The gun was pointed at her.
Elena didn't blink. Presley’s face was a polite mask stretched over something rotten. His eyes, usually so carefully blank, held a flat, surgical light.
“Where’s the backpack, Elena?” Presley said, His voice firm. The sound of her first name rolling off his lips felt so foreign and wrong.
“It’s not here.”
Presley stepped closer, the gun never wavering. “Then you’ve made this unnecessarily difficult.”
Her pulse spiked. “You shoot me, you lose it.”
His expression didn’t change. “You assume you’re the only way to find it.”
“What about the men outside?” she said. Her voice sounded distant. “The ones Stern talked about.” What if one of them finds it…
“Taken care of, Miss Rossi.” Presley’s tone was the same one he used to discuss dinner wine. “They won’t be troubling us.”
Good. Then the bag is safe. She still had leverage. Not much—but enough.
Behind him, Xander was lying flat against the ground a few feet away. Unmoving. Lisa lay against the concrete, panting as she squirmed uncontrollably. The world had narrowed to the circle of muzzle and the man holding it.
“Why?” The word cracked. “You helped me. You shot him.”
“I removed an obstacle. Not the same thing.”
“You’re pointing a gun at my head.”
“Perceptive.” Presley’s look was different. While polite, there was a hint of aggression. Anger, he was barely holding in.
Elena’s mind, the part trained for business plans and billiard angles, scrabbled for purchase. “If you wanted me dead, you’d have pulled the trigger. You need something. What?”
Presley’s polite smile tightened. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I need you to understand your place. You’ve been a significant disruption, Miss Rossi. A pain in my ass from the moment the child Thorn began to deviate.”
“The child?”
“Liam Thorn.” The name was a curse in his mouth. “The plan was simple. You were the tool.”
Elena's stomach dropped. “For what?”
“A pretty, naive pressure point to bring the hacker here.” He nodded toward Lisa’s prone form. “She stole from Stern. Stern wanted her back. We let him take her. Let him think he had the upper hand. The confrontation was meant to eliminate Thorn and secure the girl’s talents for… other purposes. Clean. Ordered. Only problem was her little bag mixup… Ruined all of it.”
The cold from the concrete seeped through Elena’s shoes. “Liam used me.”
Presley’s lips curved, not quite a smile. “Used you?” he echoed softly.
He took a step closer, the gun steady. “No, Elena. He had intent—just not for you.”
His gaze dragged over her, dismissive. “You were in proximity. A means to reach something else.”
A moment passed. Then quieter—sharper, he continued, “Until he forgot what you were and tried to feel love.”
The word ‘love’ hit her like a physical blow. She thought of Liam’s hands on her skin, his apology in the steamy pool, the raw panic in his eyes when Victor hurt. Did he love her? Isn’t it just another layer of the game?
“It disgusts me,” Presley continued, his voice dropping, heating. “To watch a Thorn play at sentiment. After what they took from me.”
“What did they take?”
The gun didn’t waver, but his eyes did. For a second, the professional was gone, replaced by a raw, aging grief. “Rosa. She was meticulous and kind. She one day got an ‘amazing’ job, working for them. The Thorns. She worked in their archives as a historian.” He swallowed. “She found something. She called me, her voice on the phone… it was shaky. She said she’d found something disturbing. Something scary. She needed to tell me as soon as possible. We arranged to meet. She never arrived.”
Elena watched a tear trace a path through the fine dust on his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice.
“They called it a mugging. In an alley two blocks from where we were going to meet. Her throat was cut. Her belongings were gone. The investigation was closed in forty-eight hours. Swept away by some great, silent power.” His finger rested alongside the trigger, pale against the dark metal. “The Thorns killed my love. They took everything. My future. My peace. I wasn’t going to stand for it. I took a position in his house. I waited. I am going to end the Thorn line. Root and branch. Including the boy who thinks he deserves to be loved. And now, you, the girl who made him soft, will be included for getting so connected and involved. I am going to kill you in front of him to make him suffer, like his family made me suffer.”
His knuckle whitened. Elena’s body screamed to flinch, to run, but the cold circle on her skin held her frozen. This was it. This was the price.
A wet cough shattered the moment. Coming from the heap that was Stern.
Presley’s head snapped toward the sound, his focus breaking for a split second. It was all she had.
Elena didn’t think. She dropped. Not backward, but forward and down, under the line of the gun. Her shoulder slammed into Presley’s midsection. The air left him in a shocked *oof*. The gun roared.
