Six months earlier

Salt bites my tongue, sharp and briny in the humid air. The churning waves don’t come from the nearby ocean; they’re inside me, a storm brewing deep in my chest. Frustration swells, feeding the unrelenting rage clawing its way to the surface. It seeps from my pores with every aimless step I take through Queenscove’s quiet streets under the moonlight’s faint glow.

I thought the hour-and-a-half drive to seek comfort from my parents might calm me, but I reached the city far too quickly, and along the way, embarrassment joined my fury. I couldn’t face them. I drove past their house, parked on a random street, and stomped my way between the old period buildings. Past the dark alleys. Through shaded parks.

I walked. I even ran. None of it cleared my head.

It hurts.

It fucking hurts knowing how goddamn naïve I was.

She is—was—my best friend. Ariana’s betrayal cut as deeply as his. We were teenagers when we first bonded, two vastly different girls. Unlikely friends. And then Bernard came along. I thought she stayed for me, for our friendship.

The memories are tainted now. I think she actually stayed for him—my husband. Her fucking lover.

My soles smack against the asphalt. Punishing, determined strides carry me on an unknown path. Searching. Craving. Adrenaline isn’t kicking in. Need burns in the slithering fibers of my muscles. The darkness of the backstreets, the eerie quiet, the lurking unknown—none of it shadows my anger. The calm I crave never comes. Neither does the destruction.

It has to. Otherwise, things get . . . complicated. Destructive. Murderous.

After the first few times, Dad and I found ways to focus my reckless energy. But I can’t do that now. Killing my husband and my best friend to rid myself of this madness bubbling beneath my flesh isn’t an option.

I take yet another random turn between the tall stone buildings, hands clenching, sharp nails digging into my palms. I’m one step away from ripping the skin off my chest so I can get some relieving air into my lungs.

A pain-stricken grunt disturbs the silence, and I stop dead in my tracks.

Sweet adrenaline threads beneath my skin, satisfying cool infiltrating the heat, and I finally take a decent breath in.

I’m about to take another step when my heart jitters in time with the three thuds resonating in the distance. Another pained grunt follows.

My legs rationalize with my rage, not my brain, and they move down the street, toward the disturbance.

This is such a fucking bad idea.

The thought tugs at the corner of my lips. Mistakes were going to be made tonight, regardless. I already committed one when I showed far too much weakness by leaving my own goddamn house instead of kicking them out.

“You thought you could escape us? Escape me?”

The next beat of my heart falters as the smooth, smoky voice slips through the darkness. It’s enticing. Enthralling. Its low, calm, and calculated rumble catches my attention by the throat, vibrations snaking deep in my belly as the sound waves call to me. I can’t help but answer. I follow its echo through the shadows.

A grunt follows what I can only describe as a deep yelp, but that enticing voice cuts off the sounds. “It was a rhetorical question. Your boss’s stupidity is evident. Did you think you could simply swoop into Queenscove and establish your business here?” His eerily calm, cold tone echoes through the empty street. “In our city?”

My feet lock in place, soul shaking at the rage in those last three words. They sounded like a crack in a mask. Too loud, too passionate. I begin walking again, passing another dark alley.

A faint, gurgling chuckle echoes. I’m close.

“Because we can, asshole. You’ll never bring us down!” The second man sounds croaky, almost tired.

Silence stretches.

“Vassalo has fallen and risen once before,” he continues, a sleazy quality to his tone, “and he came back stronger. Nothing can take him, or his organization, down. We are a hydra—cut one head and two more will come. And they will come for you. Your Sanctum will fall.”

Holy shit. The man with the enticing voice is part of The Sanctum.

The name of their organization is spoken in hushed tones well beyond Queenscove. Whispers of illicit affairs flow through the salty, humid breeze. Talks of unfathomable wealth and untouchable violence. An organization that exists in the shadows. Always watching. Common folks are happy believing they’re just rumors in the wind, but people who belong to the same world, or on its outskirts, know they’re powerful enough to take full political control of Queenscove if they want to. So powerful that Dad told me to make sure I stay off their radar.

I’m about to break that promise.

A sharp yelp follows a loud snap and a deep thud.

“Your hydra is losing heads faster than you can grow them. Your first mistake was crossing the threshold into our world and thinking you could use our city to traffic people. Children!”

Venom drips from his voice, urging me to squeeze my thighs together and ease the ache it brings.

“We didn’t take them from your fucking territory!” the other man rages.

“Your second mistake is thinking that we care where they came from. Don’t waste my time with lies. We already shut down one of your attempts.”

Oh god . . . human trafficking in Queenscove?

If there was ever a time to side with a criminal enterprise, this is it. Shivers run down my spine, anxiety mixing with the excitement, as the voices are now close enough that I can hear someone panting.

