Chapter 5

Silas’s POV

The door clicked shut, severing the connection between us. The silence she left behind was louder than the music vibrating through the floorboards of The Abyss.

I stared at the heavy oak door, my hand still tingling where I had touched her waist. Ivy. My best friend’s little sister. The forbidden fruit we had all sworn never to taste.

"She’s shaking," Julian murmured, breaking the silence. He was still staring at the spot where she had stood, his expression a mix of hunger and concern. "She was terrified."

"She was alive," I corrected, walking back to the bar to pour three fingers of scotch. I didn't offer any to my brothers. They could get their own. "For the first time in six years, she was actually breathing."

Dante pushed off the wall, his jaw tight. He paced the room like a caged tiger, the energy radiating off him enough to spark a fire. "We shouldn't have let her go, Silas. You saw her eyes. She wanted to stay. We could have taken her home. Kept her."

"And then what?" I took a slow sip of the amber liquid, letting the burn settle me. "She wakes up tomorrow morning hating us? Thinking we took advantage of a vulnerable moment? Thinking we’re just like him?"

I turned to face them. "We don't want a victim, Dante. We want a queen. And a queen has to abdicate her old throne before she can ascend to a new one."

"Grant Moore is a dead man," Dante growled, cracking his knuckles. "I saw the bruises on her arm, Si. Faint, yellow, likely a few days old. He’s gripping her too hard."

The glass in my hand shattered.

Whiskey and blood dripped onto the expensive Persian rug. I didn't flinch. I barely felt the shards slicing into my palm. The rage that had been simmering in my gut since I saw her walk into my club boiled over.

"He touched her?" My voice was a low rasp, devoid of humanity.

"Left forearm," Dante confirmed, his eyes tracking the blood dripping from my hand. "Finger marks. He’s escalating."

I grabbed a napkin and wrapped my hand, ignoring the sting. "Then the timeline has moved up."

I walked to the desk—the same desk where I had almost claimed her, and tapped the hidden console underneath. A bank of screens on the wall flickered to life. Surveillance feeds. Not just of the club, but of the city. We owned the police, the judges, and the streets.

But the feed I brought up was specific. It was a live stream from the interior of a black Mercedes parked outside the club. Ivy’s car. I had slipped a tracker and audio bug into her purse six years ago, but the battery had died long ago. Tonight, however, while Dante and Julian distracted her, I had my security team tag her vehicle.

I watched her get into the car. She sat there for a long moment, her forehead resting against the steering wheel. She was crying.

"Julian," I barked.

The youngest of us snapped to attention. "Yeah?"

"Pull Grant’s financials again. I want to know who he owes. I want to know who owns his debt."

"I did that this morning," Julian said, walking over to the screens. "He’s leveraged to the hilt. Gambling debts in Vegas, bad real estate investments in the Heights. He’s desperate, Silas. He’s been taking meetings with the Bratva."

I froze. The Russian mob.

"The Bratva doesn't do payment plans," I said, my blood running cold. "They take collateral."

"Exactly," Julian said softly. "And Grant doesn't have money. But he has a wife with a trust fund and a pretty face."

The realization hit all three of us at the same time. The "open marriage" wasn't just about his infidelity. It was a conditioning tactic. He was breaking her down, desensitizing her to being shared, preparing her for something much darker.

Dante kicked the leather sofa, sending it skidding across the room. "I’m going to kill him. I’m going to peel his skin off while he screams."

"No," I ordered, though the beast inside me roared in agreement. "If we kill him now, the police look at Ivy. She’s the aggrieved wife. She takes the fall. We need her to leave him. We need her to come to us willingly. Once she’s under our protection... then Grant Moore becomes a ghost."

I watched the screen. Ivy started the car. She was driving home. Back to the viper’s nest.

"Get the car," I told Dante. "We follow her. From a distance. If he so much as raises his voice tonight..."

"I know the drill," Dante said, already heading for the door, pulling his custom Beretta from his waistband to check the chamber.

I looked at Julian. "Get the guest wing ready. The one with the reinforced locks."

"She’s coming home?" Julian asked, hope flaring in his eyes.

"She has my card," I said, staring at the taillights fading on the screen. "And if Grant is as desperate as I think he is, she’s going to use it sooner than she thinks."

I didn't tell them the other part. I didn't tell them that if she didn't call by midnight, I was going in to get her anyway. To hell with the plan.

She was ours. And no one—not a Senator’s son, not the Russian mob, not even Ivy herself, was going to keep the Mercers from collecting what was owed.