LOGINBy morning, I had already made up my mind that I needed to find Damian.I had spent most of the night thinking about what he told me, especially the part about my father having a club that was still operating somewhere in Greystone. I didn’t know whether Damian had been telling me the truth or deliberately feeding me another lie, but there was only one way to find out, and that was by asking him questions he couldn’t easily avoid.The problem was that I had no idea where to begin looking for him.I should have taken the business card he gave me that day. At the time, I had been too angry and overwhelmed to think about it, but now I regretted leaving it behind. I couldn’t exactly walk around town asking people where I could find an FBI agent without attracting unwanted attention.Then I remembered the police station.If Damian was still working with the other federal agents in Greystone, there was a good chance I could find him there. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the only one I
I took the longest shower I could remember taking, standing beneath the hot stream until the bathroom mirror had fogged completely and the water had begun to cool against my skin. I needed the silence, even if it was only the artificial silence created by the running shower. There had been too many questions lately, too many things I was hiding from the men, from Ava, and sometimes even from myself. The conversation with Ava kept replaying in my head, especially the look in her eyes when she asked about Victor Monroe and the disappointment that followed when I couldn’t give her the answers she wanted.I shut off the water and stepped out, reaching for the towel hanging beside me. My reflection stared back through the mist as I dried myself, and for a second, I barely recognized the man looking back. I looked tired. More tired than I was willing to admit.I walked toward the small cabinet beside the sink and opened it, reaching behind the bottles of painkillers and toiletries until my
Cain finally broke the silence, and somehow the calmness in his voice made what he was saying hurt even more. “I don’t know your father,” he said, holding my gaze. “Eli talked about you a lot when we were in the military. He told me you were his only family, and that was all I knew about you.” I stared at him, trying to decide whether I believed him, but there was something in his expression that made it difficult to accuse him of another lie without proof. I lowered my eyes, letting the silence stretch between us while memories of my childhood slowly surfaced.“I knew Eli would do something like that,” I finally murmured.Cain’s brows pulled together. “Do what?”I looked at him again, and for the first time since entering his office, some of the anger in my chest was replaced by something closer to sadness. “Take care of me.” My fingers tightened together in my lap. “He never really liked our parents. At least, he never liked the way they lived.” I paused, remembering things I had
I was still going through the list Knox had given me when one particular number caught my attention. It wasn’t saved under a name, and there was nothing about it that immediately connected it to anyone I knew, but the sheer number of messages exchanged between it and Reaper’s right-hand man made me stop. I leaned closer to the desk, scrolling through the conversations Knox had managed to recover, and the more I read, the more uneasy I became. The messages were filled with strange symbols, scattered numbers, and addresses that appeared meaningless at first glance. Whoever had written them had clearly gone out of their way to make sure nobody could understand what they were saying.But I had spent too many years around encrypted information to be fooled by something that simple.I grabbed a pen and began writing down some of the symbols, comparing them with the patterns I had seen before. It took several minutes before everything started falling into place, and when it finally did, my
Mara followed me upstairs with my bag balanced against her hip, and I could tell from the smile on her face that she was still pleased with herself for convincing me not to leave the Pit. She had spent enough time persuading me that I eventually stopped fighting her, but deep down, I knew Mara wasn’t the only reason I had changed my mind. There was something else keeping me here, something I hadn’t told her or anyone else. Damian’s words kept replaying in my head, especially the part about my father owning a club that was still operating somewhere in Greystone.I had spent years believing my father was dead, believing that whatever life he had left behind was nothing more than a painful memory, and now I had discovered that there might be a piece of his past still functioning right under my nose. The thought alone made it impossible for me to walk away without finding out the truth.Mara opened my closet and began putting the clothes I had packed back onto the shelves, humming quietl
I was relieved when Mara managed to convince Ava to stay, even if I knew better than to mistake her decision for forgiveness. She had looked at me before she walked back inside with the kind of expression that told me she was still hurting, still angry, and still trying to understand how much of her life had been built around things other people had chosen to keep from her. I couldn’t blame her for that. If anything, I was surprised she had decided not to leave after everything that happened. The thought of her disappearing into the night with Damian somewhere out there searching for her had been eating at me since she reached the door, and knowing she was still under my roof gave me a small measure of relief, even if she refused to speak to me. I turned away from the bar and headed upstairs, forcing myself to focus on the problems that still needed my attention instead of following her like a desperate bastard who had forgotten how to give a woman space.When I entered my office,