One more step and I stop. A heated, staggered breath makes its way into my lungs as I turn my head toward the darkness, facing the lurking danger. I should turn away, run in the other direction, but that thought brings back the unstable rage that drove me down this path in the first place.

I can’t. I won’t go back.

I need this.

I need to feel something other than the murderous sting of betrayal.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness, the scene falls into place. A tall, well-dressed man stands facing away from me. His waistcoat hugs his wide back, perfectly fitted over a light shirt wrapped around imposing shoulders and strong arms. And his ass. Damn, his ass threatens to pull my attention from the matter at hand as he looms over a figure kneeling on the ground.

I can’t discern any more details, so I do another stupid thing and take a step inside the alley.

“Fuck you!” The kneeler spits. “You can’t break us! We’re too big for you.” He doesn’t sound as confident as he thinks.

One thing’s for sure—he is not the owner of the enticing voice. The man who stands impossibly proud with his back to me is. Then I notice his extended arm. A gun shines in his hand, the barrel ending in a silencer aimed at the man on the ground.

“Nothing is too big for us. And I already have everything I need from you.” Ice rolls off his tongue as he shakes the phone he holds in his other hand.

“But I gave you nothing!”

“Your phone, password, history, and all the trackable information I require.” He slips the device into his back pocket and cocks his gun, driving an excited shudder through my muscles. “And we also have Adam Young. Your brother-in-arms apparently knows more than you. He’s currently strapped to a metal chair deep in the underground, and I worry my partners won’t wait for me to start what I can only hope will be a very satisfying interrogation.”

The slight gasp coming from the ground elates me. It’s hard to discern through these shadows, but I hope fear is etched on his features.

“He’ll never talk! We’ll carry on our operation over your dead fucking bodies, and we’ll break every unwilling, tight little hole that falls into our laps. You’ll die knowing that you failed!” He spits a mouthful at the standing man’s feet, the color too dark to be something other than blood.

Where is all his confidence coming from? He’s gonna fucking die in a minute, but his disgusting words fuel a bile-rising tightness that grows as this piece of shit talks.

An eerie silence cloaks the imposing man standing before him. He cracks his neck to the left, then to the right, his movements slow. Calculated. Bending time to his will as the man kneeling before him awaits his unavoidable execution.

“You insult us, and you dare think you’re untouchable on the ground hallowed by us? You’re not as good at your job as I thought, because you shouldn’t have the balls to speak those words, considering how fast your numbers are dwindling. That’s the problem with factions. You might not know how many of the others have fallen.”

Every word he speaks draws me closer, like a hypnotic chant with a mesmerizing rhythm. The fury so calm, so collected, I welcome it as my steps falter barely ten feet away.

The man on the ground jerks, eyes widening, and the misplaced hope in his gaze lands on me. I’m slightly startled by my shift from secret observer to participant. He thinks I’m about to interrupt his execution. Or maybe that I’m the right distraction for his escape.

I’m not sorry to disappoint him; he will die tonight.

That familiar, bone-chilling pleasure spills through me, steeped in darkness and death, in screams and thrills. Finally.

The ecstatic shudder threads through my nerves and heats my skin before I see it—the slight shift in the man standing with his back to me. The heat grows as I look away from the sack of meat kneeling on the ground, and tingles of fear join the heartbeat. The sheer force of the stranger’s gaze hits me deep enough in my belly that my breath tears from my chest. We’re connected by burning slivers of lightning searing through me until my hands tighten into fists to relieve the pressure. Pure need makes me squeeze my thighs together.

But him . . . He is unmoving. A marble statue with shadowed eyes. The gun remains aimed at the kneeling man, but the sparkle in the abyss of his gaze fixes on me. I wonder what color his eyes are.

I can feel him in my bones. The crushing force of this moment threatens to bring me to my knees. It’s devastating, filled with cravings and potential desires.

Yet, there he is—unaffected.

With tightening fists I tear myself away from his heat. He has a job to do, and I’m invested in it now. The corner of my lip twitches in the grin that froze with his attention on me, and I break that treacherous gaze, looking down at the other man.

His gaze burns into my flesh like it wants to melt away each layer until he finds the answer to a question he will never ask. This feeling, this searing, is so new, so unfamiliar. It threatens to become addictive.

Fuck.

It will . . . it will become addictive.

My eyes widen when the man on the ground scrambles to rise, his gaze wild with fear, and the heat is gone abruptly; my skin turns cold. A split moment passes. A muffled pop pierces the silence just as the man’s head whips back, and he hits the concrete with a thudding crack.

Before the bullet split his skull, the brief realization of the coming death tore through his gaze. The light left his eyes, and his consciousness with it. And right there, in that moment, I found it. That feeling I’ve been craving with my entire soul. It’s raw. A heady mix of violence, fear, and unyielding satisfaction. But something new snakes through—pleasure. Shuddering, spine-tingling fervor. And it’s utterly terrifying.

