All Chapters of Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The elevator doors close with a quiet hiss, sealing us inside the small metallic box, Lucien beside me, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his arm. He doesn’t speak; the silence engulfs me like a second layer of clothing. I keep my eyes fixed on the glowing floor numbers as we descend, my mind steel reeling from the confrontation in his office. I hate how my body reacts to it. The car waits for us in the underground garage, the driver holds the door open, and I slide into the back seat. He follows, making the space between us shrink, the atmosphere charged.The city lights streak past the tinted windows as the SUV cuts through traffic like it owned every street. Lucien sits beside me, phone to his ear, speaking low Russian. I keep my hands folded in my lap, trying not to think about how close his thigh was to mine or how the silence between us felt heavier than usual. I steal a glance at him, tie loosened, jacket across his lap, the faint scar catching the passing streetli

It’s nine and Lucien is still not in the office yet, and there are no meetings scheduled this morning. Kane texts me about an external meeting and that they will be back soon. Just that, no details.I make my own coffee, two sugars, and get to work.The folder from last night is closed and filed, and the Indulge meeting lives in my chest heavy. The silver-haired man, the hand under the table that was barely a touch, has somehow decided to stay ingrained in memory. I've tried to tuck it away when it resurfaces and get on with the day, but to no avail. I'm halfway through the morning's task list when the office phone rings. I pick up without looking at the display. "Dravik's office, how may I help?"It’s silent at the other end of the line for half a minute, and then — "Zoe."My hand tightens on the receiver.Adrian."You shouldn't be calling this number," I say, keeping my voice even. This man is going to put me in trouble. "I know," Adrian says. "I'll be quick." There's something i

I know she's gone before Kane tells me.The lamp.She left the lamp on in my office, the one on the corner of my desk that I never leave on when I'm not in the room, and when I walk back in at seven forty-three and see it burning, I stand in the doorway for a couple of seconds before I move.The Harlow contract is on the desk, and her bag is not at her station.I pick up my phone and call Kane before I've fully processed the thought. He answers on the second ring. "She left twenty minutes ago," he says, which means he already knows, which means he's been watching and didn't tell me, which is a conversation for another time. "Driver took her to the West Village. Raven's building.""Go," I say. "Now."I don't follow him, I don’t need to. I trust Kane with my life, she’s completely safe with him. I stand at my window, phone in hand, city spread out below me, and wait.This is the part nobody sees—the waiting. I have built an entire architecture around never being the man who waits, never

The name comes through at eleven forty-three pm. I’ve been at my desk since Zolandria left for the house, and the office settled back into its nighttime version, all quiet and calm. I sat here while the lamp still burnt, and Kane’s voice saying already on it echoes in my head. And when the message from my intelligence contact at Prague at the moment finally comes through, I read it once and set the phone face down on the desk. I pick it up again and read it again.Petrov, Aleksei. Former Czech military intelligence, private contractor since 2019. Four confirmed operations in Western Europe, and two in the United States. He cleanly finishes all of them—no arrests, no exposure, and no loose ends. He’s the kind that gets hired when someone wants something done quietly and permanently. His current contract reads: Locate and make contact with Zolandria Azaeres. Contracted six weeks ago. Six weeks ago, she was already under my roof. Someone knew and started making plots to get her. I ke

I call Luca at four, before anyone appears on the floor. Fifteen years of planning doesn’t get shared over conference calls and documented in meetings. They get executed in the quiet hours when the city is still waking up.He picks up on the second ring."It's time," I say.A pause. Definitely not a surprise, he doesn't do surprises, and it's one of the reasons I've kept him for eleven years. My call probably woke him up, and he's trying to shift from standby to active. "The Meridian account?""All three subsidiaries." I stand at the window, city grey and pre-dawn below me. "I want it clean. No traceable thread back to Stark. By the time his lawyers find the mechanism, it should already be done.""Timeline?""Forty-eight hours."Another shorter pause. "Consider it done."I hang up.I stand at the window for a moment longer, looking at the city coming slowly to life below me, and I think about a night twenty-three years ago when another city looked like this, but everything changed bef