voice dropping into that calm, flat register that brooked no argument. "When an employee of mine—even an accidental one—draws my attention, I find out why her hands are shaking before she lifts a tray."
"I'm not your employee," I snapped, though the defiance felt hollow, rattling around inside the expensive car like a dried-up seed.
"Not yet," Roman agreed, sliding a single sheet of heavy cream-colored paper across the polished wood console between us. A heavy silver fountain pen rested neatly across the top margin. "Sign this, and your medical debt is cleared by midnight. Your apartment lease is renewed for a full year. In exchange, you spend three nights a week working private catered events at my downtown estate."
I looked down at the paper. The text was dense, filled with legal clauses and non-disclosure requirements that made my head spin. "And what's the catch? People like you don't just hand out bailouts for nothing."
"The catch is simple," Roman said, his gaze steady and piercing. "You give me absolute discretion, absolute punctuality, and absolute silence regarding everything you see behind my doors. If you drop a glass in my dining room, you pay for it with your labor, not your tears."
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"And if I refuse?"
"You go back to scrubbing fryers with a torn tendon, get evicted by sunrise, and watch the restaurant collapse under its own corruption anyway," he said softly. "Choose, Paige."