My cheeks ache with the wide tug of my grin. I can’t help it. The sensation is electrifying. Even as the shooter’s shadow moves toward me, I’m unfazed.

This vengeance wasn’t mine, but for one sweet, violent moment, I felt it. It soothed my need for retribution. I’m energized. Alive.

I give myself one more heartbeat before I focus on the handsome stranger again. On his high, carved cheekbones, and the deep shadows in the hollows beneath them. On his short, perfectly straight nose and chiseled, square jaw. And on the defined lips, neither thin nor plump, but enticingly full, nonetheless.

Enticingly full . . . Oh my god. What is happening with me?

A stray strand of hair falls from the backswept mass atop his head and brushes against his thick, slightly curved eyebrows.

I don’t dare follow my exploration lower than his tattooed neck—the distraction far too great now—but I don’t need to see more to know that this six-foot-something hunk of a man is as gorgeous as he is dangerous.

He takes one more step, and the nerves around my spine pull me to straighten all at once. I should be scared, but anticipation and exhilaration prevail, and fear seems to be the last thing on my mind. At least, not the self-preserving kind of fear. There’s a sizzle in the air, and I find it impossible to keep still as I shift my weight from one leg to the other. This man’s eerie silence doesn’t help.

“Did he really . . . traffic children?” I had to say something to cut this tension.

Plus, I have to stall. Judging from the chilling look he’s gracing me with, escaping might be my only chance at survival.

“Yes.”

His answer startles me.

I nod once, barely remembering the question. “Are there more?”

“More of . . . ?” His brow shifts slightly, and I feel like he’s a teacher correcting my grammar.

“Children.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t suffer . . .” I sigh.

“No, he did not. It was quick.” He speaks those words too abruptly, the sudden change in tone telling me he mistook my words for relief.

“Shame.” I shrug. “You should have made him suffer. Shoot the knees first.” I gesture toward the man on the ground. “Stomach after. I hear it hurts like hell. Dying from a stomach wound, that is. People like him don’t deserve a quick death. Make the next ones suffer.”

I look up in time to catch the slight twitch at the corner of his lips. No way was he about to smile. Somehow the expression would look foreign on his stern features.

“The next ones?” His low, slightly gravelly voice warms me as he bows his head, his gaze running up and down my body. He lingers on certain areas, sending a debilitating shiver through my flesh.

What the hell is wrong with you, Scarlet? This man is probably gonna kill you in the next two minutes!

“You spoke of an entire operation. So, there are more where he came from.”

“And you would like me to make them suffer.” His words are a question and a statement all at once.

I nod, regardless.

The silence settles once more. I don’t peg him as a man of many words, yet this quietness is charged with tension I can’t decipher. It coils around my bones and muscles, tightening and pulling me further into the belly of the beast, closer to him. Like some fucked-up calling toward some crazy-ass destiny.

I have to leave before I make yet another stupid decision.

“What now, kitten?” He takes a small step into my personal space and only a couple of feet separate us.

But that’s not what startles me. The term of endearment does. Or is it a taunt?

“Now we mind our business. I’ll be on my merry way, and you can carry on with the culling,” I say, laughing at my own words. “But seriously, it sounds like it’s imperative for your mission to be brought to its natural conclusion.”

I’m just about to take a shaky step back when the ground threatens to break open and swallow me whole. Because the stranger smiles. An earth-splitting smile tainted with malice and promises of bloodshed, yet so devastating that I struggle not to fall into that crevasse. If I do, he’ll have me forever. And the last thing I need is another charming asshole to ruin my life—figuratively or not.

“You seem intelligent enough to know that I can’t let you go. Not after you witnessed this.” Menace vibrates through his voice and straight into my nerves as he closes the distance between us and touches the barrel of the gun to my stomach, dragging it slowly upward.

Before I can stop it, a slight whimper breaks between my lips.

Our eyes widen at the same time—mine with embarrassment, his in surprise. I bite my lip, laughing as I enjoy the confusion wrinkling his forehead.

“I wasn’t expecting anything less than that,” I say with an amused confidence, which is growing at an alarming, reckless rate.

For some reason, the prospect of this man killing me—or trying to, anyway—thrills me, further fueling that reprieve I sought when I found myself in this predicament.

A loud bang shatters the silence, and I whip around as he takes a step to the side to look past me.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move.” He punctuates each word with such dominance that I almost obey him as he rushes out of the alley in search of the disturbance’s source.

But obeying him is the last thing I will do. For a smart man, it’s pretty silly of him to think I’ll simply stand here and await my execution.

With a sly grin on my face, I shake my head, watching his beautiful, tight ass move out of sight.

“Until we meet again,” I whisper into the night, then slip away in the familiar shadows.