THE FINAL LEASH

The penthouse doors hissed open to silence that felt wrong too still, too clean.

Silas stepped in first, Glock already drawn, barrel sweeping the foyer. Aiden followed close, heart in his throat, the collar suddenly constricting like a warning. The rescue dogs were gone no welcoming barks, no scrabbling claws on marble. Lights were dimmed low, only the city glow filtering through floor-to-ceiling glass.

A voice drifted from the living room cultured, amused, faintly accented.

“Welcome home, gentlemen.”

They rounded the corner.

Lucien Moreau sat in the center of the sectional like he owned it legs crossed, gray suit pristine despite the bandaged hand and faint bruising on his jaw. Two of his remaining men flanked him, suppressed MP5s trained casually on the doorway. On the coffee table between them lay a sleek black tablet, screen glowing with live feeds: the Brooklyn warehouse burning, Elena Voss’s lifeless body slumped in the interrogation chair, Reyes and Marco sprawled in pools of their own blood.

Silas’s gun never wavered. “You’re supposed to be in cuffs.”

Moreau smiled thinly. “Cuffs are temporary. Loyalty is not.”

Aiden’s stomach dropped. “The crew—”

“Replaced,” Moreau said simply. “Money buys many things. Loyalty, however… that requires leverage.” He tapped the tablet. Another feed flickered on: Marcus Blackwood, still in orange, but now in a private cell alone, alive, but a red dot painted on his chest from an unseen sniper rifle outside the window. “Your brother’s continued existence is courtesy of my goodwill. One word from me and the dot becomes permanent.”

Silas’s finger tightened on the trigger. “You want the network. Take it. Let them go.”

Moreau tilted his head. “I want more than the network, Vane. I want your empire the clean billions, the dirty billions, the boy.” His gaze slid to Aiden, lingering on the faint outline of the collar beneath his shirt. “You built something beautiful here. Power. Obsession. Love. I want to own it. Break it. Watch you watch me take it apart.”

Aiden felt Silas’s body coil beside him rage, protectiveness, something darker. The same storm that had once fueled revenge now burned for preservation.

Moreau stood slowly. “Drop the weapon, Silas. Or Marcus dies. Then the boy. Then you.”

Silas didn’t move.

Aiden stepped forward slow, deliberate. “Let me talk to him.”

Silas’s eyes snapped to Aiden warning, pleading. Aiden ignored it. He walked to the center of the room, stopping just out of reach of Moreau’s men.

“You want to break us?” Aiden said quietly. “You already lost that game in Rikers. We survived. We always survive.”

Moreau chuckled. “Brave. Stupid. But brave.”

Aiden’s voice dropped. “You think you own loyalty? You bought it. Silas earned it. Blood, pain, years in the dark. You’re just an old man with deep pockets and no soul.”

Moreau’s smile faded. He gestured. One guard stepped forward, pressing the muzzle of his MP5 to Aiden’s temple.

Silas’s gun swung instantly to Moreau. “Touch him and you die before the shot even echoes.”

Tension crackled electric, suffocating.

Then Silas lowered his weapon. Slowly. Carefully. Placed it on the floor.

Moreau exhaled. “Smart.”

Aiden met Silas’s gaze across the room stormy blue locked on piercing green. A silent conversation passed between them: Trust me.

Aiden turned back to Moreau. “You want the empire? Fine. But you don’t get it clean.”

He reached up slowly and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. The leather collar gleamed in the low light, silver tag catching the city glow. Moreau’s eyes narrowed, intrigued.

Aiden’s fingers traced the leather. “This isn’t just a toy. It’s a promise. You want to own what we have? You’ll have to take it the same way he did brutally, completely, until there’s nothing left to give.”

Moreau stepped closer. “Tempting offer.”

Aiden smiled small, dangerous. “Then come take it.”

The moment stretched thin, razor-edged.

Moreau reached out, fingers brushing the collar.

Silas exploded.

He lunged not for the gun, but for the nearest guard snapping his wrist, stealing the MP5 in one fluid motion. Aiden dropped low as Silas opened fire short, controlled bursts that stitched across the second guard’s chest. The man crumpled.

Moreau staggered back, shock cracking his composure.

Aiden was already moving tackling Moreau to the ground, knee driving into his solar plexus. Air exploded from the older man’s lungs. Aiden wrenched the pistol from Moreau’s waistband, pressing it under his chin.

Silas stood over them, MP5 trained on Moreau’s head. “It’s over.”

Moreau laughed wet, broken. “You think killing me ends it? My syndicate is hydra. Cut one head—”

Silas fired once clean through the forehead. Moreau’s body jerked, then stilled.

Silence rang.

Aiden rose on shaking legs. Silas dropped the rifle, crossed the room in three strides, and crushed Aiden against him mouth crashing down in a kiss that tasted of blood, smoke, and desperate relief.

They didn’t speak. Words weren’t needed.

Silas tore Aiden’s shirt open buttons scattering fingers tracing the collar like a lifeline. He shoved Aiden back onto the sectional, right where Moreau had sat moments before. A deliberate reclaiming.

Clothes came off in frantic pulls pants shoved to ankles, shirts ripped. Silas dropped between Aiden’s thighs, mouth engulfing him without preamble deep, wet, relentless. Aiden’s head fell back, fingers knotting in silver-streaked hair, hips bucking helplessly.

Silas pulled off with a filthy pop, flipped Aiden onto his stomach across the cushions. He spat into his palm, slicked himself, pressed in slow at first, savoring the stretch, then slamming deep with a growl that vibrated through Aiden’s bones.

“Mine,” Silas snarled, each thrust punishing, possessive. Hand around Aiden’s throat squeezing, releasing, squeezing again controlling breath, amplifying every stroke against prostate. Other hand wrapped Aiden’s cock, stroking brutally fast.

Aiden pushed back, meeting every brutal drive. “Yours—fuck—always—”

Silas leaned down, teeth sinking into the curve of Aiden’s neck reopening the bite mark from the cannery, fresh blood welling. Aiden cried out, pleasure and pain blurring into white-hot ecstasy.

They came together Silas flooding him deep with a guttural roar, Aiden spilling across the leather beneath them, body clenching so hard Silas hissed.

They collapsed, tangled, panting.

Silas kissed the fresh bite tenderly. “No more leashes,” he whispered. “Just us.”

Aiden turned in his arms, fingers tracing Silas’s scarred lip. “Just us.”

Later after bodies were removed, feeds destroyed, Marcus quietly extracted from Rikers with Silas’s remaining clean assets they stood at the penthouse window, city sprawl glittering below.

The dogs were returned safe, tails wagging.

Silas wrapped arms around Aiden from behind. “We rebuild. Clean this time. No shadows.”

Aiden leaned back into him. “Together.”

No more messages came. No blocked numbers. No threats.

The leash was gone.

What remained was something stronger mutual surrender, forged in blood and fire and unrelenting love.