My chest aches, a deep, bruising pain. “Leon—” My voice breaks on his name. I hate that it does.
“I won’t tolerate betrayal,” he continues, tone still even, but there’s steel under it now. “Not from you. Not again.”
Again.The word lodges in my ribs. This isn’t just about me. This is about old wounds, old ghosts, things I was never meant to inherit but did anyway. I see it then—this wasn’t just a test. It was a warning. A single, carefully measured chance to stop before I went any further.
I failed.
I don’t know what’s worse: the fear of his anger, or the sick realization that I’m capable of this—that I betrayed a man who, for a few fragile days, made me feel safe.
I think of the mornings riding through the fields, the quiet laughter, the way I let myself imagine a different life. I feel stupid for it now. Dangerous hope, indulged at the worst possible moment.
Leon straightens, stepping back at last, the distance between us suddenly enormous. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t threaten me again. He doesn’t have to. The message is carved into the silence, into the way he looks at me like he’s recalculating everything.
He turns away first, walking past me toward the stairs. He stops once, just long enough to glance back. That single look is enough.
My legs move on their own, carrying me upstairs, every step heavy and unsteady. I shut the bedroom door and lock it, the sound echoing too loudly in the quiet cabin.
Then I slide down against the wood, hugging my knees to my chest as the trembling finally takes over. My whole body shakes, violent and uncontrollable, as if the fear has been waiting for permission to spill out.
I press my forehead to my knees, breathing through it, counting the seconds until my heart stops trying to escape my chest.
My phone vibrates in my hand.
I flinch like I’ve been burned, staring at the screen through blurred vision. My father’s name glows there, patient and insistent. Another message. Another demand. Another reminder of the trap I’ve built for myself.
I don’t answer. I don’t even open it.
I understand now, with a clarity that hurts worse than any threat, that there are worse things than being a prisoner in Leon’s Sharov house.
There’s being his wife: loved, watched, measured. There’s being someone he chose to trust and now never fully will. There’s living one secret away from losing everything, or worse, from turning him into an enemy.
I press my face into my knees and try to quiet the shaking, knowing with a terrible certainty that nothing will ever be simple again. Not love. Not loyalty. Not escape.
Worst of all, I’m no longer sure which side of this war I’m truly on.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Leon
One Night Ago
The night Suzy falls asleep in my office, I know something’s off. She’s quieter than usual, smile stretched just a little too tight at the edges, her posture a hair away from flight. My instincts scream about the subtle tremor in her hand, the way her eyes flicked to the bottom drawer—none of it escapes me.
I watch her sleeping form for a few more moments, then I carefully start digging. There are systems she doesn’t know exist—layers of surveillance, logs buried deeper than the ones she’s learned to navigate.
I track her movements through time-stamped footage, through silent cameras set at angles meant to capture the invisible. I watch her linger at my desk, watch her open the drawer, see the flash of her phone screen as she scrolls through files she has no business seeing.
I watch her hands shake. I see the exact moment when she crosses the line and doesn’t look back.
I want to rage, to smash something, to storm down the hallway and demand answers she can’t possibly give. Instead, I go cold.
Fury coils in my gut, precise and purposeful, not the wild heat of jealousy but something deeper—a quiet, lethal clarity. I pull up her messages. It takes me less than a minute to trace the photos to their destination. The phone number is familiar. The contact even more so. Her father.
A wave of disgust rolls through me—not just at Suzy’s betrayal, but at the man who made her do it. Marcus White.
I think of all the times I’ve watched that bastard smile at her, the times he’s sent her into danger with a word, expecting her to take the fall, to be grateful for whatever scraps of love he tosses her way. I think of how he raised her to be loyal, but never gave her a reason to be safe.
I don’t explode. I don’t send a message or a threat. I don’t call my men to make an example out of him—not yet.
Instead, I get in my car and drive, headlights cutting through the black, the city a blur outside my window. Every mile sharpens my anger into something cold and perfect. I don’t bring a gun. I don’t need one.
