Chapter 19 - Secrets In The Safe

The silence in Jaxon’s penthouse was unnerving. No footsteps. No low music humming from hidden speakers. Just the tick of a minimalist clock and the occasional gust of wind rattling the tall windows. It was too quiet, like the air itself held its breath.

Raven moved barefoot across the polished floors, careful not to disturb the pristine order of his home. Every object had a place. Every book perfectly aligned. The space was a study in restraint, but it pulsed with the same dark dominance he carried in every room he entered.

He was gone, that much she knew.

Victor had taken a call and left abruptly. Jaxon had followed after a terse exchange about “a situation in Marseille.” That gave her a window. Maybe an hour, maybe less, but it was enough.

She had memorized the floor plan in her head. The study was tucked behind a hidden door near the grand piano, disguised as a panel of blackened oak. Jaxon had shown it to her once, casually, like it was no more significant than a wine cellar.

But Raven wasn’t fooled.

He kept secrets the way other men kept mistresses, in silk-lined drawers and iron-bolted safes. Tonight, she would unlock them.

The panel clicked open with barely a sound. Inside, the study was cold and dimly lit, filled with the scent of aged leather and the faintest hint of his cologne. She closed the door behind her and let the darkness wrap around her like armor.

She moved to the far wall, where the antique bookshelf stood like a sentry. She pressed her fingers beneath the lower shelf, exactly where she'd seen him press before. A soft click echoed, and the shelf slid back, revealing the matte black face of a biometric safe.

Raven stared at it, heart pounding. Her fingers trembled. She hadn’t come unprepared. From her back pocket, she pulled out a small device, slim, military-grade, capable of bypassing fingerprint locks by running thermal shadow imprints and pulse-matching the last registered user. It had cost her every favor left at the Herald.

She pressed it to the scanner, it whirred softly, blinked.

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Then, click, the lock disengaged. Raven exhaled and swung the door open.

Inside, neatly stacked files bore no labels. Just leather folders, tied with black cords. She pulled the first one free, hands careful not to smudge or bend the corners.

She opened it. Photographs. Names. Coordinates. Not women, ships. Vessels registered to shell companies. Docking dates. Customs bribes.

The words transit verified: Eden, repeated in red across several pages.

She flipped through faster now.

Container manifests, “textiles” and “medical surplus”, but the photos told another story. Weapons sealed in crates. Children’s shoes stuffed with diamonds. Blank passports in every language imaginable.

The trafficking routes spanned continents, Asia, South America, Eastern Europe. Eden wasn’t just a club, it was a junction in a network, a front for a global machine.

She found names. Bank accounts. Wire transfers. Politicians. Customs officials. Even journalists.

Her stomach dropped.

And at the center of it all, Jaxon Morreau. His signature. His thumbprint. His coded initials on internal memos.

Proof, the kind no one could bury. This was it, everything she’d been chasing since the day she buried her father with questions instead of answers.

Her breath caught, a tremor moved through her spine. She should take it. All of it. Report it. Blow the entire network wide open. She’d be on the front page, like a goddamned hero, but her hands wouldn’t move.

The file remained open on the desk, damning and undeniable, and all Raven could think about was the way he held her last night. The gentleness under his cruelty. The reverence in his possessiveness.

Jaxon was a monster, but he was also the only man who’d ever seen her. Not the reporter. Not the orphan. Not the girl whose mother died screaming and whose father drowned in debt and disgrace.

He saw the rage inside her. The darkness. And he didn’t flinch. He wanted it and God help her, she wanted him.

Her legs gave out beneath her, and she sank into the leather chair beside the desk, the file crumpling slightly in her lap. Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to cry. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t, but she was compromised. So deeply, so fully, she couldn’t even pretend anymore.

She pressed her palm flat against the paper, smearing his signature with her skin.

“Fuck you, Jaxon,” she whispered. “Why did you have to make me care?”

The sound of the front door opening echoed faintly. Raven’s blood turned to ice.

She scrambled, hands moving on instinct. She tucked the files back into the safe, cords loosened but intact, her fingerprints wiped quickly with the edge of her blouse. She closed the safe, reset the panel, and returned the shelf with barely a breath to spare.

The footsteps were growing louder, measured and deliberate.

She slipped out of the study and into the hall, smoothing her hair, her face, her breath.

When Jaxon entered the penthouse, he found her curled on the couch, book in hand, candlelight flickering across her bare legs.

He paused in the doorway. His suit jacket was missing, shirt sleeves rolled up, neck tense.

“You’re still awake,” he said.

Raven looked up and smiled softly. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He studied her. Something in his gaze scraped too close to truth. “Did you leave the piano panel open?” he asked.

She blinked. “No. Why?”

He tilted his head. “Strange. I thought I heard it click.”

She gave a breathy laugh and set her book aside. “Probably just the wind.”

He nodded slowly but didn’t look convinced. Then, without warning, he crossed the room and pulled her into his lap. His arms wrapped around her waist, firm and anchoring. She didn’t resist.

“Rough night?” she asked.

“You could say that.”

He rested his forehead against her shoulder. She felt the weight of him, too much for one man, too much for one truth.

“I could make it better,” she whispered, fingers threading into his hair.

He looked up, and for a moment, the war inside him was visible. “You already do,” he said.

She kissed him before he could say more. Desperate. Hungry. Guilt and grief bleeding from her tongue into his.

When he lifted her and carried her to bed, she let him, because tomorrow, everything would change. Tonight, she just needed to forget that she had all the power and no courage left to use it.