Devil's Contract

“Oh, hello. I wasn’t expecting anyone,” the tall man says. Despite his expensive tailored suit, I’m not fooled into thinking he’s in the city for sight-seeing.

“I’m sorry if my knocking disturbed you. I’m looking for Mr. Cohen,” I reply.

The man with a large scar above his right eye looks me up and down before answering. “I just left Dex up at The Rooftop. He was saying goodbye to some of his guests after our meeting concluded, but I know he’s planning on heading back down here soon. Would you like to wait inside?” he asks, stepping aside and waving his arm toward the interior of his room. “I could make us some cocktails while you wait.”

My heartrate spikes. I’m not used to feeling unsafe in my own hotel, but I don’t like the predatory look in the man’s eyes as he takes a step closer to me.

My back bumps against Dex’s office door. I try to keep some distance between us without being obvious enough to insult him. My fingers fumble inside my purse to find my master key and I finally find my voice. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll just wait for him in his office.”

As relieved as I am to hear the click of the door unlocking, I won’t relax until I have a locked door between me and the man who is currently ogling me as if I’m his next meal. As soon as the door opens, I scramble into the office to the sound of his mocking laughter behind me.

Once inside, I lean my back against the heavy door, trying to calm my nerves.

What the hell just happened? I feel like a naïve idiot. He hasn’t told me more than I’ve been willing to hear, but Dex has been honest that more than a few of the ‘guests’ he deals with aren’t exactly safe to be around. It’s part of the reason their floors have always been set aside from the regular guests at The Whitney—for their privacy, and everyone’s safety.

Still, I’ve been honest about my hesitancy to be around them too, and getting cornered by one of them is definitely not on my top ten list of experiences to repeat.

Pulling my phone out of my purse, I shoot Dex a text, asking how long he’s going to be. When five and then ten minutes pass by with no reply, I give up on waiting.

Feeling playful, I decide to leave him a note to let him know in obscene detail about all of the sexy things he missed out on doing to my body by not arriving in time. I glance around his desk for a notepad to write on. Finding none, I open his top desk drawer and pull out one of the fancy Montblanc pens he gives to all of his guests.

It isn’t until I open the bottom drawer of his desk that I find a pile of paper I can use. Pulling the top sheet out, I put the pen to the paper and freeze.

I swear I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. I sway on my feet again, but this time it has nothing to do with the number of Cosmos I had at lunch.

Part of me wants to run from the room and pretend I never opened the drawer, but that’s what the old Katja would have done—the naïve woman who was fooled by her lying husband.

In slow motion, I lean down and pull the drawer open again, this time lifting out the entire stack of paperwork from inside.

The urge to throw up is strong. I swallow down the bile rising in my throat as I leaf through the stack of heavy linen stationery on top. The distinctive letterhead for Enterprise Investments, the loan sharks that had been so aggressive about repayment, swims before me as unwanted tears flood my eyes. I swish them away before digging deeper into the pile of envelopes and folders.

There are bank statements showing large deposits and withdrawals. Deeds to several properties with Tristan’s signature scrawled on the bottom.

My hand is shaking by the time I open an envelope full of photos. A tear finally falls onto a picture of my Paris apartment with a post-it note stuck to it containing the date and amount it had been sold for.

The new owner is Enterprise Investments.

My mind races, trying to come up with any explanation for why these items would be in Dex’s desk. He’s told me he handled things with my creditors. Is that all this is?

Not until I get to the bottom file do I get my answer.

I pick up the certificate of incorporation for Enterprise Investments, holding it next to the pile of blank letterhead—comparing the information. Everything matches up until I get to the signature box at the bottom of the official ownership certificate.

I collapse into his chair, my legs unable to hold me up.

There, in black and white, is Dex Cohen’s signature.

Dex was behind it. He was behind all of it.

Chapter Twenty-one

DEX

I get off the elevator on the thirteenth floor, and the first thing I see as the doors open is Katja awkwardly carrying a red container of gasoline. It’s a foreign sight, it’s bizarre, and it makes no sense why she would be lugging gasoline from the maintenance room to this level, and why she’d be doing it without any staff assistance.

I run up to her and try to take the container from her to offer some help. “Hey, what are you doing?”

She jerks the container from me and meets my eyes with a fury I’ve never seen before. “I’d rather see this fucking hotel burn to the ground than see you have one part of it.”