INICIAR SESIÓN
“Did you hear?” Killian sprawled across my leather sofa, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “Chloe tried faking a heart attack in prison. The guards just hit her in the kidneys with a baton.”He took a drink, smiling wider. “She was in too much pain to stand up straight, let alone fake gasping for air.”I didn’t look up. I just kept cleaning my custom Glock. The steel gleamed under the light as the cloth went around and around the barrel. Quietly.It’s been three months.The first snow of winter is falling on New York.The Callahan family is officially a footnote in a history book.Victor is living with a broken Eleanor in a basement in the Bronx. It leaks. In the winter, it’s cold enough to freeze a rat.He shakes down street vendors for protection money to get by. I heard a few days ago, some rival crew’s thugs pinned him against a wall and beat his face bloody. He still had to limp back to that freezing basement and spoon-feed his mother.The man who slammed his fist on a table an
My laugh was still in the air when Julian crawled up from the mud, shuffling forward on his knees to grab my ankle.“Aurora, I said I’d worship you!” He looked up, mud and tears streaming down his face. “We can have the wedding tomorrow! Just say the word!”I looked down at him, my smile cold.“Where’s that backbone?” I said slowly. “Just a few days ago, you were so eager to break our engagement. You were much cockier then.”“What happened? Did your spine disappear along with your territory?”Julian’s face went pale. His lips trembled, but he couldn’t speak.I pulled the heavy coat tighter. My voice was like a knife.“I wouldn’t even spit on the Callahan family,” I said, looking down at him. “And I sure as hell have no use for a two-faced piece of trash like you.”Victor shot up, grabbing at a last, desperate hope.“We’re family,” he yelled hoarsely. “Blood. The good of the family. You can’t just watch us—”“Blood?” I cut him off. A cold laugh slipped past my lips. “You didn’t give a d
Chloe’s high heels slipped on the stairs. She shoved Eleanor’s helping hand away.“Don’t touch me!” she screeched, her sweet, fragile mask shattered completely.The assassins were faster. One of them lunged, tackling her onto the upstairs carpet.“Let me go! You’re all insane!”Chloe thrashed like a cornered animal, her face twisted with rage as she screamed at Victor and Eleanor below.“How else was I supposed to get my hands on millions in laundered cash? You think they just hand that out? I had to play sick!”She was spitting, her voice pure venom.“You Callahans are all idiots! You just had to provoke that demon Aurora, and now look! We’re all going down together!”Eleanor stood frozen, as if she’d been stripped naked in public.Chloe tried to crawl toward the window, but her legs were pinned.“Hold still,” the man in the lab coat said, walking toward her with a gentle, calming smile.He pressed the cold defibrillator paddles directly to Chloe’s chest.“BZZZZT—Two hundred joules.”
At 6 a.m., the phone at the Callahan estate rang for the first time.Three hours later, it rang for the seventeenth time.Victor slammed his phone on the desk. The screen spiderwebbed with cracks.“Our shipment at the docks was seized,” he said, his voice shaking. “Three of our weapons caches were raided. Overnight.”The butler stood at the door, his face paler than a ghost. “Sir, there’s more…”“What now?”“All of our offshore accounts… they were frozen last night.”Victor collapsed into his leather chair like his bones had turned to dust.In the penthouse suite at the Continental, the sun was shining.Silas was lounging on a velvet sofa, slowly twirling a lock of my hair around his long fingers.“Victor’s digging into your past,” he said with a low laugh. “Hired three PIs. Trying to find out where you really came from.”Killian sat by the window, polishing his custom Glock. The barrel glinted in the sun.“I dropped the firewalls on purpose,” he said. His voice was indulgent, like he
Killian’s eyes were fixed on Chloe’s trembling neck.“I’ll count to three,” he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. “You don’t take it off, my men will chop off your fingers. All ten of them. Then they’ll ship them off with your head in a box.”“One.”All the blood drained from Chloe’s face.“Two.”She fumbled at the back of her neck, her fingers shaking so badly she couldn't undo the clasp.“I… I can’t get it off! Please, don’t kill me!”Eleanor scrambled over, her hands trembling as she pawed at Chloe’s neck. “She can’t get it off! Please, give us a minute!”“Three.”Killian didn’t hesitate. He raised his gloved hand to give the signal.Chloe let out a bloodcurdling scream, grabbed the chain with both hands, and just ripped it from her neck. The bloody necklace, along with a red welt on her skin, clattered to the floor.“Here!” she sobbed, scooping it up. Her hands shook like leaves in a storm as she stumbled forward, offering it to Killian.Killian looked at it like it was somethi
He didn't wait for my answer. He raised his hand, his rough fingers, still warm from gunpowder, gently brushing my jaw.“Had your fun yet?”His voice was low, laced with a strange kind of affection.Before I could speak, he shrugged off his own expensive coat. Threw it over my shoulders without asking.The lining was cool, but the coat was heavy.Bulletproof. Custom-made, right down to the thread.His arm tightened around me, pulling me halfway into his chest. Guarding me. Like I was his, and no one else was allowed to even look.“Silas.” I looked up at the other man walking toward us.Silas held a dry martini. He offered it like a gentleman, but his eyes were sharp as a knife.“Fine, have your little adventure. But don’t push it.” His voice was deep, a gentle scolding. “Those transfer documents for the Swiss offshore accounts are waiting for your signature.”The whole room went dead silent.Like someone had just dropped a C4 in the middle of the crowd. The explosion hadn't come yet, b







