But climbing the stairs, her thoughts kept circling—back to him.
His voice.
His restraint.
The way he looked at her like she wasn’t just anyone.
She was in trouble.
The kind of trouble that made your pulse kick up before you even admitted it out loud.
Because if Gideon Blackwell kept showing her that man beneath the mask… she might just let him in.
And that?
That was the real danger.
CHAPTER 18
Shadows in the Glow
Sunlight slashed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Gideon’s office, gilding the desk in unforgiving streaks. The light didn’t soften the reality before him—it deepened the shadows, rendering the scattered files into silent indictments.
Every page was a crime scene. Aggressive acquisitions. Fabricated foreclosures. Generational wealth gutted under the guise of progress. The Blackwell empire was built on predation, not strategy; its foundation was set in the bones of families who never saw it coming.
They didn’t simply exploit loopholes—they created them. Lobbied for them. Funded campaigns to protect them. From courthouse clerks to state legislators, the Blackwell web ran wide. Greased by favors, sealed by nondisclosure agreements. It wasn’t legacy; it was laundering. All scrubbed clean by time and silence.
Gideon exhaled, flipping the top folder closed. Leo Marcus hadn’t uncovered anything he didn’t know deep down. The former FBI agent had confirmed what Gideon had spent a lifetime trying to deny. His family didn’t just break laws; they rewrote them.
Their reach wasn’t confined to West Virginia. Blackwell Enterprises had tentacles in every state where heirs' property laws lingered like ghosts—laws that turned promises into betrayals and generations of belonging into sterile towers, manicured golf courses, and luxury developments that forgot the names buried beneath them.
Evelyn’s urban revitalization projects were nothing more than a sterilized form of violence. A wrecking ball disguised as progress.
Erase the people. Keep the land. That was the Blackwell method.
Always had been. At the edge of his desk, one folder sat apart—its label stark against the chaos:Leo Marcus—Federal Leads
Gideon’s fingers hovered for a moment, hesitated, then flipped it open. Not facts. Weapons.
At the top of the first page:Special Agent Lauren Bishop, FBI: Public Corruption and Civil Rights Division.Her name was circulating in the right rooms, whispered with the inevitability of a storm edging closer to shore. She was known for taking down the untouchable, for scraping off the polished veneer of men like his father and leaving nothing but raw, exposed rot.
Nathan Cole had been fighting these battles long before Gideon knew they existed. His grandfather’s closest confidant, Nathan had spent decades cleaning up the Blackwell mess behind closed doors, and now, he was helping Gideon burn it all down in daylight.
It was happening. Piece by piece. Move by move.
Gideon leaned back, the weight of the mission lodged beneath his ribs, but the fire in his chest burned hotter than doubt.
This club, his sanctuary. His clean slate was meant to stay untouched by his family’s corruption.
His name might be Blackwell, but this place was built in defiance of everything that name stood for.
Evelyn’s shadow crept even here. A stain that refused to fade. A legacy that refused to die.
But even legacies weren’t untouchable. Not when you knew where to strike the match.
The weightof the files clung to Gideon, the truth of his family’s sins etched into every page.
Then she appeared.
