2026-01-28 03:27:26Lombard found himself standing in front of a woman who looked like sunlight had decided to take human form and was doing an excellent job of it.
Natural beauty radiated off her — the kind that made half the jewelry in this hall look like it was overcompensating. Even in a short gown, clutching a simple purse, barely any makeup, she looked like the answer to a question most men spent their whole lives asking badly.
“What are you talking about?” she was whispering to Finn. “You can’t do that. Don’t be a naughty boy.”
“Please… just for tonight,” Finn begged.
Before either could say more, a group of boys stopped at their table.
“Your parents aren’t here again today? Are you even sure you have parents?” one sneered, clearly fishing for a reaction.
“You’re wrong,” Finn said, voice shaking. “These are my parents. Meet Lombard and Abigail. They’re… like LA — the city,” he added, attempting a joke. It died on arrival. Full honors funeral.
“I bet you rented them,” another boy sneered. “No way your actual parents would show up.”
“Watch your tongues, kids,” Lombard cut in, and his voice had changed registers entirely. He had never cared about high schoolers in his life, which was precisely what made him dangerous to them now. “You must be the riffraff my son warned me about.”
“What? Riff… what?” one of the boys snapped, eyes darting to Finn.
“I’ve been told a lot of fascinating things about you,” Lombard continued, calm as a lake with something underneath it. “And I wonder if you all know that bullies have their own special kind of jail now. I’ve got a couple of numbers on my phone. They bring the handcuffs to you. Door-to-door service. All I have to do is ring.”
The boys went very still. Figures. Nobody wants a permanent mark on the record — not this close to college applications.
They disappeared as quickly as they’d come.
“We welcome everyone to this special event,” the MC’s voice rang out from the stage. “It’s about to start. We call on guardians and parents to come in if they haven’t. A few really important people are in our midst, and we’ll be calling on them soon…”
Abigail looked at Lombard shyly.
Shy. She had never been shy a day in her life. She had chaired boardrooms. She had ended negotiations with a single raised eyebrow. And here she was, blushing at a table.
“Hi… I’m Abigail,” she whispered as she lowered herself into the chair Lombard pulled out for her.
“I’m Lombard,” he said, sliding in beside her.
“I’m so sorry,” Finn mumbled, “I have to check things with the homeroom teacher.” He didn’t say thank you — not yet — but there was gratitude in his eyes. Maybe Lombard wasn’t the disaster he’d budgeted for.
“Um…” Abigail started. “You… got roped into a blind date too? By Elliot? His wife sent me here.”
Lombard nodded. It hadn’t been a blind date on his end, but the truth involved a hundred million dollars and a towed car, and some stories you save for the second meeting.
“I’m friends with his wife. You?”
“Obviously friends with Ell,” Lombard said smoothly.
“Oh… that’s… spectacular,” Abigail murmured.
Oh, shit. With everything she’d been told about Lombard — the connections, the money, the alleged playboy résumé — she’d been bracing for some scary, sullen character. Instead the man was just… handsome. Calm. Effortlessly in control of a room he seemed to have no interest in controlling.
And she was blushing. Again. At this rate she was going to need medical attention before dessert.
“I believe the woman of the century is right here in our midst,” the MC announced, cutting through the chatter. “Miss Abigail, you are most welcome tonight. And for those who don’t know who Miss Abigail is — let me put it this way.”
He smiled, clearly enjoying himself.
“You know those women who dress simply, look understated, and yet somehow manage to drive every man insane — with both their wealth and their beauty?” He gestured toward her. “That’s her. If I were still in my thirties, God knows I would have exhausted every flirting skill I possess.”
Soft laughter rippled through the crowd.
Abigail had never liked public praise. Tonight, mysteriously, she found herself enduring it. Possibly even enjoying it — especially when she glanced sideways and caught the unmistakable look of approval on Lombard’s face.
“Too much hype,” she whispered, pretending indifference.
“No,” Lombard murmured back. “I don’t think so at all. I think you’re a remarkable woman. Would you mind letting me take a shot too, like the others?”
She froze.
Was that… flirting?
She had no way of knowing for certain. But the fact that he — a man reportedly drowning in money, power, and connections — had just complimented her that plainly made her heart trip over its own feet. God. She was going to blush herself into an early grave before this night ended.
“Oh my days — someone from the Belmont family!” the MC exclaimed, voice ringing through the hall. “Gentlemen, I’ve heard rumors that he might be a psychopath — but listen, if being a psychopath means being a man like Cassian, then I’ll gladly volunteer!”
Chuckles rippled through the room.
“He’s insanely successful,” Abigail murmured to Lombard, leaning in, assuming he might not know the name. “But he’s not my thing. He’s tried reaching out more times than I can count. I just… don’t feel it.”
Lombard smiled at her. Polite. Bulletproof. Completely unreadable.
Damn, Abigail thought. Did I already say something wrong?
Across the room, Cassian swirled his drink slowly, his gaze fixed on something that refused to sit right with him.
At first it had been Abigail who caught his attention. She was hard to miss. But now — now it was the man seated beside her.
The angle. The posture. The face.
Too familiar.
Cassian narrowed his eyes. I’ve definitely seen that man before. Or maybe he’d had one drink too many.
