CATHERINE I ran.Even as every breath I took tore at my lungs, every step echoed in my ears. The warehouse was close to pitch black but the glow of the exit sign burned bright red ahead of me like a beacon through the whole chaos. My legs were shaking, threatening to give out but the fear kept me moving.I pushed the door open with a groan, the night air hit me like. The black sedan was parked where Ronald said it would be. My hands shook as I fumbled with the door handle, but before I could climb in, a hand yanked me back.My head slammed against the car window, the glass cracked but didn’t break, spiderwebbing out like veins. Pain exploded through my skull leaving me momentarily disoriented.“You think we didn’t know?” a familiar voice sneered.The bodyguard… the one who’d taunted me all this while, the scarred man. His grip on my hair was iron grip as he snarled in my ear. “I knew you weren’t straight with us. You’ve been playing both sides, sweetheart. Did you really think you’d
CATHERINE The warehouse smelled of rust and old seawater, like the kind of place where bad things went to die. The air was thick, stale, carrying the mixture of oil and mold. They’d shoved me into a cramped office on the second floor, overlooking the main floor where the armed me were.The chair beneath me was metal, the cold biting into my skin. My wrists ached where the rope dug into them, bound tightly behind the chair. My ankles were tied too, but not as well. If I twisted hard enough, I could loosen them.T said it was just theatrics, to sell this whole thing but I had a really bad feeling about this.The door was cracked open just enough that I could hear muffled voices from the floor below. Orders barked. The scrape of crates. Laughter. Every sound grated on my nerves.And no sign of T.He was supposed to be here. He promised this was the plan, that Ronald would bring the ledgers, that I just had to play my part. But now? Now it felt like I’d been left dangling as bait.What i
RONALDThe ledgers.Of course it came back to them. Those damn black books no thicker than a bible, filled with decades of numbers, names, debts, blood and a fuck Ron of secrets. The kind of pages men would sell their own families to get. I had buried them over a decade ago, praying, hoping that they would stay dead. But fate had a way of fucking up everything.I blew out a breath, tapping on my steering, eyes glued to the busy intersection. I should have burnt that book to ash when I had the chance but Lydia had convinced me otherwise, saying it might be useful in the future.I should have known listening to her would lead to a trail of chaos.She was right about one thing. The book could be used as leverage. But never did I think this was how it would be used.Catherine’s face burned in my mind again. Her wide eyes, the tremble in her lips before they dragged her away. I saw her fear, but I also saw something else… trust. She looked at me like she believed I could fix this. Like I
RONALDI watched helplessly as she disappeared through the service exit, and the moment the door slammed shut, something inside me snapped.At first I was frozen, my chest heaving, my hands curled into fists so tight I could feel the sting of my nails biting into my palms. The cowards with guns still hovered by the exits while their masked faces scanned the area for resistance. I gave them nothing… not yet. If I moved now, she died.But when I got her back, and I would, there wouldn’t be enough left of these men to bury.I forced my breathing to slow down, forced my pulse to even out, pushing the chaos so far down that all I felt now was cold rage. Catherine’s face was burned into my mind, the way she looked at me just before they dragged her away. Wide eyes, lips trembling, like she wanted to speak but couldn’t.She was terrified.I turned on my heel and strode out of the hall, ignoring the murmurs, the sobs, the stench of fear clinging to the air. Once I hit the corridor, I pulled
CATHERINEI watched as Ronald walked away, my heart pounding so hard I was so sure everyone around me could hear it.My cheek still burned, but it wasn’t the sting of the slap that hurt… some part of me still felt like I deserved it. Every bit of it. Not because of Ronald’s ex wife’s accusation, although they weren’t far fetched, but for what I was doing. For what I was about to do. The whispers rippled through the hall like a drop of stone in water, there were a bunch of elites side eyeing the living daylights out of me but I couldn’t bring myself to care.Because in five minutes, this entire place was going to descend into chaos, and I would be the reason why.I clutched my purse, forcing my legs to move, each click of my heels on the polished tile sounding like a countdown to destruction. The restroom door closed behind me with a hollow thud and my hands trembled as I dug out my phone, my thumb hovering over the message I’d already typed.‘Done.’I hit send.I blew out a heavy bre
RONALDThe hall seemed like it was holding its breath, waiting for chaos to erupt. She stared straight ahead, our eyes locking. She had that crazy look in her eyes, one I didn’t miss.My stomach dropped. I muttered a curse under my breath. Someone was going to die tonight, Quinn. I’d told him to fucking watch her but here she was.She was walking… no, storming, through the crowd like a hurricane. Reporters were already scrambling to capture the moment, lenses clicking in rapid succession. And before I could intercept her, she was right in front of Catherine.Then her hand arced through the air and cracked against Catherine’s cheek.The sound was sharp, violent enough that it silenced the room. Catherine’s head jerked to the side from the force of it. A perfect, angry red mark bloomed on her pale skin.For a second, I didn’t move. Not because I was frozen, because I was trying not to explode.The crowd gasped, then the whispers spread like wildfire. Phones were out in an instant, camer