LOGINVivian's POVThe cathedral had been abandoned for thirty years, and it still smelled like incense. I liked that about it. Fitting, in a way, for this conversation I was about to have.I heard them before I saw them. Careful and rhythmic footsteps against the floor. Julian came in first, through the broken doors, yhen Lauren a step behind him, her eyes sweeping the whole place like she expected an ambush.She wasn't wrong to expect one. She just wouldn't find it."No men," Julian said, scanning behind the pillars. "No guards. No trap.""I told you I wanted to talk." I stepped out from behind the altar, I spread my hands open at my sides, empty and unarmed. "Just you and me, Julian. I meant it.""And me," Lauren said, her eyes trained on me."And you." I let my eyes settle on her, "Fitting, actually. You should hear this too.""Hear what?" Julian's voice had gone flat, like he was losing his patience. "You called this meeting, Vivian. Talk.""I will." I walked to the edge of the broken
Julian’s POV The FBI agent sitting across my desk had a serious, business like kind of face, he looked like he was doing me a favour."Mr. Cross, I want to be clear about what we're offering." Agent Johnson folded his hands. "Full protective detail. Safe house. We relocate you and your wife until Vivian Rossi is in custody.""No.""I don't think you understand the scope of what we're dealing with. This woman has connections to at least four criminal networks across three states–""I said no." I didn't raise my voice but I was as firm as I needed to me. "I've spent years building an operation that doesn't need federal babysitters, and I'm not about to start needing one now because a woman with nothing left to lose wants to play games.""With respect, sir, she killed five of her own people two days ago. Executed them. That's not a woman playing games. That's a woman with nothing left to lose, which in my experience makes people considerably more dangerous, not less."He wasn't wrong. T
Vivian's POV Everything I built is gone. Gone, like it never existed, like thirty years of my life amounted to nothing more than ash, a server wreckage and a leg wound that still hadn't stopped aching like crazy.I sat in the dark of a safehouse I hadn't used since I was twenty-six years old, watching the rain hit a window that hadn't been cleaned since then either, and I let myself feel it for exactly one minute. One minute to mourn the empire I just lost. Then I was done mourning."Talk to me," I said, without turning around.Marco shifted behind me. Marco, who used to run six ports and now ran nothing, because there was nothing left to run. "Half our accounts are frozen. The ones that aren't, everyone knows about now, thanks to that dead man's little upload. Three of our people in the Council already reached out to Cross's lawyers, offering testimony in exchange for immunity.""Which three.""Does it matter? By tomorrow it'll be six. By next week, everyone who ever took a payment
Julian’s POV The cemetery was too quiet for a man like Silas who had never once in his life shut the fuck up.I stood at the edge of the open grave in a black suit that felt heavy on me, watching the crowd fill in around us. My own people up front, Tommy at the head of them, his jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. Behind them were faces I hadn't expected. The Martins family, old rivals I had been at war with for years over the shipping channels. Two men from the Reyes gang who I had personally put in the hospital eighteen months ago. Silas had built relationships across every side of this business, quiet ones, separate from mine, favors owed and debts settled that I was only now learning of. Men who hated me showed up anyway, because whatever Silas had been to them, it had earned this.That was the kind of man he had been. You could hate everything he stood for and still owe him enough to stand in the cold and watch him go into the ground.Lauren stood beside m
Lauren’s POV Silas made it three steps toward the car before his legs buckled."Whoa–" Tommy caught him under one arm before he hit the ground, and that was when I saw it, the dark stain spreading fast across the side of his shirt."Silas." I was already moving. "Silas, look at me.""I'm fine." He wasn't fine. His face had gone pale and his knees were wobbling under him, Tommy practically dragged him the last few feet to the car. "Just winded. Long night.""You've been shot." Julian was right behind me, one hand still pressed to his own bleeding temple, but his eyes had become focused and overly series the second he saw Silas. "Get him in the car. Now."We piled him into the back seat between Julian and me, and the second his back hit the seat he let out a sound I'd never heard him make before, a loud painful groan and his hand went to his side."Drive," I told Tommy. "Drive, drive, drive!""On it." The tires screeched loudly as we drove out of the lot."Talk to me." I peeled his han
Silas's POVNobody notices the man who's supposed to be watching the building.That was the whole trick of it, really. During the run to pull Julian out of Vivian's first trap, Tommy had me watching the building, my eyes were wide open, making sure nobody snuck up on us from behind while Lauren and the others went in. I'd already looked over Vivian's other building two days before, back when I was supposed to be scouting the coastline hiding spot instead. Officially, that's exactly what I was doing. Unofficially, I was learning something else entirely, who came and went, when the guards changed, the gap in the fence nobody had fixed. A dying man makes good use of his time.So when the fighting at the fortress hit its loudest point, when every gun on our side and theirs was pointed at each other and nobody had a spare second to wonder where Silas had gotten to, I slipped away after I told Tommy over the radio I was checking the road behind us for more of Vivian's men. He grunted and f
CHAPTER TWOLAUREN’S POV The golden doors of the elevator finally slid open, revealing a sprawling, ultra-modern penthouse wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glass that overlooked the glittering skyline of the city. I stepped out, my expensive heels sinking into a thick rug, but before I could take anoth
CHAPTER ONELAUREN’S POV"I said we are done, Jake," I barked into the phone, rubbing my tired eyes. "Don't call me again.""Lauren, come on. It was one mistake," Jake pleaded, his voice whining through the cheap speaker of my phone."One mistake too many. It's over. Have a nice life." I didn't wai
Lauren’s POV The rain started before I even reached Silas's building.Seattle didn't do light drizzles. It came down hard and heavy, soaking through my jacket before I'd made it half a block from where I'd parked. I'd told Julian I needed air. Just air. He'd looked at me the way he always did lat
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO LAUREN’S POV I yanked my shirt up from the floor with shaking hands and glared at Julian through the mess he had made of me. “You disgusting bastard.” He set the gun down on the desk like it was nothing. “I’ve been called worse,” he said. “By people still alive?” Hi







