Chloe was out of the booth in a flash.
She stood between Donovan and Arthur, her eyes locked onto the promoter.
The apron was on, but the air around her turned instantly frigid.
“Are you lost?” Chloe asked, her voice dangerously low.
Donovan smiled, a slick reptilian grin.
“Not at all, Miss Jennings. Or should I call you the ghost? My name is Richard Donovan. You embarrassed my star pupil last night. Cost me a very lucrative television deal, actually. Bradley’s sponsors pulled out this morning when they saw him crying on a diner floor.”
Donovan took a step closer, leaning on his cane.
“But I’m a businessman. Where one door closes, a vault opens. I saw the footage. You’re a prodigy, a freak of nature. I want you in the cage, Chloe. I can make you a millionaire in 6 months.”
“I don’t fight,” Chloe said flatly.
“Leave.”
Donovan chuckled, pulling a thick envelope from his breast pocket, and tossing it onto the table.
“There’s $50,000 in cash in there, just to sign the contract. Your father told me you were stubborn, but he didn’t mention you liked smelling like cheap grease.”
Chloe’s breath hitched.
“You spoke to my father?”
“Thomas reached out to me the moment the video went viral.” Donovan smirked.
“He’s quite eager to resume his role as your manager. He mentioned you owe him quite a bit of money for your upbringing.”
The revelation hit Chloe like a physical strike.
Her father had found her.
The nightmare was reaching out its claws to drag her back into the dark.
“I’m not a commodity,” Chloe said, her voice shaking with a rage she struggled to contain.
“And I’m not going back to the underground. Get out of my diner, Donovan.”
“Oh, you don’t seem to understand the reality of your situation.” Donovan sighed, adjusting his cuffs.
“I bought the mortgage to this miserable little restaurant this morning. If you don’t sign my contract, I foreclose on Arthur today. He loses everything. And that kid, Toby, I have friends on the police force. They can make sure a teenager holding illegal narcotics goes away for a very long time.”
Chloe’s fists clenched, her knuckles turning bone white.
The twist of Donovan’s leverage was sickening.
He was trapping her, pulling the innocent people she cared about into the line of fire.
Donovan gestured to the largest of his bodyguards, a man named Ivan, a former Spetsnaz operative with a face scarred by knife wounds and eyes devoid of humanity.
Ivan stepped forward, rolling his massive shoulders, cracking his neck with a sickening pop.
“You’re going to fight for me, Chloe.” Donovan whispered maliciously.
“The only question is whether you walk into the cage voluntarily or whether Ivan here has to break every bone in this old man’s body to convince you.”
Ivan did not wait for a single signal to attack.
He lunged at Chloe with the terrifying speed of a seasoned killer, his massive hands reaching out to grab her by the hair, fully intending to smash her face into the counter top.
