My Coworkers Made A Cruel Bet About My Weight—Until The City’s Most Dangerous Man Claimed Me As His Prize
Part 1
The annual holiday gala for our high-end Chicago logistics firm was in full swing at the historic downtown hotel.
I stood near the buffet, trying to blend into the shadows of the grand ballroom.
At two hundred and forty pounds, I was an anomaly in a hyper-competitive world.
The women around me starved themselves to fit into size two suits, and the men measured their worth in luxury watches.
I was a brilliant senior accountant on the fourth floor, but to my colleagues, I was just the punchline to a cruel joke.
I wore a deep emerald velvet gown.
I had painstakingly tailored it myself because finding a dress off the rack that accommodated my wide hips and heavy bust was impossible.
For a brief moment in my apartment mirror, I had actually felt beautiful.
That fragile illusion shattered the moment I walked into the room.
Voices drifted over from a nearby cocktail table.
They were loud, slurred with premium gin, and intentionally cruel.
Tyler, a mid-level finance director, leaned against a gilded pillar with a bloated grin.
Heather, our lead HR director, giggled into her champagne flute.
She playfully told him to stop, warning him that I would hear.
Tyler scoffed, intentionally raising his voice so the words would carry over the soft jazz playing in the background.
He announced he had five hundred dollars riding on a bet.
He claimed that if I sat on one of the antique wooden chairs, the legs would immediately snap under my weight.
The small group of junior executives around them erupted into muffled, cruel laughter.
The heavy velvet of my dress suddenly felt like a suffocating lead blanket.
A hot flush of humiliation crept up my thick neck.
I lowered my gaze, my hands trembling so badly my drink sloshed over the rim of my glass.
I squeezed my eyes shut, promising myself I wouldn’t shed a single tear over these shallow people.
Then, a voice cut through the laughter like a jagged piece of ice.
It was low, gravelly, and carried a dangerous resonance that instantly silenced the surrounding crowd.
A man stepped out from the VIP alcove.
It was Craig, the silent owner of our company.
At thirty-four, he was a phantom in the business world, rarely showing his face at corporate events.
Rumors swirled like dark clouds that his logistics firm was just a front for the largest crime syndicate in the Midwest.
He wore a midnight blue bespoke tuxedo that cost more than my yearly salary.
His sharp, predatory features were set in stone.
His dark eyes locked onto my flushed face, taking in my unshed tears and the way I instinctively tried to cross my arms over my stomach.
Something violent and possessive flashed in his gaze.
Slowly, he shifted his focus toward Tyler.
The finance director went completely pale, his smug grin melting into sheer terror.
Craig demanded he explain the punchline.
Tyler stammered, his voice cracking as he claimed they were just joking around.
With a terrifying show of brute strength, Craig grabbed Tyler by the collar and slammed him backward into the plaster pillar.
The violent thud echoed through the dead-silent ballroom.
Heather shrieked, pressing her hands over her mouth.
Craig’s voice dropped to a lethal whisper.
He asked if Tyler thought my body was a joke.
He snarled that using the woman he had chosen as a prop for bets was a fatal mistake.
I gasped, the room spinning wildly around me.
I had never spoken a single word to Craig in my entire life.
Tyler sobbed, his feet dangling off the floor as Craig held him by the throat.
He swore to God he didn’t know I belonged to him.
Craig declared I was the air he breathed, and Tyler was polluting it.
He dropped the gasping man to the floor and casually adjusted his cuffs.
He ordered his security to remove Tyler, warning that if he ever showed his face in Chicago again, he wouldn’t have a face left.
The guards hauled the weeping man out.
Craig turned his back on the terrified executives and walked straight toward me.
My heart hammered wildly against my ribs.
He stopped inches away, smelling of bergamot, expensive tobacco, and pure, unfiltered danger.
He lifted a heavy, calloused hand to gently brush a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
He murmured that green was his favorite color, gripping my thick waist like I was the most precious thing in his world.
He threaded his fingers through mine, turning to cast one final glare over the crowd.
He promised to tear the building down with anyone inside who looked at me with less than absolute reverence.
The transition into his world was a whiplash of silk and terrifying devotion.
I woke up the next morning in his sprawling penthouse overlooking the lake.
His assistant, Brenda, arrived with my essential belongings and a platinum credit card.
She informed me Craig wanted my wardrobe updated with fabrics that highlighted my curves rather than hiding them.
Society had spent twenty-eight years telling me to shrink, but Craig demanded I take up all the space.
A week later, the news broke.
Tyler had been found brutally beaten in an alleyway, both of his legs completely shattered in a way that ensured he would never walk normally again.
I confronted Craig in his mahogany study, my hands shaking as I held up the article.
He rounded his massive desk and caged me against the edge, his thumb tracing my jawline.
He calmly explained that Tyler had bet I would break a chair, so he broke Tyler.
He whispered that in his world, weakness was blood in the water.
He told me that letting a peasant mock his queen meant losing respect, and without respect, we both die.
Two weeks later, the terrifying reality of his possessiveness was put to the ultimate test.
Craig insisted I accompany him to a tense peace summit at a steakhouse.
We were meeting with Greg, a rival syndicate boss.
The private dining room smelled of charred ribeyes and barely contained hostility.
As the third bottle of wine emptied, Greg stared openly at my heavy chest and thick hips.
A sleazy, drunken grin spread across his face as he wiped his mouth.
He mocked Craig’s appetite, joking that I must know my way around a buffet line.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Before Greg could finish his next insult, Craig moved with explosive speed.
He grabbed a serrated steak knife from his plate and drove it violently downward.
The blade pierced straight through the back of Greg’s hand, pinning it completely to the solid oak table.
Greg’s agonizing scream echoed off the wood-paneled walls.
Craig stood over him, eyes vibrating with demonic rage.
He warned that if Greg ever breathed in my direction again, he would cut out his tongue.
He yanked the bloody blade out and turned to me, his murderous glare instantly vanishing.
He held out his clean hand, softly suggesting we leave.
As we walked out, leaving the screaming mob boss bleeding on the table, I realized Craig wasn’t just defending my honor—he was obsessed, and he was fully prepared to burn down the entire city of Chicago to keep me.
