The warehouse had always been a grave waiting to happen. Evan knew it from the moment he stepped through the shattered doors, dust floating in shafts of light, the stink of oil and rust clinging to the air. Every surface reeked of decay, of endings.Fitting, really. This was where Alec Rotti would end.The bastard was smirking at him, gun loose in his hand as if mocking Evan’s careful precision. Adrian sat bound in the center of it all, pale, trembling, his wide eyes flickering from Alec to Evan. He looked like prey trapped between two predators — except Adrian was never prey. Not while Evan lived.“Well, well,” Alec taunted, voice echoing off the metal walls. “The mighty Evan walks into my den. Took you long enough. I was starting to think maybe you didn’t care about your little boy toy.”Adrian flinched. Evan didn’t move. He let Alec spit his venom, let him gloat. Predators always gave themselves away before the strike.“You thought you could strip me of everything and walk away cle
Evan had always believed that silence was both weapon and shield. Silence allowed him to stalk, to study, to gather every fragment of information before striking. But tonight, silence worked against him. Every second of quiet that stretched between Adrian’s last text message and the gaping absence of his presence was another needle shoved beneath Evan’s skin.The apartment was too still. The wine glass Adrian had set down before Evan left for work still sat on the coffee table, faint smudges of his fingerprints in the soft reflection of the lamp. His shoes weren’t by the door. His phone—his lifeline—lay abandoned on the counter. Evan had called. Again. Again. Again. Each ring that spiraled into nothingness was proof that Adrian was not here of his own volition.And Evan already knew whose hand had taken him.The predator in him, long restrained, long sharpened against whispers and threats and shadows, had a name now. Alec Rotti. The man whose empire Evan had dismantled in boardrooms a
Adrian’s morning began like any other.He padded barefoot into the kitchen, the faint hum of the refrigerator filling the quiet. Sunlight streamed through the blinds in golden slits, striping the wooden floor. The smell of coffee still lingered in the air from the pot Evan had made before leaving for work. Evan had kissed him before stepping out, a soft press of lips against his hairline that had sent Adrian’s heart twisting in ways he didn’t dare name anymore.The apartment felt safe. Too safe.He’d told himself he was used to it now—Evan’s constant hovering, the way the man curated his life down to the smallest detail, from when he ate to which shirts he wore to work. Somewhere between resistance and exhaustion, Adrian had surrendered. Not outwardly, not in words, but in the way he no longer fought every decision, in the way he sometimes caught himself waiting for Evan’s approval without realizing it.Still, the quiet today unnerved him. Evan’s absence was a hollow weight. Adrian si
Alec Rotti had always prided himself on control.Not finesse—he wasn’t the polished type, the boardroom charmer with a hundred-dollar smile. But control. In his world, that meant knowing where the money flowed, who carried the weapons, which docks were vulnerable, which politicians could be bought with a suitcase and a whisper.For a long time, it had worked. He wasn’t untouchable, but he was comfortable, dangerous enough that people looked the other way when he passed. Until Evan Thorn.The name itself made Alec’s blood boil.Thorn had walked into a contract negotiation two years ago with a clean suit and a sharper smile, and by the time Alec realized what had happened, his entire shipping foothold had been gutted. A single acquisition, a subtle takeover, and Alec had lost millions in projected revenue. Thorn hadn’t just taken the contract—he’d humiliated him.Alec never forgot.So when he’d seen Thorn with someone—Adrian, delicate, beautiful, laugh spilling out like sunlight—it had
The first rule of any hunt was silence. Silence in motion. Silence in thought. Silence in every inch of the mask you wore until the prey was too ensnared to realize you had been watching all along. Evan had built an empire out of silence—out of calculation, anticipation, patience. He could charm boardrooms with his smile, disarm adversaries with a handshake, and carve his rivals to pieces without ever raising his voice. No one suspected the blood that ran under his fingernails. No one, except Adrian. But Adrian didn’t know the half of it. He didn’t know that while he was curled on the couch with a book, or pacing the kitchen with coffee in hand, or sleeping with his lips slightly parted in the way that drove Evan half-mad with tenderness, there was another war raging in the shadows. Alec Rotti. The name had come together piece by piece, like a puzzle Evan refused to leave unfinished. The blurred outlines in photographs, the grainy security footage, the strange flicker of familia
Evan didn’t believe in coincidences.Coincidences were for men who were too lazy to notice patterns. For men who told themselves that the world was random so they wouldn’t feel small when it chewed them up.Evan was not one of those men.The stalker had left fingerprints all over the edges of their life. He was careful, yes—disciplined, almost surgical—but not perfect. And Evan had spent too many years in boardrooms, in backroom negotiations, in fights with rivals who would slit throats over ink on a page, to mistake discipline for invisibility.The key was patience.For days, Evan followed him. A shadow behind the shadow. He didn’t confront, not yet. He collected. He memorized. He mapped. The stalker liked routine—he smoked the same brand, stood at the same alley corner outside the newsstand, bought the same cheap black coffee at the cart near Seventh Avenue. He always lingered too long when Adrian was near, his posture tight, his shoulders square.And Evan burned each detail into hi