“Home.” My voice is flat. Controlled. He doesn’t need to hear the thrum of my pulse.
“Mm.” He steps closer, and suddenly the whole street feels smaller, his presence pressing the walls in. “Home. How nice. Shame time’s up.”
He says it so casually, like we’re talking about a tab left unpaid at a bar. But I know what he means.
He’s been circling me for months. Little meetings, little reminders. Tonight wasn’t an accident. James didn’t set me up—he delivered me.
“What do you want, Rafe?”
“You know what I want.” He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t need to. He just looks at me with those pale, unblinking eyes, and I feel the years of men before me folding into this same moment. “I don’t like repeating myself.”
“I’m not in the business anymore.”
He laughs softly, a sound that scrapes like broken glass. “Oh, Dean. You don’t get to retire from me.”
I grit my teeth, but I don’t move. Moving would mean giving him something—fear, defiance, anything he could twist into leverage.
He steps in close enough that I catch the faint tang of his cologne—sharp, metallic, like gun oil masked with citrus. His hand lands heavy on my shoulder, and I feel the chill seep straight into bone.
“You owe me.” His thumb presses, deliberate, reminding me of every debt I thought I’d walked away from. “And now, you pay. No more stalling. You’ll come back in. You’ll run the books for this new development. You’ll get my men clean papers, clean contracts, and a clean front. You always were the best at making dirty things shine.”
My jaw tightens. He’s not wrong. It was what I did before, what I promised myself I’d never do again. Scrubbing bloodstains with ink, laundering sins through signatures and seals. My talent wasn’t pulling a trigger—it was erasing the trail.
And he knows it.
Rafe leans closer, his voice low enough that only I hear. “You want to keep breathing? You want that pretty little house across the hall to stay untouched? Then you’ll do exactly as I say.”
The mention of the house makes my stomach twist. He doesn’t say her name—he doesn’t have to. He knows she’s there. He knows everything.
“What if I say no?” My voice is hoarse, but I force it out, anyway.
He smiles wider, shark-like. “Then I bury you where no one will ever find you. And her? I let my men decide how long she lasts. You think I don’t see the way you look at her?”
I don’t let my expression slip, but inside I’m already burning. He’s baiting me, pressing the one bruise I can’t hide.
Rafe tilts his head, studying me. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to make peace with it. Tomorrow night, my man will bring the files. You’ll sign what I tell you, move the money where I say. Or I cut pieces.”
His hand leaves my shoulder, but the weight stays, pressing me down as he slips back into the car. The door clicks shut, the engine growls, and then he’s gone—like he was never there at all.
But the ghost of him clings, the threat wrapping around my throat tighter than any tie.
I stand in the empty street, chest heaving, every nerve screaming at me I’ve just stepped back into the cage I swore I’d burned down.
And this time, I’m not the only one he’ll burn if I fail.
I don’t go upstairs right away.
I pace the length of the block twice, three times, the city lights slanting like broken neon ribs across the wet pavement. My lungs feel raw, my skin too tight, and still, I can hear his voice—casual, sharp, lethal.
Tomorrow night.
I can’t wait for tomorrow night.
So when my phone buzzes in my pocket, the number unknown, I already know who it is.
“Pick up,” a voice rasps when I answer. Not Rafe’s. One of his lieutenants. “You’ve got ten minutes to get to the docks. He says You’ll remember the place.”
I hung up without replying.