The shot went high, punching a hole in the corrugated metal roof somewhere above. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. Elena wrapped her arms around his legs, a desperate, graceless tackle. They went down together in a tangle of tailored wool and limbs.
She was on top for a second. She saw his face, and the grief vanished, replaced by a furious, focused hatred. He drove the butt of the revolver toward her temple.
She rolled. The metal glanced off her shoulder, a bright nova of pain. She scrambled, hands slipping in something wet—a guard’s blood. She was on her knees, then her feet, stumbling toward where Lisa lay.
Presley was already up, moving with a butler’s precise grace. He gained on her and, He closed in and locked his arms around her from behind, holding her from running.
Elena went limp in his arms. Quickly recalling Victor’s training.
The sudden dead weight threw Presley’s balance off. His grip, calibrated for resistance, slackened for a fraction of a second as he adjusted.
She drove her head back with every ounce of strength left in her neck.
The back of her skull connected with the bridge of his nose. A wet, crunching pop vibrated through her bones into her teeth. He grunted, a sharp, pained sound, and his arms spasmed open.
She dropped, her knees hitting the concrete hard. She spun, scrambling on hands and knees toward the dark shape of the revolver Presley had dropped when she’d tackled him. Her fingers brushed cool metal just as a hand closed in her hair.
He yanked. The pain was blinding, white-hot threads tearing at her scalp. She screamed, a raw, animal sound, and kicked backward blindly. Her heel connected with something soft. His thigh. His grip didn’t falter.
“You stupid girl,” he hissed, his voice thick and wet. Blood poured from his nose, dripping onto the collar of his immaculate tailcoat. The polite mask was gone, replaced by a rictus of pain and fury. He dragged her backward, away from the gun. “You have no idea what you’re ruining.”
Elena clawed at his hand, her nails digging into his skin. She felt warm blood well up under her fingertips. He didn’t let go. He was stronger, his leverage perfect. He was going to drag her to the ground and finish it.
Her gaze caught on Lisa, still writhing weakly a few yards away. On Stern’s body, lying so still. The town car was a distant promise through the shattered warehouse door, too far.
Presley shifted his weight, preparing to throw her down. Elena changed tactics. She stopped fighting the pull and instead pushed up with her legs, surging backward into him.
It was a clumsy, desperate move. It crashed them both into the side of a metal shipping container. The impact drove the air from his lungs. His grip on her hair loosened. She tore free, strands ripping from her roots.
She didn’t go for the gun again. She went for him.
Her fist swung in a wild arc, connecting with his already broken nose. He roared, a guttural sound of pure agony, and backhanded her across the face.
The world exploded into static. Her vision swam, her ear ringing. She tasted blood on her lips. She staggered, but didn’t fall. She saw his hands come up, not for a punch, but for her throat.
His thumbs pressed into her windpipe. The pressure was immediate, absolute. Her breath cut off. Spots danced at the edges of her vision. She grabbed his wrists, her nails digging, but he was a statue, his eyes locked on hers with a terrifying, grieving focus.
“You are the infection,” he choked out, blood and spit spraying. “The softness. I will cut you out of him.”
Elena’s lungs burned. She kicked, her shoes scraping against his shins. Her strength was fading, seeping out into the cold air. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.
A shadow moved behind Presley.
Slow. Unsteady. Rising from the concrete like a revenant.
Xander Stern. His blond hair was matted from lying on the ground. His expensive shirt held a hole in his chest where his heart was… But there was no blood. Only a black hole in his suit.
In his hand, glinting dully, was the knife he’d used earlier to cut Lisa loose.
Presley, consumed by the act of killing her, didn’t see him.
“Enough, Presley. Let her go. We need her alive.”
Presley didn’t release her. Not immediately. His grip tightened—just enough to make her vision spark.
“Say it again,” he muttered.
Stern didn’t move. “We need her alive.”
His thumbs remained buried against Elena’s throat. His grip was iron, his eyes locked on hers—fever-bright, unblinking. The pressure didn’t ease. If anything, it tightened, as if he could finish it before the world caught up.
“Elena…” Stern said again, softer this time—not to her, but to the moment. A measured warning. “If she dies, we lose the leverage. You know that.”
Presley exhaled through his teeth. The tension in his hands shifted—not gone, but recalibrated. Slowly, deliberately, he loosened his grip and let her go.
Air tore back into Elena’s lungs in a ragged, burning gasp. She doubled forward, coughing violently, her hands clawing at her own throat as if she could peel the pressure away.
