30

Louis’s POV

Normalcy was a fragile, precious thing. We clung to it like a life raft. Katie started at her new, absurdly secure private school. Sierra began working with the architects and bakers to design a flagship location for “Savarina,” a patisserie concept that would be part of the Katherine Hope Initiative’s vocational wing. It was her dream, reborn in fire and gold. She was in her element, her eyes alight with a passion that had nothing to do with threats or security briefings.

For two weeks, the monster in Sydney was silent. The ledger showed the monthly retainer payment had been received. No emails, no assessments. It was as if Alistair Ford was just a wealthy, reclusive man enjoying his retirement.

I almost let myself believe it.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, my assistant’s nervous voice came over the intercom. “Mr. Trevane, there’s a… a Mr. Donovan Shaw here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment. He says it’s urgent, and that you’d want to see him. He mentioned… he mentioned the Monaco incident.”

Ice water trickled down my spine. Monaco. A name I hadn’t heard in ten years. A weekend buried so deep I’d almost convinced myself it was a bad dream.

“Send him to the east drawing room,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “And keep Sierra occupied. Have Claudette bring up fabric samples for the gala curtains or something. I don’t want her coming down here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Donovan Shaw. A ghost from a life I’d incinerated. He’d been there that weekend. A hanger-on, a weasel of a man who traded in secrets and illicit favors. I’d paid him handsomely for his silence a decade ago and hadn’t thought of him since.

I walked into the drawing room. He was already there, pacing, looking out of place amidst the serene art and antique furniture. Time had not been kind. He was gaunt, his suit cheap and shiny, his eyes darting and hungry.

“Louis,” he said, turning with a greasy smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Or should I say, Mr. Trevane. You’ve done well for yourself. Very well.”

“Donovan,” I said, closing the door. I didn’t offer a hand, didn’t sit. I remained standing, a clear signal of power and dismissal. “You have five minutes.”

His smile wavered, replaced by a nervous twitch. “Always straight to business. I admire that. I’m here on behalf of a mutual friend. Someone who remembers Monaco quite… fondly.”

“I have no mutual friends with you, Shaw. State your business or get out.”

He licked his thin lips. “Lena. Lena Moreau.”

The name was a second, sharper punch. Celeste’s older sister. A woman of profound cruelty and even greater avarice. She had been at the center of the Monaco disaster. I’d thought she was in Switzerland, married to some decrepit count.

“What does Lena want?”

“She’s seen the news. Your beautiful new family. Your touching charity. She was… moved.” The sarcasm dripped from his words. “She feels that since you’re in such a generous, *family-oriented* phase of your life, you might be inclined to extend some generosity to an old… friend. Who has fallen on hard times.”

Blackmail. Of course. The news cycle had dug up every old girlfriend, every business rival. It had only been a matter of time before it unearthed something truly toxic.

“How much?” The words tasted like ash.

“For her permanent, nostalgic silence? Twenty million. A pittance, really, compared to what you’d lose if the details of that weekend came to light. The drugs. The accident. The poor Italian girl who ended up in the harbor…” He shook his head with mock sadness. “Your saintly Sierra would be devastated. And the press… they’d crucify you. That initiative of yours would be a joke.”

Rage, hot and corrosive, flooded my veins. This wasn’t just about money. This was about poisoning the well I was trying to drink from with Sierra. This was about smearing the future I was building with the filth of my past.

“I have proof,” Shaw added, seeing my silence. “Photographs. Statements from staff Lena has kept on retainer all these years. It’s very compelling.”

“Get out,” I said, my voice lethally quiet.

“I—“

“Get out of my house. Tell Lena she’ll have my answer in twenty-four hours.”

He hesitated, then scurried out, his confidence brittle. He knew he’d struck a nerve.

The moment the door closed, I sagged against the back of a chair. Monaco. I’d been twenty-two, reckless, swimming in inherited money and a pathological sense of invincibility. A wild party on a yacht. A girl, high on things I’d provided, had fallen overboard. She’d survived, but with a brain injury. My father’s lawyers and an enormous pile of money had made it go away. I’d buried it, changed, built a man who would never be that careless again.

But the stain remained. And now Lena Moreau, a viper I’d once associated with, wanted to use it to bleed me dry.

I couldn’t pay. It would never end. She’d always come back for more. I couldn’t fight it publicly without destroying everything Sierra and I had built.

There was only one person I knew who operated in this specific, septic layer of hell. One person who specialized in making problems like Lena Moreau disappear.

I walked to my desk and opened a secure, encrypted channel. I typed a message to an email that didn’t exist.

**A. Ford. New contract. Domestic. Target: Lena Moreau (née Moreau), currently in Geneva. Objective: Permanent neutralization of a blackmail threat. All relevant data to follow. Retainer doubled for discretion and speed.**

The response came back in under a minute.

**Terms accepted. Data package received. Commencing assessment. Timeline: 72 hours. Maintain operational silence.**

I closed the channel. My hands were steady. My heart was a block of ice in my chest.

I had just hired our monster to kill another monster.

And I would have to look Sierra in the eye tonight, kiss my daughter goodnight, and pretend the world wasn’t made of rot and shadows.

The price of our peace kept rising. And I was becoming the kind of man who could pay it without flinching.

For them, I would drown the whole world in darkness.