Semua Bab Owned By The Don : Bab 21 - Bab 30

The message came at midnight. Raven was alone in Jaxon’s penthouse, curled on the velvet settee in nothing but his discarded button-up shirt. The fire had long since died in the hearth, the city beyond the windows glittering with indifferent light. Her phone buzzed once, no name, just a number she didn’t recognize.She hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Then she tapped it. A single line of text appeared: We need to talk. Now. Don’t make me come find you.Her heart seized. She didn’t need to ask who it was. Zane’s voice echoed in her head even before she accepted the call.“I see you’re enjoying the suite,” came his smooth, cold voice. “Nice view, isn’t it? Almost as breathtaking as the one you got from Jaxon’s safe.”Her breath hitched. “How did you...”“I know everything, Raven. I warned you not to dig too deep, but you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”She stood, legs shaky. The walls felt suddenly smaller. “What do you want?”A low laugh. “Relax. If I wanted Jaxon to know

Jaxon didn’t speak for a long time after Raven’s confession. He just sat there at the edge of the bed, his thumb brushing against her knuckles where the soft restraints still held her, not in punishment, but protection. She’d stopped crying, but the silence between them buzzed like static, thick with all the things they hadn’t yet said.Finally, he broke it. “What exactly does Zane have on you?”Raven blinked slowly, the words catching like glass in her throat. “I told you, he dug up Gabe’s grave. He’s threatening to expose everything.”“That’s not specific enough,” Jaxon said, voice low but controlled. “What does he think he’s holding over your head?”She swallowed hard. “He knows about the files. About my investigation. About… about my brother. He mentioned Gabe’s addiction, my failure to stop it. Said he could paint it like I was part of it, feeding him pills, neglecting him.”“That’s a stretch,” Jaxon muttered.“He doesn’t need truth,” Raven said. “He just needs enough dirt to clo

“I can’t lose myself… I can’t lose you.” Those words had slipped from Raven’s lips like a secret she hadn’t meant to confess. Her voice cracked as she clung to him, breathless, spent, and trembling beneath the aftershocks of pain and pleasure.Jaxon didn’t respond right away. His breath was ragged, forehead pressed to hers. For a moment, they were just skin and heat and confusion. Then he gently pulled away, rolling onto his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.The silence stretched.Raven stared at him, her chest tight. “Say something.”He didn’t look at her. “I need to take care of something.”“Jaxon...”But he was already getting up, throwing on a black shirt, pants and his watch. The cold was back in his face, the mask sliding into place with precision. She’d broken during that scene, cracked wide open, and she knew he had felt it too, but now he was locking it all away again.Before she could ask what was happening, he kissed her once, softly, almost apologetic.“Stay here.”Then he

The raid didn’t start with sirens. It began with silence. The kind that pressed against the walls of Club Eden like a coming storm. The lights flickered twice, just enough to draw wary glances. Then came the shudder of steel gates locking from the inside. Dancers paused mid-routine. Bottles stilled behind the bar. A slow, crawling dread settled over the room like smoke.Jaxon stood in the VIP gallery, arms folded, expression unreadable. No one dared approach. Not Dante. Not the bartenders. Not even the bouncers who’d once claimed they’d take a bullet for him. He radiated something colder than command, calculation, distance, threat.Raven watched it unfold from the hallway near the dressing rooms, her gut coiled tight. She hadn’t been warned. He hadn’t told her. That meant this was real. Or at least real enough to send a message.Within minutes, men in black tactical gear flooded the club, unmarked, untraceable. Raven knew the difference. These weren’t Feds. They were Eden’s ghosts, of

The old penthouse at the edge of the docks was nothing like Jaxon’s usual haunts. It had no polished marble floors or expensive leather furnishings. It smelled faintly of rust and salt, the walls scarred from a time when it had served as a discreet safehouse for fleeing clients and dying secrets. But now, it would become something else, something colder. Strategic. A war room.Raven stood in the middle of the living room, which had been gutted to bare essentials: a long table made of steel and glass, power cords snaking along the floor, screens already flickering with surveillance feeds, maps, and names. Her hands trembled as she placed her encrypted flash drive beside a stack of untraceable burner phones."It doesn’t look like much," she said.Jaxon stepped in behind her, silent in his tailored black shirt and dark jeans. The look on his face was no longer that of a possessive lover or a jealous king, it was that of a tactician. Cold. Calculating. Dangerous."It doesn’t need to look