He slid his phone across the table to the friend beside him. “Hey,” he said casually, tapping the screen. “Check this picture. Doesn’t he look like the guy sitting over there?”
His friend glanced from the photo to Lombard. Then back again.
“…Same man,” he said slowly. “Just dressed like money this time. You know him?”
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Chapter 310
For the next several hours, Lombard and Barrett went over the plan and over it again, the whole Cataract team funneling in every scrap of intel they had until the shape of the thing was solid. The bones of it were simple, which was the only kind of plan Lombard trusted. The patriarch wanted a confession delivered to Lombard’s living face — that was the one appetite the old man could not talk himself out of, the vanity that had kept Lombard breathing when a smarter enemy would have had him shot in his sleep weeks ago. So the plan would feed that appetite. Lombard would let himself be taken. Quietly, without a struggle, exactly the way a broken man goes. Because the whole arrangement the trio had built their empire on ran on one belief — that grief makes men fold, that a Lombard with his Clara taken would crawl into his shell and stay there. He would give them precisely that man. He would walk into the room they prepared, wearing the defeat they’d ordered off a menu. And every step
Chapter 309
Vivienne genuinely believed she was orchestrating a beautiful reunion.Lombard’s instructions had been vague and urgent, so she’d improvised with her whole heart. She’d called Julian first — told her, half-whispering like it was a delicious secret, that Drake had come by earlier in a state, saying things about not being good enough for her, and that if Julian wanted to catch him while his guard was down and his heart was open, she should come now, this exact morning, before he talked himself back into hiding. It was the kind of story that questioned no logic: it explained why Drake was already there, it flattered Julian’s role as the one who could reach him, and it was urgent enough to override the strangeness of the hour. Julian had been in a car within fifteen minutes.Then Vivienne had called Drake — and, knowing exactly the condition the man was in, she had not led with anything dumb. She’d told him Julian had turned up at her door in tears, frightened after everything at her pa
Chapter 308
Toby had been forced to call her guardian — her uncle — because she could not bring herself to fully trust anyone from the Cataract team. They weren’t people you trusted on sight. And in a night like this one, the devil you knew felt safer than the angel you didn’t.Not that she knew, for certain, that her uncle wasn’t quietly aligned with her grandfather. She didn’t. But he was the one risk she was actually able to take right now, so she took it — and now the two of them were here, at what Barrett kept calling Lombard’s house.“Sir,” Barrett called as he stepped inside — and that, too, was something Toby found herself turning over: that this enormous man knew Lombard’s home well enough to walk into it freely, panel codes and all.“I’m in the bedroom,” Lombard called back, his voice still laced thick with sleep.“I’ve got company. Toby, of the C&R Consortium, and her uncle. You want me to bring them in?”“No, silly. I’ll come out.” A groan, the sound of a man leaving a bed he’d only j
Chapter 307
Back in the car, the rest of the Belmont family had just gotten a clear look at the other man climbing out of Barrett’s vehicle behind Toby — and their blood turned to water.They recognized him immediately. The heir of the C&R Consortium. The same man Riley had tried to lock up and, in a fit of her own temper, tried to kill some days ago — the man she’d assumed was still safely contained, without ever confirming it. And the moment he clocked that Riley was standing free in the open air, casually threatening a member of the Cataract team, it was going to become a disaster for all of them.Riley, of course, had absolutely no idea of any of this. She was still at the gate, still building her charge, still operating under the belief that this was a morning about Mireya and an apology and a doorbell.The C&R heir stepped fully out of the car, saw Riley, and stopped short — genuinely shocked. Wasn’t this the same person who was supposed to be locked away? Who had, in his own home, come at
Chapter 306
It was only five in the morning, but not a single member of the Belmont family had slept a wink.The first problem was that they’d spent half the night trying to pin down Lombard’s location. The other half had gone to drilling Mireya on exactly what she would say — because it was decided now that nearly the whole family would be going with her to deliver the apology.But the biggest problem was the tracking itself. All those hours spent trying to fix Lombard’s position on a screen, and they simply could not hold it. It was the first time any of them had encountered a person who could be somewhere one minute and, the next, be gone off the map entirely — as if he stepped out of the world between refreshes. And there was no point going after a man you couldn’t find. If they couldn’t figure out where he was, there was no operation to run.Then, thirty minutes ago, a new location surfaced. And it had held — no movement for the better part of an hour.Which told them everything they needed.
Chapter 305
“Get my phone. Find out who those bastards are,” Lombard snapped under his breath, threading the car through a corner that had not been designed for this speed.Drake grabbed the phone, took pictures out the back window between bursts, and fired them off to the number Lombard barked at him. In less than two seconds, a name came back in the chat.Drake’s eyes widened.“Who the fuck is it?” Lombard demanded, zigzagging through another sharp turn.“Hearse,” Drake read out. “It says — it’s Hearse.”Lombard slowly brought the car to a halt.“Why the fuck did you stop?!” Drake exploded. “Continue driving!”“He just announced his presence to us,” Lombard said, almost thoughtful. “It’s the dance you do before you take your prey. You have to make a show of it first.”“This is no time for poetic talks!” Drake snapped, trying to shake the man out of whatever trance he’d dropped into.And at the corner of his eye, he watched it happen: the car that had been raining bullets simply drove past them.
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