LOGINLeila Johnson thought surviving poverty was the hardest battle she'd ever fight. She was wrong. One night, a routine appointment ends in kidnapping, murder, and a dangerous offer from Chicago's most feared billionaire mafia kingpin, Zane Rogers. All she has to do is help him recover a stolen chip. One mission. One payment. One chance to change her life forever. But the deeper Leila falls into Zane's deadly world, the more she discovers that nobody can be trusted. Not the charming friend who always makes her laugh. Not the beautiful woman who suddenly appears. Not even the powerful man whose touch is becoming harder to resist. As betrayal after betrayal tears their world apart, Leila and Zane find themselves caught between love, revenge, and a conspiracy capable of destroying everything. And when the final enemy falls, they learn the most dangerous secret of all: Some betrayals don't die. They wait. Years later, just when Leila believes the nightmare is over, a single package arrives at her door. Inside is a black chess piece. A note. And proof that someone has been watching her all along. The last page turns with one terrifying question: Who is waiting inside the black car?
View MoreSusan's POV Susan didn't look back. The moment the smoke began to thin, two men emerged from the gray. "This way." They didn't wait for an answer. One moved ahead. The other stayed behind her as they disappeared through a narrow service passage hidden behind the corridor. The fire alarm still screamed overhead. Voices echoed from the staircase. Security was coming. Fast. The three of them hurried through a maze of staff hallways, empty kitchens, and dimly lit service corridors where the sounds of the gala became little more than distant noise. No one spoke. There wasn't time. One final door opened onto the underground parking garage. Cold night air rushed in. A black SUV waited with its engine already running. The re
Susan's POV The corridor had narrowed to almost nothing and the light seems to have become dimmer. Only the two of them remained beneath the last lantern, the city glittering beyond the stone railing while the distant orchestra floated up from the ballroom below. Thomas hadn't let go of her hand since they'd left the balcony doors behind. His attention stayed fixed on her, calm and unwavering, as though nothing in the world could interrupt the conversation he believed he controlled. Susan smiled. "So," she asked lightly, "do you always bring strangers up here?" "Only the interesting ones…maybe too important ones”. "And what makes someone interesting or too important to you?" "T
Zane's POV Jonas crouched beside him, voice pitched low enough to die beneath the orchestra. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost." Zane didn't answer. His pulse hadn't fully leveled yet, and Leila's face still hung somewhere behind his eyes, stubborn as smoke, refusing to dissolve the way the rest of the hallucination already had. Jonas pressed a small glass vial into his palm. "Drink. If that glass was tampered with, this buys you time to think straight before it matters." "What is it?" "Glucose. Stimulants. Whatever they gave you, this'll burn through it faster than your body would on its own." Zane didn't ask anything further. He tipped the vial back in one motion, the bitterness scraping down his throat like a warning, and closed his eyes against it, willing the last of the fog to clear. When he opene
Susan's POV The orchestra shifted into something slower the moment Susan's hand settled into Thomas's, as though the musicians had been waiting for exactly this cue. Couples drifted onto the floor around them, filling the space until Thomas and Susan were just two more bodies moving in the low gold light—nothing that would draw a second glance from anywhere in the room. He led without hesitation, the kind of ease that came from decades of ballrooms exactly like this one, and Susan matched him step for step, letting her body do the easy work while the rest of her stayed sharp. "You dance like someone who's had lessons she didn't want," Thomas said, guiding her into the first turn. "Is that a compliment or an accusation?" "With me, they're usually the same thing." She let herself smile at that, small and unreadable.
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