I look at him until he flinches. “Humanity is a weakness I burned out of myself a decade ago. She isn’t a link, Jax. She’s the prize.”
The truth is, none of them understand. She isn’t just another girl to fuck and forget. She isn’t a trophy. She isn’t even a weakness. She’s the reminder that there’s still something in this rotten, godforsaken world worth breaking every single rule for.
And if anyone else so much as breathes her name without my permission—I’ll paint the fucking streets with their blood.
I stub out the cigarette on the table, my voice low and final. “Track them. Make it fast. Anyone who so much as whispers her name pays for it in inches of skin.”
The men nod and scatter, the sound of their boots echoing like a countdown.
But I stay. I stand there, staring at the phone, and all I can see is the way she stiffened when I leaned close. The way her eyes flashed with that intoxicating mix of hatred and hunger.
She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already decided her fate. Wendy Darling isn’t marked by some shadow in thestreet. She’s marked by me. And before this night is over, she’s going to feel the weight of that mark in her very soul.
I flick the last of the ash from my fingers and watch it scatter across the floor like the remains of a burnt offering. I’ve run this city like a chessboard for years, moving pieces, taking lives, building an empire out of fear. Nothing makes my pulse climb anymore. Nothing makes me careless.
Except her.
The phone buzzes.
Movement near her building. Someone’s on the fire escape.
My jaw locks so hard my teeth ache. I type back with a hand that wants to be wrapped around someone’s throat.
Don’t kill him yet. Hold him for me.
I grab my jacket and head for the door. The corridor smells of oil and damp concrete, the scent of a hunt. My men part for me like the Red Sea, their heads ducked in primal fear. They know betterthan to ask.
The night air hits me like a blade. The city is alive, pulsing, neon dripping off the wet pavement like molten candy. Somewhere out there, she’s in her apartment, thinking she’s invisible.
She isn’t.
I slide into the back seat of the car and slam the door. My voice is calm, but my blood is screaming. “Drive. Fast.”
This isn’t a game of watching from a distance anymore. This is me moving in for the kill. I lean back and let the image of her rise up: Wendy in that booth, the way her breath caught, the way she tried to pretend she wasn’t waiting for me to ruin her.
She’s not safe. Not because of the shadow on her fire escape.
Because of me.
By the time the car glides toward her street, my thumb is tapping a steady, rhythmic count on my knee. Counting the seconds until I’m close enough to smell her again. Close enough to put my hand on the small of her back and feel the shiver she can’t suppress.
Tonight, she stops running. Tonight, she learns that there is no exit I don’t control.
And I’m going to be the one to teach her exactly how it feels to be owned.
The rain doesn’t just fall in this part of the city; it rots. It turns the soot on the brick into a black, oily smear that looks like old blood under the flickering street lamps.
I step out of the car, the heavy wool of my coat soaking up the damp, but I don’t feel the cold. All I feel is the rhythmic, thudding heat in my jaw. The hunger.
Jax is already waiting by the mouth of the alley,leaning against a rusted dumpster with a cigarette dangling from his scarred lips. He’s a beautiful, jagged mess of a man—all sharp cheekbones and eyes that have seen too many shallow graves. He’s got that lean, hungry look of a switchblade, his blonde hair slicked back and dripping.
Beside him stands Silas. If Jax is a knife, Silas is a goddamn sledgehammer. He’s built like a heavyweight sin, shoulders broad enough to block out the sun and a jawline that looks like it was carved from granite and spite. He’s wearing a fitted black tactical turtleneck that shows off the ink crawling up his throat and disappearing into his hairline—vivid, black roses that look like they’re choking him.
“Took you long enough,” Jax murmurs, flicking ash onto the wet pavement. “The rat’s halfway to the third floor. Thinks he’s being quiet. Thinks he’s a ghost.”
“He’s about to be one,” Silas rumbles, his voice like stones grinding together. He pulls a pair of leather gloves tight over his knuckles, the snap of the material loud in the quiet alley. He looks at me, eyes dark and vacant. “You want us to take him, or do you want the honours, Boss?”
I look up at the fire escape. A shadow is clinging to the iron railing outside Wendy’s window, a slim, pathetic silhouette in a hooded jacket. He’s prying at the glass. My glass. My window.