Behind her, Presley stepped back once. Just once. Enough to create distance. Not enough to surrender control.
“I was simply reasserting control,” he said, his voice low, uneven beneath the polished cadence. Blood still streamed from his broken nose, dripping onto the front of his coat.
“By compromising an asset?” Stern replied.
Elena stayed on her knees, head bowed, drawing in breath after breath. Loud. Shaky. The sensations felt all too real. But her mind had already moved on. She wasn’t safe yet, not even close.
But— she is still Alive.
She could see that the two were not friendly with each other and how they disagreed.
She lifted her head just enough to see them through strands of hair stuck to her damp face.
Stern stood a few yards away, one hand pressed loosely against the hole in his chest. No blood. Not even a stain spreading. Just torn fabric and something dark beneath. His posture was slightly off, favoring one side—but his eyes were clear. Focused.
Calculating.
Presley stood between them, shoulders squared again, already rebuilding the mask piece by piece. The grief was gone. The fury… recontained.
Presley didn’t argue further. The tension between him and Stern didn’t resolve so much as settle into something colder, more functional. Whatever differences existed between them, they weren’t enough to derail the objective.
“We’re done discussing it,” Presley said, his voice smoothing back into its usual polished cadence despite the blood still running from his nose. “We take both.”
Stern studied him for a brief moment, then gave a short, decisive nod. “Agreed.”
The word landed with quiet finality. Elena felt it in her chest more than she heard it. There would be no bargaining, no delay. The decision had already been made, and she was no longer part of it—only part of what came next. She knew she had to wait for her next opportunity.
Presley moved first. He stepped in close and caught Elena’s arm, twisting it behind her back with controlled precision. Pain flared sharp and immediate, forcing her up onto her toes as her breath caught in her throat. There was nothing rushed in the movement; it was practiced, measured, and completely assured.
“Don’t,” he murmured near her ear, his tone almost courteous despite the iron grip. “You’ve made your point.”
Elena forced herself not to resist. Every instinct screamed at her to fight, but she swallowed it down and let her body go where he directed it. Fighting now would only make him more careful. She needed something to help her keep control of the situation.
Behind them, Stern handled Lisa with none of the same restraint. He crouched and hauled her upright by the arm, dragging her into a standing position she could barely maintain. Lisa let out a soft, breathy sound, her body reacting more than her mind. Her movements were loose, uncoordinated, her focus unfixed—caught somewhere between awareness and something else entirely. Her eyes fluttered, trying to track what was happening, but never quite landing in one place.
“Up,” Stern said, his voice clipped and impatient. “You’re coming with us.”
Elena turned her head just enough to see. Lisa wasn’t unconscious—far from it—but whatever they’d given her had stripped away clarity, leaving her responsive in fragments. Vulnerable. Unsteady. Unreliable.
Elena forced herself not to react. Not yet.
Presley shifted his grip and reached into his coat, pulling free a length of dark rope. It was clean, coiled, and ready—just like everything else about him. He didn’t hesitate. He drew Elena’s arms fully behind her back and began wrapping the rope around her wrists with efficient, practiced movements.
The first loop bit into her skin. The second tightened. By the third, she could feel how deliberate he was—no wasted motion, no slack left where it didn’t belong.
“Hold still,” he said quietly.
Elena did—, but as the rope circled again, she let her weight shift just slightly, enough to force him to adjust his angle. She made sure it wasn’t obvious, just a small imbalance, the kind a restrained body might make. He compensated without comment, pulling her wrists tighter together as he worked.
The rope tightened further, pressing bone to bone. Secure. Painful. But she could tell it was not perfect.
Elena felt it in the tension—one wrap sitting just a fraction higher than the others, the pull uneven where his grip had shifted. It was a small thing, nearly nothing. Unless you were looking for it.
She kept her breathing uneven, her shoulders slumped, giving him no reason to check his work twice.
Presley finished the knot with a firm, practiced tug and released her arms. The rope held fast, binding her wrists tightly behind her back.
“Ankles,” Stern said from behind them, already forcing Lisa forward a step.
Presley didn’t respond. He simply moved, crouching slightly to loop another length of rope around Elena’s legs. He drew her ankles together and bound them just as efficiently, the fibers tightening with each pull until movement would be difficult, but not impossible.
Elena let herself sway as he worked, her balance unsteady enough to justify it. The rope cinched tight around her ankles, the rope pulling taut.
Presley rose smoothly to his feet. “That will do.”
