The gray light of dawn bled across the abandoned fields, turning the frost on the weeds into a shimmering carpet of glass. The fire we had started was nothing more now than a thin ribbon of gray smoke curling lazily into the morning air, swallowed up by the immense, indifferent sky. Beside me, the sleek black curves of the V12 looked entirely out of place—a predator resting in a graveyard of iron and rust."They'll have the satellite feeds by noon," Helen said, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the cooling engine. She was leaning against the passenger door, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the smoke dissolve. The tattered silk of her gown fluttered slightly in the cold wind, a stark reminder of the glittering, blood-soaked world we had left behind just hours ago. "Julian isn't the type to lick his wounds in private. He’s going to weaponize every asset the twelve families have left.""Let him try," I said, pulling the silver lighter from my pocket and turning it over

My suspicions were quite absurd, but so was the reality. Sloane’s reports had extensively explained the lengths Camille and her son would go to have their feel of each other. Those reports had revealed they’ve had sex in Camille’s car, then Xavier’s car, at popular hotels, in swimming pools and the most damning of all that I personally found amusing, was a museum.The double doors swung open suddenly and Camille Castle glided into the hall. Her movements were unnervingly smooth, calm, and deliberate as she straightened the emerald silk of her dress, sliding seamlessly into a seat near the center.No one would ever suspect that she’d just had a session with her own son, but I did.My eyes narrowed, tracking her expression for a brief moment of disgust, before sweeping across the rest of the table.That was when the horrific puzzle pieces clicked into place with a chilling clarity: Lucia Rossi was the only daughter of the founding families present in the room tonight. Where the hell we

The air inside the suite felt suddenly heavy, and suffocating. What the fuck? I thought my bloody eyes were betraying me at this point but no, there she was!Constance Albright stood right in the center of the room, draped in nothing but a dark piece of lingerie that caught my eyes before I could process anything else. The silence in the suite was deafening. I stopped dead in my tracks, genuinely surprised as my eyes took in the unexpected beauty of her body. She had remarkably beautiful curves and a slender, striking body that completely contradicted the rigid, armored corporate shark she projected to the world. For a fleeting second, my mind stalled under the sheer shock of it.The way her cleavages popped out, her pose, and those seductive eyes would have had any other man fooled, but not a Van AlenMy eyes narrowed, a deep, angry frown carving into my forehead in a sudden wave of sharp panic. Her being here was fucking dangerous! I spun around and slammed the heavy oak door sh

Without a single word, Helen and I instinctively dropped, flattening themselves against the cold coal tar as if the ground could swallow us whole. She was breathing hard and beads of sweat immediately started to form on my forehead. The world instantly narrowed down to the deafening sound of our own ragged, panicked breathing and the wild, frantic thundering of blood in our ears. Every instinct screamed that death was hovering right above us, weighing its options.Helen turned her head, pressing her cheek hard against the rough ground. Her eyes weren't darting with blind, paralyzing terror; they were shockingly sharp, calculating, and humming with a lethal, cold alertness. She reached out, grabbing the back of my head with a fierce, urgent, bruising grip."Get up," she hissed, her voice cutting sharp and desperate through the violent ringing in my ears. "We have to move, Carter. Come with me right now, before they cycle the chamber."I pushed back against her hand, shaking my head vi

The world outside the passenger window blurred into a streak of violent, bleeding neon as we tore down the highway, the engine screaming a desperate, high-pitched war cry against the night. Inside the cabin, the air was thick, heavy with the metallic tang of sweat and the suffocating weight of my own sins. Panic clawed at the inside of my ribs, sharp and relentless, tearing me apart from the inside out. My fingers drummed a frantic, erratic rhythm against my knee, tapping out the frantic cadence of my racing pulse.For the first time in this entire godforsaken war, a man was dead, and it was entirely, unequivocally my fault.I hadn’t meant for it to go this far. God help me, I just wanted to rattle the cage. I had orchestrated Jonah’s arrival simply to shake Lucia’s parents up a bit, to force Elena and Calvin Rossi onto their back foot and crack their united front. I never in a million nightmares imagined that Elena and Calvin would actually take it this far, that their cold, calculat