All Chapters of Wounded Rose of Garden Metro: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The safehouse felt smaller after the East Harbor mission—tighter, heavier, as though the walls had soaked in the tension and refused to let it go. Elara sat at the head of the table, a rough sketch of the pier spread out in front of her.The others watched her in silence. Damien still had his jacket on, one leg bouncing with restless energy. Marcus leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, waiting. Lena stood near the door, her expression unreadable.Elara tapped the pen against the paper. “She didn’t just see me—she wanted me there. And that means she’s baiting me. But instead of walking into her trap, we’re going to make her walk into ours.”Damien leaned forward. “How? She’s got a small army at her disposal, and you saw what she’s moving. That’s not something you snatch from under her nose.”“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Elara replied. “She’s planning to distribute those weapons to her key allies in the next week. We can’t take them all at once, but if we intercept the fir

The safehouse was quiet, but it wasn’t peace—it was the stillness before a storm.Elara sat at the table, a map of Garden Metro spread before her. Colored pins marked Cassidy’s known operations: the docks, the market district, her front businesses. But the red pins… those marked Cassidy’s people. Not soldiers, but pillars. The ones she trusted to keep her empire standing.Damien leaned on the back of her chair. “I thought we were laying low after yesterday.”Elara’s eyes didn’t leave the map. “We were surviving. That ends now. She thinks she can isolate me by scaring everyone off? Fine. I’ll make her afraid to stand still.”Marcus stepped closer, scanning the red pins. “Who’s first?”Elara tapped the photo of a man clipped to the corner of the map. “Evan Cole. He’s her money man. Runs all the laundering through his casino on East Wharf. Without him, her cash flow slows—and cash is her lifeblood.”Lena frowned. “Cole’s not exactly easy to touch. The casino’s crawling with muscle, and h

Cassidy Voss had never been one to flinch in public. Her reputation as the “Queen of Garden Metro” was built on a decade of calculated control — she could gut a man’s entire livelihood with a phone call and toast champagne before the ink dried on the ruin.But that morning, alone in her penthouse, the façade was slipping.The queen of spades card lay on the glass coffee table, its bloodstain a dark, accusing smudge. She’d turned it over and over in her hands all night, replaying the moment she found it at the club. Elara Quinn’s face didn’t appear in her memory — but her presence did.Cassidy hated that feeling.Mace stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, jaw tight. “You want me to track her movements?”“I want you to make her stop existing,” Cassidy said, voice sharp. “Quietly. But before you kill her, I want her to feel hunted.”By the afternoon, Garden Metro’s underworld felt the ripple. Cassidy’s orders were subtle enough not to draw attention from law enforcement, but the street-l

The night swallowed them whole as Elara half-dragged, half-carried Marcus through the narrow back alleys behind Pier 14. His weight pressed heavily against her side, every staggered breath from him a reminder of how close they’d come to losing him.Lena’s voice crackled in her ear. “I’ve got your location. Keep moving straight for another block, then cut left. Damien’s bringing the car.”Elara didn’t answer. She couldn’t waste the air. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, but she wasn’t stopping. Not when Marcus’s life was dangling by a fraying thread.They burst into an empty street lit only by a flickering neon sign above a closed pawn shop. The black SUV screeched to a halt in front of them, passenger door flying open. Damien jumped out, his face hardening when he saw Marcus.“Get him in the back.”They maneuvered Marcus inside, laying him across the seat. His skin was pale, clammy, his shirt soaked through with blood. Elara climbed in beside him, pressing her hand to the wound on his

The call came just after midnight.Cassidy Vance was in her penthouse suite on the top floor of the Regal Arcadia, a hotel she technically didn’t own but effectively controlled. The walls were glass, framing the city’s glittering skyline, but the room’s warmth came from the deep reds of the furniture and the low, steady hum of a record player spinning some old jazz.She was sipping a glass of wine when Vincent — her personal fixer — stepped inside without knocking.His face told her enough before he even spoke.“What is it?” she asked, not looking up from her drink.“It’s Dane.”Cassidy’s gaze shifted, cold and deliberate. “What about him?”“He met with… someone. Walked out of the White Spire without a single chip cashed in. Went straight home, called no one, moved a bag into his car. He’s gone.”Her fingers tightened around the stem of the wine glass. “Gone?”Vincent nodded once. “No flights out of Garden Metro under his name. But the man’s not hiding from us — he’s hiding from you.”