Behind them, Stern dragged Lisa forward, her body pliant but inconsistent, reacting in delayed, unfocused ways as he forced her toward the open warehouse door.
“We move them to the pier,” Stern said.
Presley stepped in behind Elena and caught her arm again, steering her forward. She stumbled on the first step, the bound movement awkward and restricted, then adjusted, finding a rhythm that looked more like struggle than calculation.
Her head dipped. Her breathing stayed uneven. Everything about her said contained.
But behind her back, her fingers had already begun to shift, slow and careful against the rope. Testing the tension. Feeling for the slight irregularity in the wrap. Mapping it.
Holding onto it. This time, she knew she didn’t need to break free yet. She just needed to know that she could—and wait for the moment when it mattered.
Liam Thorn woke at 4:47 AM.
His eyes opened to the dark ceiling. No dream had startled him, no sound had pulled him from his usual sleep. Instead, it was as if a wire had been cut somewhere inside his chest, leaving him worried. He lay still, listening. The manor breathed silently around him, a low hum of climate control and old timber settling. It was the same silence that had cradled his sleep for years. It felt wrong.
He sat up. The sheets were cool. The space beside him was empty, which was normal, but the emptiness had a new quality tonight—a hollow that wasn’t just physical. His thoughts drifted to Elena asleep in her room, the floor above. The thought was a reflex, a recent habit. It brought no comfort. Only a low, persistent pull behind his sternum.
He swung his legs out of bed. The floorboards were cold under his bare feet. He dressed without turning on a light: dark trousers, a grey t-shirt, nothing more. The clothing felt insubstantial. The quiet pressed in. He moved to the door and opened it, stepping into the corridor.
He exited his room into the east wing. The only illumination came from the faint safety lights along the baseboards, casting long shadows that didn’t move. He walked. His footsteps were soundless on the runner. He passed closed doors and a table holding his mother’s vase that had been in the same spot for a decade. Everything was in order. Everything was still.
Presley should have been here. The butler required little sleep, only sleeping for a few hours each night. He was often moving through the manor in these early hours, checking systems, polishing silver, a ghost of efficiency. His absence was not an oversight. It was a void.
Liam’s pace steadied as he took the stairs, everything around him unmoving. One at the top of the stairs, he turned right into the upper hallway, seeing it stretched before him, dark and silent. Elena’s door was at the end, around the corner.
Going down the hallway he turned and walked up to her door. He stopped before it, his hand lifted and knocked, soft and measured. The sound was swallowed by the wood. He waited. No rustle of sheets. No sleepy murmur. He knocked again, harder. The door did not answer.
Something feels wrong.
The knob was cool in his hand. He turned it slowly, pushing the door open just enough to see inside.
Dim light from the hallway cut a wedge across the floor, over the rug, onto the bed. The covers were thrown back. The pillows held no impression. The room exhaled a breath of space.
“Elena?” Liam pushed the door wide and stepped inside. The air was cool, unstirred. He moved to the bathroom, flicked the light on. Empty. The sink was dry. The towel hung neat and unused. He turned off the light and stood in the center of her bedroom. His eyes scanned: the dresser, the chair, the window seat. Nothing was out of place, yet everything was wrong.
Grabbing the bell, Presley had always insisted, was for emergencies or summoning him when he was out of earshot. He gave it a ring, and he was moving back down the hallway, his quietude gone. His strides ate the distance. He took the main staircase down two at a time, his hand skimming the banister. The grand foyer yawned below, shadows pooling in the corners.
The chime had echoed deep in the house’s belly, a single, clear note that faded into nothing. Time passed as he worked his way down to the main hall. Thirty seconds. A minute. No footsteps. No polite, prompt, “Sir?”
Liam turned and headed for the servants’ stairwell, a narrow, utilitarian passage behind the kitchen. He descended into deeper darkness, the air growing cooler. Presley’s room was at the end of a short corridor, a space as meticulously ordered as the man himself. The door was ajar.
Liam pushed it open. The room was neat to the point of sterility. The bed was made, corners sharp. A book sat perfectly centered on the nightstand. A single suit hung in the open wardrobe. The room was empty of life.
He stood in the doorway, the cold certainty solidifying in his gut. He shifted his steps, down the hallway, working his way down the steps into the garage. His movements were efficient, direct, and gathering speed.
At the bottom of the stairs, he flipped on the lights. Shining bright and making him squint to adjust his sight.
