From proximity.
From confrontation.
From the realization that the man she hates is the one holding all her answers.
I reached past her to close the open file. My sleeve brushed her arm. Her breath caught. Small reactions are more honest than declarations.
“You want to understand?” I asked.
She nodded.
“So learn properly. Not like a thief in the dark.”
For a moment, neither of us moved. And something shifted.
Not control.
Not dominance.
Something moredangerous.
Recognition.
Lucien had always understood the language of rooms before anyone spoke a single word. It was a skill that couldn’t be taught. Some men relied on information, on numbers and strategies written neatly across paper. Lucien relied on instinct. The tilt of someone’s shoulders. The hesitation before a handshake. The subtle shift in someone’s breathing when a certain name was mentioned. Those tiny details told him more than words ever could. It was how he had survived this long in a world where hesitation could get you killed and trust was a currency more dangerous than money.
The office was dim tonight, lit only by the desk lamp and the faint glow of the city through the tall windows. Outside, rain had begun to fall in slow, steady lines that blurred the lights of the streets below. Lucien leaned back in his chair, fingers resting loosely against the armrest as his gaze drifted across the room. Papers were stacked neatly on the desk, reports Ronan had leftearlier. Shipments, numbers, territory updates. All the pieces of a world that ran on control, but his attention wasn’t on the paperwork. It was somewhere else entirely.
He found himself thinking about Sera again.
The thought irritated him more than it should have. Not because she was weak, far from it but because she complicated things. She moved through this world differently than everyone else around him. Where others measured every word, she spoke with sharp honesty. Where most people lowered their eyes, she held his gaze without flinching. It should have annoyed him. It should have made her a liability. Instead, it made him watch her more closely than he intended.
Lucien rubbed a hand over his jaw slowly, staring into the dark reflection of the window. The truth was simple, even if he didn’t like admitting it.
Sera had become something dangerous.
Not an enemy.
Something far worse.
A distraction.
CHAPTER 8
Lucien
She attended her first real Syndicate meeting tonight. Not as an observer hidden behind glass but seated at the table.
That was deliberate.
The room itself is designed to intimidate, with a long black oak table, low lighting, walls lined with soundproof velvet panels. The scent of cigar smoke lingers permanently in the grain of the wood. Men who control ports, weapons routes and offshore accounts,theysit straighter when I enter.
Tonight, they noticedherand I noticed how she handled it.
She wore black. Simple. No jewelry except a thin silver chain at her throat. Hair loose over her shoulders. She didn’t look like someone meant for this world.
But she didn’t shrink.
When Matteo questioned her presence, she met his gaze directly.
