And step into the shadows of The Monarch?—
ready to drag my reckless, romantic, infuriating man back into the light.
TWENTY-ONE
THE MONARCH BASEMENT
KNIGHT
The basement smells like bleach, cigar smoke, and the kind of money that thinks consequences are for poor people.
I’ve been down here long enough to memorize the drip pattern from a pipe overhead. Long enough to count the cracks in the concrete. Long enough to hate myself for every second I believed I could end this without Lark getting pulled into the blast radius.
My wrists are zip-tied to a steel chair bolted into the floor. My mouth tastes like blood. My ribs feel like they had a meeting and voted to mutiny. And the worst part? I’m not even surprised.
The Monarch is built like a predator’s nest.
Upstairs is velvet and deception—private booths, red-lit hallways, guards in expensive suits who smile like they’re thinking about your obituary.
Down here is where the truth lives.
I made it past the service entrance with Arrow’s intel, faked a maintenance identity, slipped into back corridors long enough to spot three things that confirmed my gut:
Luka’s security footprint is bigger than a club needs.
There are new faces I don’t recognize—teams rented from somewhere else.
The supply room has a second door that doesn’t exist on the building schematics.
I didn’t get to investigate number three. Because a man with a tattooed throat and eyes like shark glass recognized me.
He didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t have to, but the smile he gave me was all teeth. Then the world got fast. He put his hands on my shoulders. And pressed a gun to my ribs.
With a calm voice in my ear, he said, “Boss has been hoping you’d visit.”
I fought. Because of course I did. I took two of them down before the third cracked a baton into the back of my skull and turned my vision into fireworks.
When I woke up, I was here.
Everything after that is a slow-motion punishment. Hours of silence. The occasional footstep overhead. A guard checking my restraints with bored efficiency. The kind of captivity designed to make you feel insignificant.
I don’t feel insignificant.
I feelfurious.
Because Lark is out there, and I left her behind like that was protection instead of a lie I told myself to justify doing something reckless.
