Page 5 of Their Arrangement
He was remembering.
And remembering me didn’t look like a good thing.
“I was nineteen,” I said, throat tight. “I didn’t know how to stay.”
“No,” Wolfe said. “But youknewhow to leave.”
The silence turned razor-sharp.
I looked back to Barron. His stare didn’t shift. But something in the air did.
The temperature.
The charge.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I don’t deserve anything. I just—I’m out of options.”
“You’re not asking for a job,” Barron said, rising slowly from his chair. “You’re asking for mercy.”
He came around the desk, walking slowly, deliberately. A hunter, not a CEO.
His presence filled the room.
The air thinned.
He stopped just short of me—close enough that I could smell his cologne. Something dark. Clean. Expensive. It wrapped around me like a snare.
“What exactly are you offering, Cloe?” he asked.
My throat went dry.
“I’ll work. I’ll stay late. I’ll clean the floors if you want. I just?—”
“That’s not what I asked,” he said.
Royal shifted in his seat, setting his drink down with a soft clink.
“You said you’d do anything,” Wolfe added, still from the shadows. “Anything’sa big word.”
I swallowed.
Held my ground.
“I meant it.”
That made Royal smile. “Now that’s dangerous.”
Loyal said nothing. But he looked away.
Barron studied me like he was trying to see beneath my skin.
“To be clear,” he said, “we don’tneedyou. We don’t want your apologies. We don’t want your grief.”
“I’m not offering grief,” I whispered. “I’m offering my work. My hands. My time.”
Barron stepped closer. Just half a foot. But it felt like stepping into the blast zone.
“Why here?” he asked. “Out of every company in this city, whythisone?”
