Bought by the Boardroom King
The first time Cassian Voss bought me, he made me kneel in front of twelve directors.
Not in a bedroom.
Not in a church.
In the top-floor boardroom of Voss Dominion, under a chandelier cold enough to look like ice.
My wet hair stuck to my neck.
My torn dress scratched my thighs.
My mother's wedding ring was locked in his fist.
He dropped a contract onto the marble table and looked at me like I was one more company he had swallowed before lunch.
"Sign, Miss Lan."
His voice was low.
Polite.
Deadly.
Behind me, my uncle coughed into a silk handkerchief and pretended not to know me.
He had sold my father's logistics company to cover his gambling debts.
He had also sold me.
Three hundred million dollars.
One forced engagement.
One voting proxy.
One year as the obedient future Mrs. Voss.
That was the price written beside my name.
The directors watched with soft hands folded over fat stomachs.
No one looked shocked.
In rooms like this, women were never kidnapped.
They were negotiated.
"My father is in the ICU," I said.
"He needs surgery tonight."
Cassian turned my mother's ring between two fingers.
"Then sign before tonight ends."
My chest burned so hard I almost laughed.
My father had raised me on loading docks and diesel smoke.
He said a Lan did not bow unless she was picking up a weapon.
But the hospital had already called twice.
Payment declined.
Treatment delayed.
Permission pending.
All those clean little words meant one dirty thing.
Powerful men could kill you without touching blood.
I picked up the pen.
My uncle smiled too soon.
Cassian noticed.
His eyes moved once, sharp as a knife under water.
I signed my name.
The pen shook.
The room relaxed.
That was their mistake.
They thought surrender and silence were the same thing.
Cassian slid a black keycard across the table.
"You will live in my penthouse until the wedding."
"A cage with a view," I said.
One director chuckled.
Cassian did not.
He leaned down until only I could hear him.
"A cage keeps wolves out too."
I hated that sentence.
I hated more that his hand was steady when he helped me stand.
My uncle's men escorted me to the private elevator.
One of them squeezed my bruised wrist and whispered, "Smile for the cameras, little bride."
I smiled.
Then I bent my head and let my hair hide my face.
The doors opened on the penthouse.
Rain covered the city like black glass.
My bedroom had no lock on the inside.
My phone had no signal.
On the vanity sat a velvet box.
Inside was my mother's ring.
Beside it lay a note in Cassian's square handwriting.
Do not trust your uncle.
At midnight, my uncle came to the penthouse drunk on victory and expensive whiskey.
He did not know I was in the shadowed corridor.
He laughed into his phone outside Cassian's study.
"The girl signed."
"Voss gets the proxy tomorrow."
"After the old man dies, burn the warehouse records."
My body went cold.
Warehouse records.
My father's last shipment had exploded three weeks ago.
The accident that put him in the ICU.
The accident my uncle called bad luck.
Inside the study, Cassian's voice cut through the door.
"Say that again."
My uncle stopped laughing.
Silence grew teeth.
I pushed the door open.
Both men turned.
Cassian stood behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, a silver USB drive in his hand.
My uncle's face emptied.
It was the face of a rat seeing light.
"You recorded me," he said.
Cassian looked at me, not him.
"Your father sent me the first file before the explosion."
The floor tilted.
"You knew?"
"I knew someone inside your family tried to murder him."
"So you bought me?"
Cassian's jaw tightened.
"If I left you outside my walls, your uncle would have finished the job before morning."
"And if I refused to sign?"
"I would have paid the hospital anyway."
I stepped toward the desk.
"Give me the USB."
My uncle lunged first.
He grabbed my hair and yanked me back.
Pain burst white behind my eyes.
His breath hit my ear.
"You stupid little thing."
"Do you know how long I waited for your father to die?"
Cassian moved.
Fast.
Too fast for a man who looked carved from money.
He caught my uncle's wrist and twisted until bone clicked.
The USB skidded across the desk.
I reached for it.
My uncle kicked the table.
The desk lamp fell.
Glass shattered.
The room went half dark.
Outside, thunder rolled over the windows.
My uncle pulled a small pistol from his coat.
The black hole pointed at my chest.
"One more step and the bride becomes a tragedy."
Cassian froze.
I slowly lifted both hands.
My uncle smiled.
"Uncle," I whispered.
"Please."
His shoulders loosened.
Men like him always mistook a woman's trembling for defeat.
I kicked the fallen champagne bottle with my heel.
It rolled hard into his ankle.
The gun jerked.
Cassian slammed into him.
The shot cracked the window.
Rain air screamed into the room.
I dove across the desk and grabbed the USB.
My palm closed around cold metal.
My uncle hit the floor, but his other hand caught my dress.
I crawled anyway.
Cassian pinned my uncle down and shouted my name.
I did not look back.
I shoved the USB into the conference console beside the wall.
The penthouse screens woke at once.
Files opened.
Bank transfers.
Warehouse camera footage.
Insurance fraud.
My uncle paying guards to lock emergency exits before the explosion.
My father's voice message played last.
"Mira, if you hear this, do not cry in front of them."
"Take back what is ours."
The study doors burst open.
Then the directors, pale and sweating, because Cassian had already called an emergency meeting downstairs and streamed everything live.
My uncle screamed that I was a liar.
Nobody listened.
Cassian stood and wiped blood from his mouth.
"The proxy contract is void," he said.
"Coercion, fraud, attempted murder."
The lead director began to stammer.
I walked past him to the main screen.
My legs shook.
My hand did not.
I selected the ownership file.
I revoked my uncle's authority.
I restored Lan Freight Holdings under my name.
Then I turned to Cassian.
The room held its breath.
He looked at me like a man waiting for sentence.
I took off the diamond engagement ring he had placed on me in front of those directors.
I dropped it into his glass of untouched whiskey.
It sank with a small, final sound.
"You were right about one thing," I said.
"A cage can keep wolves out."
I picked up my mother's ring and slid it onto my own finger.
"But I was never born to live in one."
Then I stepped over my uncle's blood on the marble and walked into the rain-lit elevator.
