Chapter 12

HEATH

The second car smelled of leather and gun oil. I slammed the door harder than necessary and barked at the driver, “Warehouse district. Fast.”

My knuckles stayed white against the seat. Thorne’s voice kept cutting through my skull: Take good care of her, Moore. He’d said it with that dead smile, the one that promised pain. Five years hadn’t dulled the hatred between us. If anything, time had sharpened it into something lethal.

I loosened my tie, trying to breathe. Katherine’s face kept flashing behind my eyes—the flush on her cheeks when we’d almost kissed, the way her fingers had tightened on my shoulder like she was afraid I’d disappear. I should never have brought her tonight. She was supposed to be camouflage. Instead she’d become a target the moment Thorne noticed how I looked at her.

My phone buzzed. Vito’s message was short:

Package confirmed. Red & Brown is moving. Thorne knows.

Ortega’s ghost. The silver-haired messenger wasn’t delivering party favors—he was brokering the end of my control over the docks. Thorne had clearly decided the truce was over. And he’d found my weakness in one evening.

The city blurred past the windows. I closed my eyes and the memory came unbidden, the same one that always surfaced when Thorne’s name was spoken.

~*~

FIVE YEARS AGO

I had confronted my father that afternoon. The old man sat behind his massive oak desk like a king on a rotting throne, greedy eyes glittering as I finally pieced it together.

“You’ve been using me,” I’d said, voice shaking with rage. “All those questions about Thorne’s family routines, their security, their favorite spots. I thought you wanted a merger. I thought—”

My father had laughed, low and cruel. “Men don’t become kings by asking nicely, boy. You cut off the head and burn the body. Tonight. The Blackwoods end tonight.”

I’d driven like a madman to the uncle’s birthday celebration. I knew that’s where they’d be—Thorne had mentioned it days earlier, laughing about the terrible cake his aunt always made.

I found him outside, just arriving, adjusting his cufflinks under the string lights. The words tumbled out in a panicked mess.

“Thorne—listen to me. My father… he’s been using me. I didn’t know. I thought I was just keeping an eye on things, making sure everyone was safe for the families. But he’s coming tonight. We have to get everyone out. Your mom, your dad—please, you have to believe me—”

I kept jumping between the confession and the warning, the guilt choking me. Thorne’s face kept shifting from confusion to concern to disbelief.

“Heath, slow down. What the hell are you talking about?”

Then the first gunshots shattered the night.

We both turned toward the house. Through the large front windows I saw Thorne’s mother collapse in a spray of red. Thorne made a sound I’ll never forget and sprinted inside. I followed, heart hammering, already knowing we were too late.

The living room was a slaughterhouse. Blood on marble. Bodies everywhere. His father. Cousins. Relatives who had nothing to do with the empire. Thorne was on his knees beside his mother when I reached him, trying to pull him back, shouting that more men were coming.

He looked up.

The first face he saw standing over the bodies of his family was mine.

In that moment, I watched my brother die in his eyes. Every strange question I’d asked over the years, every piece of information I’d unknowingly fed my father—it all clicked into place for him. Betrayal. Cold, calculated betrayal.

I tried to explain, but the words wouldn’t come. Not then. Not with the smell of blood thick in the air and sirens already wailing in the distance.

~*~

The car jerked to a stop outside the warehouse. I shoved the memory down, but it never stayed buried for long. Thorne hadn’t forgiven me. He never would. From his side, I was the reason his family was dead. And the worst part was that he wasn’t entirely wrong. My hands weren’t clean, even if my intentions had been.

My men were waiting. Vito stood like a statue near the entrance while two others held the nervous messenger in the red and brown tuxedo. The silver wig was gone. He looked like what he was: a man who knew he might not see morning.

“Talk,” I ordered, stepping into the harsh light.

The messenger swallowed hard. “Thorne’s offering Ortega double. Said the Moore era is ending. That you’ve gone soft.” His eyes flicked to my face. “He mentioned the woman. Said she was your weakness. That if he couldn’t break you with business, he’d break you with her.”

Rage flared hot and sudden. I grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him against the concrete wall.

“Did he touch her?”

“N-no. Just watching. He told me to watch too. Said she was beautiful when she was scared.”

I released him. Killing this man wouldn’t stop Thorne. It would only prove my old friend right—that I was exactly the monster he believed me to be.

“Double the silent watch on Katherine’s building,” I told Vito. “She doesn’t know they’re there. And get me every movement on Ortega in the last forty-eight hours.”

Vito hesitated. “You sure about sending her home alone? She looked ready to rip your head off.”

A bitter smile tugged at my mouth. “That’s why she’s safer away from me.”

I walked deeper into the warehouse, footsteps echoing. This was my world. Katherine belonged in daylight. Not here with men like me and Thorne.

But I wanted her anyway. Wanted her fire and her questions and the way she looked at me like she saw something worth saving. The almost-kiss on the dance floor had nearly undone me. One more second and I would have claimed her mouth in front of every enemy in that room.

My phone vibrated. Unknown number.

She looks even better up close. Tell me, Heath—does she know what you really are? Or are you still playing the tortured knight?

I typed back with blood on my knuckles from where I’d split them earlier:

Touch her and I’ll burn everything you love.

The reply was immediate.

Too late. The war started tonight. And your pretty little distraction just became the prize.

I made the call I’d been dreading.

“Change of plans,” I told Vito. “I’m going after Thorne tonight. But first… I need to see her.”

The drive to Katherine's building felt endless. When I finally stood outside her door, I paused, fist raised. I could hear her pacing inside. Still angry. Good. Anger might keep her alive.

She opened the door in that same devastating dress, eyes widening in surprise and lingering fury. “Heath? What the hell—”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The apartment smelled like her—vanilla and faint hospital antiseptic. Home. The kind of home I’d never had.

“I told you not to come in tomorrow,” I said quietly.

“Yeah, and I don’t take orders from you.”

"You work for me"

"And so?" she said one eyebrow quirking up looking genuinely confused.

I moved closer. She didn’t retreat. The air between us crackled.

“Thorne is more dangerous than you understand, Kattie.”

“So are you,” she whispered, but her gaze dropped to my mouth.

I cupped her cheek, thumb brushing her skin. “That’s why you need to stay away from me. At least until this is over.”

Her hands fisted in my shirt. “You keep pushing me away and pulling me closer in the same night. Make up your mind.”

I rested my forehead against hers. “My mind’s been made up since you walked into my office. But wanting you might get you killed.”

“Then stop wanting me.”

“I can’t.”

The kiss was desperate—weeks of tension breaking open. Teeth, heat, her small gasp against my mouth. My hands slid down her waist, pulling her flush against me. For a few precious seconds the empire, the blood, the ghosts all disappeared. There was only Katherine.

When we finally broke apart, breathing hard, I pressed one last kiss to her forehead.

“Lock the door behind me. Trust no one but Vito until I say otherwise.”

I left before I could stay. Before I could tell her the rest—that I’d once been a spy in my best friend’s house without realizing it. That I’d arrived too late to save his family and now carried the weight of his hatred every single day.

Outside, the night felt heavier. Thorne had declared war, and he’d chosen his weapon with perfect cruelty.

Katherine.

I would tear the city apart before I let him take her from me.

But as I climbed back into the car, one truth settled like lead in my chest: if Thorne ever learned the full story—the spying, my panicked confession, the way I’d failed to make him understand— he wouldn’t just come for my empire.

He would come for the one person I couldn’t afford to lose.