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With a fluid motion, I drove the knife into his abdomen, just below his ribcage. His eyes widened in shock and pain as I pressed closer, almost embracing him as I twisted the blade slightly.

“This is for disrespecting her,” I whispered. I withdrew the blade and immediately stabbed again, this time into his liver.

Bradley’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. No scream came. It was as if the shock had robbed him of his voice. His hands clutched weakly at my shirt as his legs began to give way beneath him. I stepped back, letting him slide down the wall, careful to avoid the blood that would soon pool around him.

I heard the door to the alley open behind me and turned to see Sutton standing there. For a moment, we just stared at each other and I watched her eyes widen with horror as she took in the scene before her.

14

SUTTON

The world around me narrowed to three things: the knife in Cain’s hand, the blood spreading across Bradley’s shirt, and the way my lungs refused to work properly. I couldn’t move. My body had forgotten how to obey basic commands like breathe or run or scream. It was as if I’d stepped into someone else’s nightmare instead of my own reality.

Bradley slumped against the brick wall, his hands still clutching weakly at his abdomen. The wet sound of his breathing was all I could hear even though we were in New York City.

Blood.

There was so much blood.

I swore I could smell the metallic scent and it was mixed with garbage from the dumpster nearby and the faint trace of Cain’s cologne that I’d noticed earlier in the car.

Cain stood perfectly still, watching Bradley slide down the wall. His white dress shirt had dark spots near the cuffs. His expression held no remorse, no shock, no horror. He was just focused, like he was watching a business deal close exactly as planned.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Men like Cain Ashcroft didn’t stab people in alleys behind charity galas. They destroyed careers and companies through boardroom maneuvers, not physical violence. My mind kept trying to rewrite what I was seeing, to find some explanation that made sense.

But there was no rewriting what I was seeing and the only thing I could think of was that I needed to get out of here now.

Everything within me screamed at me to move, to get help, to run. My hand fumbled for my phone in the small clutch I’d been carrying this evening. Call the police or at least start alerting people that something had gone down back here. That’s what a rational person would do. That’s what I needed to do.

My gaze shifted from Bradley to Cain who was looking at me like a predator staring down his prey. My stomach dropped even further than it already had.

“Sutton.” My name on his lips sounded wrong. Too calm. Too measured. Like we were still at the gala making small talk instead of standing in an alley where he’d just⁠—

I couldn’t finish the thought.

My heel scraped against the pavement as I took an instinctive step backward. The sound was barely audible, yet I swore it sounded like a gun had gone off.

“Sutton,” he repeated, taking a step toward me. His voice remained calm. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

I managed to find my voice, though it emerged as little more than a whisper. “What have you done?”

Cain glanced back at Bradley, who was still staring at us, barely breathing. “What was necessary. He disrespected you. No one speaks about you that way.”

The absurdity of his justification finally broke through my paralysis. “You killed him because he insulted me?” I couldn’t process the twisted logic. My mind was spinning, trying to connect the sophisticated businessman I’d been around to… the monster before me.

Cain’s eyes never left mine as he took another step forward. “He’s not dead. Yet.”

Those two words sent fresh terror coursing through me. The casual way he added “yet” made it clear that Bradley’s fate was already decided.

“I need to get help,” I said, my voice stronger now as survival instinct finally kicked in. “He needs an ambulance.”

“No.” Cain’s voice was soft but firm. “That’s not what’s going to happen.”

I took another step backward and I stumbled slightly. In that moment of imbalance, Cain closed the distance between us.

“Don’t run,” he said, his hand reaching for my arm. “You’ll draw attention. Think, Sutton.”

His fingers wrapped around my wrist. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. The knife was still in his other hand, dark with Bradley’s blood, and he was holding it as if it was something as simple as a cake-cutting knife.