I hold her tighter, feeling something deep inside me shift. I don’t answer, not with words. Instead, I let the silence fill with everything I can’t say—the longing, the gratitude, the impossible hope that maybe, just maybe, I’m not too broken to be loved.
We stay there long after the city’s lights go out, two survivors clinging to warmth in the darkness, learning together how to make room for softness without letting the world tear it apart.
Chapter Twenty-One - Eden
Rafael Cortez. The name leaves a foul taste in my mouth.
We’re in Simon’s office again—my safe place, his war room—and the atmosphere shifts the second he closes the door behind us. He doesn’t sit at his desk. He paces once, twice, jaw tight, hand sliding through his hair in a gesture he only uses when something is truly wrong.
“Rafael is moving closer,” he says.
Just like that. No preamble. No softening. The air chills.
I straighten on the couch, fingers knotting together. “What does that mean?”
His eyes flick to me, sharp, assessing, protective. He comes closer and sits on the low table directly across from me, knees almost brushing mine. It’s an intimacy fueled not by desire this time, but by the gravity of what he’s about to say.
“It means the man whose operation you walked into that night,” he says quietly, “isn’t finished.”
A shiver runs down my spine. The warehouse. The shot. The way Simon turned his head, sensing me before he ever saw me. “He was Rafael’s man?”
“Someone Rafael considered a brother.” His voice goes low. Dangerous. “The cover-up wasn’t a coincidence. It was a warning. And now Cortez is making moves he doesn’t make unless he feels threatened.”
“So he’s coming… here?” My voice cracks, despite my best attempt to keep steady.
Simon doesn’t sugarcoat it. “He wants leverage. Something worth more than blood.”
His eyes lock on to mine with a meaning so clear it steals my breath.
Me.
I wrap my arms around myself, a protective instinct I didn’t know I even had. Simon sees the movement instantly. He stands and kneels in front of me without hesitation, hands braced on either side of my thighs, his expression fierce and unyielding.
“You will not be touched,” he says, voice like steel. “Not by Rafael, not by anyone. I’ll burn the city before I let them near you.”
There’s no bravado there. No exaggeration. Just truth, and the weight of a man who has already planned three different ways to make good on that promise.
I swallow hard. “Tell me everything.”
His eyes soften—just a fraction.
He tells me about the turf war that began months ago. About Rafael’s attempt to move product through New York without permission. About the deal that went wrong. About the murder I witnessed—how it ties into a much larger power struggle. He tells me about plans and betrayals, about the men who defected to Cortez, about the shipments intercepted, about the threats left unspoken but understood.
The more he says, the more I understand the depth of the world I’ve been pulled into. A world full of shadows and codes and a kind of violence that feels ancient and inevitable.
When he finishes, my hands are trembling.
Not from fear alone, but because through all of it—every detail, every threat—Simon’s gaze never leaves me. Not for a second. As if watching me is what keeps him anchored, what keeps him from sliding fully into the dark instincts that rule everything else in his life.
“You shouldn’t have to carry this,” I whisper.
“You shouldn’t have to worry about it either,” he counters. “But you do. So I’ll tell you. I’ll never keep you blind.”
That hits me deeper than anything else he’s said. And it frightens me, because Simon Sharov does not share his world. Not with anyone.
He chose to share it with me.
A knock interrupts us. It’s Viktor, tense and pale, reporting another sighting of Rafael’s men near one of their clubs. Simon stands, his entire body shifting into leader mode instantly—shoulders squared, voice quiet but lethal.
