LOGINGabriel POVI must have dozed off because I woke to Leo's hand on my shoulder and the grey light of pre-dawn seeping through the window."Boss." His voice was low, urgent. "You need to see something."I followed him downstairs. The ground-floor operations room was lit by the blue glow of three laptop screens. Dante was there, and Martinez, both hunched over one of the screens with expressions that matched Leo's tone."What is it?" I asked."The third-party force," Dante said. "The ones who intervened during the attack. We've been trying to identify them since yesterday. No luck on facial recognition, no equipment left behind, nothing. Until twenty minutes ago."He tapped the screen. A video began playing. It was security footage, pulled from a traffic camera two blocks from the compound—timestamp: 07:51, approximately three minutes after the third-party force had engaged Rowan's eastern flank.The footage showed a street corner that had been empty at first, then two vehicles appeared,
Gabriel POVEleanor was Mrs Harlow's first name.In eleven years, I'd never used it. She'd always been Mrs Harlow. The woman with the wooden spoon and the flat stare that could stop a grown man in his tracks. A woman with a first name and grandchildren and a life outside my compound that I'd never bothered to fully know because I'd been too busy being the centre of my own universe."I'll take care of them," I said again, meaning every word.Leo drove us back to the safe house. Nadia fell asleep in my lap within five minutes, her head against my chest, Mr Buttons wedged between us. Elijah sat beside me, wide awake, watching the city pass through the tinted windows.From the tense way he held himself, I knew he knew something was wrong and was waiting for someone to tell him what.I put my arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to me. He leaned into me, but neither of us spoke.At the safe house, I carried Nadia upstairs and set her on the bed that'd been prepared for her. Elijah
Gabriel POVLeo drove.The car had tinted windows, an unmarked sedan, and back roads through the industrial corridors of Bangria's eastern districts. I sat in the back with a cap pulled low and a coat that wasn't mine, watching the city slide past through dirty glass.Bangria looked different at night. Stripped of the construction cranes and the hustling foot traffic and the aggressive commerce that defined its daylight hours, it became something quieter and sadder. Shuttered shopfronts. Stray dogs trotting along kerbs. Streetlights with burnt-out bulbs that nobody had replaced because no one with the authority to do so cared about this part of the city.Mrs Harlow had lived in this part of the city her whole life—the Adisa district.It was mainly filled with working-class people who were honest and kind. This was the kind of neighbourhood where people left their doors unlocked because the only things worth stealing were already shared.She'd refused to move, even after I'd offered to
Gabriel POVThe room was very still. The overhead light buzzed faintly, casting everything in a flat, clinical white."I know," I said quietly.Nine and seven. A boy and a girl. Orphaned once by a car accident and now orphaned again by a bullet through a kitchen window on a Tuesday morning.I set the photograph down on the table carefully as if it were made of glass."Where are the children now?" I asked."At home. Mrs Harlow's flat in the Adisa district. A neighbour is watching them. They don't know yet. The news hasn't reported any names, and the government hasn't sent anyone because the excavation is still ongoing.""When will they send someone?""Tomorrow, most likely. After the site is processed and identities are confirmed.""And when they do?"Leo hesitated. "Standard procedure for minors with no surviving family is temporary placement in government care. Foster system."Foster care. Two children who'd already lost their parents would be shoved into a system that ran on bureauc
Gabriel POV"Reach out to every network we have. Bangria, Crescent Harbour, Lisaro, Casavera, everywhere. Every contact, every operative, every asset. Tell them to go underground immediately as per the new protocols. Move to the facilities prepared for this scenario—no communication via standard channels. No movement. No operations. Everything pauses."Dante's eyebrows rose fractionally. Going underground meant shutting down the entire operation. Every revenue stream, every supply chain, every relationship we maintained with port authorities, customs officials and local power brokers. It meant going dark in a way that would take months to recover from."For how long?" he asked."Seven days. I'll issue further instructions then. But for now, everything stops. Everyone goes to ground. I'm not losing another person because we were too busy running operations to secure our people."He nodded. "Anything else?""The compound. What's the situation there?""Media arrived within the hour. Heli
Gabriel POVThe bullet had entered through the kitchen doorway and passed through the outer edge of my left shoulder, carving a trench through skin and muscle before exiting cleanly on the other side. A graze, technically. The kind of wound that combat medics called "lucky" and that only felt lucky if you'd never been shot.It didn't feel lucky. It felt like someone had pressed a lit cigarette into my shoulder and held it there.I'd been moving toward the hallway when it hit, pulling my sidearm from the holster I wore at breakfast because paranoia was the only habit that had never let me down. The impact spun me sideways, slammed me into the kitchen island, and my hand hit the countertop hard enough to crack my phone's screen, which skidded across the tile into the mess of broken glass, spilt food, and plaster dust that my kitchen had become.After that, everything was compressed into instinct.I stayed low. Returned fire through the blown-out window, two controlled shots toward the m
Gabriel POVI stood and watched until Evelyn’s car disappeared from my sight.I was so hard.It had taken me all the restraints I could muster not to unleash my want on Evelyn. I wanted her to come to me, not the other way around, and everyone knows I do not force women. Yet, I was desperate to get
Evelyn POVAfter he left, Belle grabbed my arm and practically screamed."Oh my God, Evelyn!" she squealed, bouncing slightly. "I wouldn't blame you one bit for having that reaction. Vincent looked absolutely dashing. The man could make a potato sack look good."I laughed despite myself, shaking my
Evelyn POVI was having one of those dreams where I was falling, my stomach lurching with the sensation of weightlessness, when a soft knock on my bedroom door pulled me back to consciousness.I'd woken up once already this morning but had decided the bed was too comfortable to leave. So I drifted
Gabriel POVGut feeling. Instinct.Those were the two traits that separated the mafia bosses who lived long from the ones who died young.The strongest ones—the ones with the biggest empires, the most connections, the territories spanning continents—they all eventually died. Either by assassination







