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Andrei’s reply came almost instantly. That was a foregone conclusion. But have you fixed it?

Paulo rolled his eyes at the man’s smugness. Working on it.

Another ping. This one from Sal: Let me know how I can help.

Chapter 25

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Mick said softly, breaking through her concentration.

Madelaine looked up at him, but she didn’t bother to smile. She wasn’t in the mood to pretend anymore. Not with him. Not with any of them.

She’d realized over the past few days that every man in this house had been complicit in Paulo’s deception. They weren’t her allies. They weren’t her protectors. They were soldiers, loyal to their general. They’d been busy tracking her father, predicting his movements, trying to anticipate his next strike. And all the while, they’d let her laugh with them. Share meals with them. Trust them.

They weren’t her friends. Not anymore.

And Paulo… Paulo was worse. The criminal mastermind. The man who lived with one foot in the light and one in the dark, never stumbling because he knew exactly when to cross the line. He built empires that looked legitimate from the outside. Some of them were. But she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that none of it was tainted. His competitors, had they been undercut with clever deals or crushed with veiled threats? Was it contracts or broken bones that gave him his leverage?

That was how her father had built his crooked little fiefdom. Only Paulo’s was bigger. Deadlier. And Paulo had done it in half the time.

She caught herself admiring that. Admiring him.

No!

She mentally stomped on the thought, grinding it beneath her heel. Paulo might not run guns or drugs, but he was still ruthless. Still dangerous. Still the man who had lied to her face.

She stood when Mick gestured, but her jaw stayed tight, her spine stiff. She wasn’t going to make it easy for them. Not anymore.

As they walked down the hallway, her mind churned. Paulo had choices. He could have left this life. He could have used his brilliance, his power, his instinct for strategy to build something purely legitimate. But he hadn’t. He’d chosen this path, and whatever he said about her father being responsible, his choices were on him.

“Why did you bring me here?” she demanded when Mick stopped suddenly beside a blank wall.

Without a word, he pressed his palm against a panel.

The wall clicked. Shifted. Then slid open with silent, mechanical ease, revealing a heavy steel door hidden behind the veneer of polished wood.

Madelaine gasped, stumbling back a step. “What the hell?” she whispered. Her eyes darted from the seam of the doorway to Mick’s impassive face.

“This way,” he said, standing aside to let her enter.

Madelaine froze at the threshold. Her pulse hammered. Was this where he planned to lock her away? Some underground dungeon where she’d rot in silence, fed scraps through a slot in the door until she turned feral?

“Madelaine, I need your opinion,” Paulo’s voice cut through her panic. She blinked, and there he was, his head appearing around the corner at the base of a stairwell. A second later, his whole body followed. Jeans. White dress shirt with the top buttons undone. Too casual. Too tempting.

That didn’t help her nerves one bit.

She hesitated, but curiosity tugged harder than fear. So, she followed, each step creaking underfoot as if warning her to turn back. She prayed this wasn’t some elaborate trap, that she wouldn’t end up chained to a wall in a dank cell with rats for company.

“This way,” Paulo said, his voice low and grim. His stride was steady, full of purpose.

Two more sets of doors greeted them, each buzzing and clicking as locks disengaged. Madelaine’s eyes widened at the high-tech security, at the steel frames hidden beneath wood panels. What kind of house had a whole other building buried beneath it?

“Good grief!” she hissed as they entered the chamber.

It wasn’t a dungeon. It was… chaos. Controlled chaos.

At least fifty people filled the cavernous space. Rows of monitors glowed, operators with headsets speaking into mics while their fingers flew across keyboards. Others clustered around a huge table that glowed from beneath, shuffling papers and markers, talking over one another in clipped bursts. Runners wove between them, dropping off files, picking up messages. The room buzzed like a hive.

“What is all of this?” Madelaine breathed, instinctively edging closer to Paulo. Her eyes were wide, drinking in the flashing screens and the hum of voices. “It looks like a command center!”