LOGINCillian
I know before Liam even speaks. It’s in the way he stands. Still. Too still. Waiting. Something went wrong. I don’t break stride as I walk into the penthouse.
“Talk.”
Liam doesn’t hesitate. “She tried to leave.” Silence. Sharp. Immediate. My jaw tightens so hard I feel it in my skull. “With Maya and Sophia,” he adds. “They made it to the elevator.”
My steps slow. Dangerously so. “And?&r
ElenaThe door opens. I hear it before I see it. Metal scraping softly. A click. The kind of sound that shouldn’t feel loud, but does. My entire body locks instinctively, every nerve going sharp and alert, even while I force myself to stay still.Slow. Weak. Out of it. That’s what they need to see. I let my head loll slightly to the side, my eyes half-lidded, unfocused. My breathing stays shallow, uneven, just enough to sell it. My wrists remain where they are, loose against the rope, like I gave up fighting.Footsteps. Heavy. Confident. Not rushed. More than one. I count them without looking. One. Two. Maybe three. The air shifts as they step inside, bringing in colder air with them. Different scent too, cigarettes, cheap cologne, something metallic. Blood, maybe. Or just the place.“Still out?” a voice mutters.Italian accent. My stomach tightens, but I don’t react. No
ElenaDarkness comes back in pieces. Not all at once. Slow. Heavy. Like I’m being dragged up from somewhere deep, and I don’t quite want to reach the surface.My head throbs. My body feels wrong. Too heavy. Too slow. For a second, I don’t move. I just breathe. In and out, in and out, in…. Something is off. Cold. Hard beneath me. Not my bed. Not the penthouse. Not safe.My eyes snap open. Dark ceiling. Unfamiliar. Wrong. Everything comes back at once. The restaurant. The explosion. The chaos. Cillian…My breath catches sharply. I try to sit up, and pain shoots through my arms. I freeze. Look down. My wrists are bound. Tight. Rough material digging into my skin. My heart starts racing. Fast. Too fast. No. No no no…I pull against the restraints instinctively. The rope bites deeper. My breath turns uneven. Panic claws its way up my chest, sharp and immediate, threatening to take over everything. This is real. Thi
CillianThe noise doesn’t matter. The screaming. The shattered glass. The chaos is ripping through the restaurant like it’s still alive. None of it matters. Because she’s gone. And someone is still breathing who shouldn’t be. I don’t leave. I don’t chase the exit. I don’t run after ghosts. I turn. Slow. Controlled. Deadly.“There,” Liam says, already dragging a man across the floor by the collar.Blood streaks across the tiles behind him. The man is half-conscious, face already swollen, one eye barely open. Good. Not enough.“Alive?” I ask.“For now.”Ronan appears from the side, cracking his knuckles, jaw tight with barely contained violence.“He’s one of them,” he mutters. “Didn’t make it far.”Perfect. I step closer. The man tries to move. Tries to crawl. Pathetic.
ElenaSomething feels… off. I don’t know when it starts. Maybe it’s the way the room is too quiet. Or the way everyone is pretending it’s not. Cillian and Kenji Takahashi are talking across from me, voices low, controlled, like every word matters more than it sounds.I try to follow. Numbers. Routes. Something about shipments. But my attention keeps drifting. Not to the conversation. To the room. To the way the staff move. To the way the guards stand just a little too stiff. To the feeling crawling up my spine. I shift slightly in my chair. Cillian notices. Of course he does.His hand brushes my knee under the table. Subtle. Grounding. Stay. I don’t look at him. But I still. Kenji’s gaze flicks to me again. Too observant. Too aware.“You’re distracted,” he says calmly.“I’m listening,&r
ElenaI didn’t expect to feel like this again. Nervous. Not scared. Not uncertain. Just… aware. Of everything. The room feels quieter tonight as I stand in front of the mirror, fingers smoothing over the fabric of my dress. It’s different from the gala, still elegant, still fitted, but darker. More controlled.More him. My reflection stares back at me, and for a second, I don’t fully recognize her. Not the girl from the bookstore. Not the one trying to survive day by day. This version of me, she knows she’s being watched. Judged. Measured. And somehow… she’s still standing. My breath leaves slowly.“You’re thinking too much.” His voice is low. Right behind me.I don’t turn immediately.“I’m going to dinner with a man you don’t trust,” I reply. “I think I’m allowed.”A faint huff of amusement brushes the air behind me.“T
CillianThe flowers are already in her room when I find out. Of course they are. Nothing about Kenji Takahashi is accidental. I don’t touch them at first. I just stand there, looking at the arrangement sitting on her table like it belongs in this place. White orchids. Clean. Precise. Expensive. Calculated.Everything about him is.“Who let these in?” I ask, my voice flat.Liam is behind me. “They were delivered through the main desk,” he says. “Cleared as a priority package.”Of course they were. I step closer slowly, my gaze dropping to the card tucked between the stems. I already know it’s from him. I don’t need to read it to know. But I do anyway. “For the woman who doesn’t fear dangerous men”.My jaw tightens. There’s more.“Dinner. Tonight. You and her. Consider it… a continuation of our conv
CillianSomething’s off. I feel it before I see it. It starts as a shift. Subtle. A change in the rhythm of the room. Conversations still flowing, laughter still echoing, glasses still clinking, but underneath it, something is wrong.My attention sharpens instantly. I don’t stop spe
CillianBy the time Declan walks into my office, I’m already in a foul mood.That kiss should never have happened. Not because I regret crossing the line. I don’t waste time on regret. But because it told me something I didn’t want confirmed. She got under my skin faster than anyone has in a long f
CillianI know the second I step into the room that Ronan got to her first.Not because he says anything. He doesn’t have to. I can read it in the way she’s standing in the middle of the kitchen like she’s braced for impact, all rigid shoulders and lifted chin, as if sheer stubbornness can hold the
ElenaI don’t sleep. Not really.I close my eyes at some point, my body eventually giving in to exhaustion, but my mind never fully shuts off. Every sound feels too loud, every shift of light through the windows pulling me back to awareness like something is about to happen. I wake before I even kn







