28

Louis’s POV

Sierra was silent on the ride back, her face turned to the window, her profile carved from marble. I watched the live feed from the car, my hands clenched into fists on my desk. I had heard every word. The threat to Katie. The blackmail. The *recording*.

My own voice, coolly offering Victor exile, played back in my head. It was a conversation that could be twisted a dozen ways by a prosecutor. At best, it was unethical. At worst, it was criminal conspiracy. Crowe was right—the stink would never leave. The Katherine Hope Initiative would be stillborn. Sierra’s hard-won public respect would evaporate. And Katie… her name would be dragged through a legal and media sewer.

The car hadn’t even stopped at the porte-cochere before I was out the front door. I pulled Sierra from the vehicle and into my arms, holding her tight. I could feel the fine tremors running through her frame.

“He has a recording,” she whispered into my chest.

“I know.” I guided her inside, straight to the study. Marcus was already there, his face grim. My mother stood by the fireplace, a silent pillar of grim resolve.

“We have until five PM,” I said, releasing Sierra but keeping her close. “Options.”

Marcus spoke first. “We pay. It’s cleanest. Five million is nothing. It buys silence.”

“It buys his silence today,” Sierra said, her voice stronger now, laced with disgust. “What about tomorrow? Next year? He’ll own us forever. He’ll always come back for more.”

“She’s right,” my mother stated. “Blackmail is a chain with no end. You pay once, you are a slave.”

“Then we find him and take it from him,” I said, the primitive part of my brain craving a violent solution. “Before five.”

“He’s expecting that,” Marcus countered. “He’s a ghost. He’ll have the recording backed up in a dozen encrypted dead-man switches. If he doesn’t check in by a certain time, it auto-releases. Taking him physically could trigger the very thing we’re trying to prevent.”

Frustration boiled in my veins. We were in a box. Pay and be enslaved, or fight and risk everything blowing up in our faces.

Sierra pulled away from me and walked to the window. She stared out at the grounds, her arms wrapped around herself. “He’s a businessman,” she said, almost to herself. “That’s what he said. He’s not loyal to Victor. He’s not driven by revenge. He wants a payoff. A clean, profitable exit.”

She turned to face us, and I saw the strategist from the security briefing re-emerge. The fear was gone, replaced by a chilling clarity. “So we offer him a better business deal.”

“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.

“He wants five million for his silence and the recording. What does he want *more* than five million?”

I saw where she was going. “A clean slate. A new identity. A guaranteed safe harbor, far away from anyone who might come looking for him for all the other things he’s done.”

“Exactly,” Sierra said, her eyes lighting with fierce intelligence. “We don’t just pay him off. We *hire* him. We become his ultimate client. We offer him ten million. Five now, five on delivery. But the delivery isn’t just the recording. It’s him. We use his skills. We turn him.”

The audacity of it stole the air from the room. Turn Elias Crowe, the predator, into a guard dog.

“It’s insane,” Marcus breathed. “The man is a viper.”

“And we hold the only thing a viper cares about—its nest,” I said, catching Sierra’s vision and expanding it. “We don’t just give him money. We give him a new life, crafted by us. We own the identity, the bank accounts, the passport. We own his future. One step out of line, and we don’t release the recording—we release *him*. To his old clients, to the authorities he’s wronged. We offer him paradise, with a collar so tight he’ll never even think of biting the hand that feeds him.”

Sierra nodded. “We out-blackmail the blackmailer.”

My mother let out a slow breath. “It is a dangerous game. You are inviting the wolf into the henhouse, believing you can keep him muzzled.”

“The wolf is already at the door, Nia,” Sierra said, using my mother’s first name for the first time. “We either let him in on a leash, or he burns the house down.”

I looked at Sierra, this woman who had transformed from a baker into a queen, and now into a spymaster. Pride and a fierce, protective love swelled in my chest. “We do it.”

We had three hours.

Marcus and his tech team worked to craft an unrefusable offer, complete with forged but flawless documentation for a new identity—a wealthy, retired Australian businessman named Alistair Ford. Sierra drafted the message. It had to be in her voice. He had spoken to her. He would respond to her.

At 4:30 PM, she sent the text to the same unknown number.

**Crowe. Your offer is insufficient. Here is a better one. Ten million USD. Five now. Five upon your successful transition to your new life as Alistair Ford, including delivery of all original assets and your professional services for one year, renewable. We provide the identity, the papers, the sanctuary. You provide permanent silence and the recording. This is not payment. It is a partnership. A profitable one. Decline, and we burn your current identity to the ground and let your enemies find you. The first five is waiting. Decide now.**

The minutes ticked by. 4:45. 4:50.

The tension in the study was a physical presence. Sierra sat perfectly still, her eyes on her phone. I stood behind her, my hands on her shoulders, feeling the weight of our future in this single, silent device.

At 4:58 PM, her phone buzzed.

A single word.

**Details.**

A rush of adrenaline, sharp and cold, shot through me. He had taken the bait.

Sierra didn’t react. She typed back, her fingers steady. **A package will be delivered to you in one hour at the location you choose. It contains everything you need for the first transfer and instructions for phase two. Choose the drop point now.**

Another agonizing pause. Then, coordinates appeared. A public locker at a busy downtown train station.

The game was on.

We moved with military precision. The package—a secure, untraceable tablet with encrypted banking access and the Alistair Ford dossier—was delivered by a courier who vanished into the crowd. We tracked the locker via its digital signature. At 6:15 PM, the package was retrieved.

At 6:30 PM, five million dollars was wire-transferred from a shadow account to another shadow account.

At 7:00 PM, my secure line rang. A digitally scrambled voice, but I knew it was him.

“The assets are secure,” Crowe’s voice said. “The original recording and all copies are now encrypted with a dual key. You get one key now. You get the second key, and my person, upon successful establishment of Alistair Ford in Sydney, one week from today. The retainer for my services begins then.”

“And the threats against my family?” I asked, my voice deathly quiet.

“Are hereby retired. I protect my investments, Mr. Trevane. Your family is now my principal asset. I will be in touch regarding the extraction plan.”

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone. It was done. We had turned the enemy. We had bought a monster and put him on a chain of our own making.

Sierra sagged against me, the full weight of the day crashing down. I held her up.

“Is it over?” she whispered, exhaustion coating every word.

“This battle is,” I said, leading her to the couch. I pulled her into my lap, cradling her like a child. “We have a new, dangerous ally. But he’s ours now. And his first job is to make sure no one else can ever threaten you or Katie again.”

She looked up at me, her eyes huge in her pale face. “Did we just do the right thing?”

I kissed her forehead. “We did the only thing. We protected our family. There is no right or wrong in that shadow. There is only survival. And we survived.”

As night fell, the house was quiet again. But the quiet was different. It wasn’t the peace of victory. It was the watchful, wary quiet of a kingdom that had just made a pact with a demon.

And as I looked down at the woman asleep in my arms, I knew I would make that pact a thousand times over.

For her, I would reign in hell itself.