The garage was a cavern of concrete and polished vehicles. The Plymouth, The Chevelle. And his Aventador. Then he saw one security vehicle, still bearing the dusty imprint of its flight from the shooting. Liam’s eyes counted, catalogued. One space was empty. The space was reserved for the second security vehicle. The only people to have access to it were Victor, himself, and Presley…
It was gone.
Liam stood on the concrete threshold, the cold from the floor seeping into his feet. The space wasn’t just a missing car. It answered his question. Elena was gone. Lisa was gone. Presley was gone. The three facts connected, forming a single, terrible shape in the still morning air.
Liam didn't run. His body was a coiled spring of directed motion, crossing the main drive from the manor to the guest house in a stride that ate the dark distance. The gravel was sharp and cold under his bare feet. He didn’t feel it. The guest house was a low, modern silhouette against the pre-dawn grey, one window glowing softly from within. Victor’s. He took the wooden steps two at a time.
His knuckles rapped against the door—hard, percussive knocks that echoed in the quiet. He didn’t wait. He raised his fist to knock again when the door swung inward.
Victor stood in the frame, clad only in black boxers, his torso a landscape of bandages. Thick white gauze was strapped across his chest and over his shoulder, a bloom of fresh crimson seeping through at the center. The smell of antiseptic and old blood hit the cold air. His face was pale, etched with pain and the grogginess of interrupted sleep, but his eyes were already sharp. “What do you want at this hour—” He cut himself off, his gaze locking onto Liam’s face. His own expression hardened. “What’s happened?”
“Elena’s gone. Lisa’s gone. Presley’s gone. A security car is gone.” Liam’s voice was flat, each fact a stone dropped into still water. “I rang the bell. He didn’t come.”
Victor stared at him for a full three seconds. His jaw worked. No questions. No disbelief. He simply turned, moving back into the guest house with a stiff, careful gait that spoke of torn muscle and gritted teeth. Liam stayed on the threshold, the cold from inside washing over him. He heard the rustle of fabric, a low grunt of pain.
Victor reappeared less than a minute later. He’d pulled on a pair of dark tactical pants and was shrugging into a black long-sleeved shirt, wincing as he worked his injured arm through the sleeve. In his other hand, he carried a shoulder holster, a matte black pistol already seated in it and attaching it to his waist. As he moves to step out the door, he reaches down from inside the doorway and picks up a long suitcase. “Drive,” he said, his voice a gravel rasp. “I’ll navigate.”
Liam was already moving back down the steps, Victor following, the butler’s polished shoes replaced by heavy boots he’d stepped into without tying. They crossed the gravel drive toward the garage entrance, a silent tandem. The sky was beginning to bleed a thin, watery blue at the horizon, making the darkness feel more desperate.
In the garage, Liam went straight to the Aventador. The doors hissed upward. He slid into the driver’s seat, the leather cold. Victor lowered himself into the passenger seat with a controlled, pained exhale, buckling in one-handed as he powered on a rugged tablet he’d pulled from a bag at his feet.
“The car has a tracker,” Liam said, the engine roaring to life with a visceral snarl that vibrated through the frame.
“I’m pulling it up,” Victor said, his fingers moving swiftly over the screen, his face illuminated by its cold glow. The pain was there in the tightness around his eyes, but it was compartmentalized, pushed behind a wall of focus. “Signal’s stationary. South docks. Warehouse district, pier nine.”
That address seemed wrong. That was some small fisherman’s warehouse. He started to think, assess the location, then checked and noticed its location wasn’t far from one of his own warehouses. About a mile out from the tracker.
Liam knew that address as one of his own; it was a storage warehouse to help manage incoming and outgoing containers. He released the brake, and the car rolled forward, silent in electric mode until they hit the main gate. Then he punched it. The acceleration shoved them back into their seats, the world blurring into a tunnel of asphalt and fading night.
Inside the car, the only sounds were the low hum of the engine and Victor’s steady, slightly ragged breathing. Liam’s hands were pale on the steering wheel, his knuckles stark. He stared at the road unspooling in the headlights.
The vehicle ate the empty pre-dawn road, its engine a contained scream. Liam’s gaze flicked to the navigation screen glowing on the dash, then back to the darkness ahead. The blue dot pulsed, stationary. South docks. Warehouse district, pier nine. A small fisherman’s lease. His mind, cold and clear, cross-referenced the geography. It was a mile out from the tracker’s signal. A mile from one of his own storage facilities.
“We’re not going to the vehicle,” Liam said, the words cutting through the hum.
Victor looked up from his tablet, his face a mask of controlled pain. “The signal is clear.”
“It’s a decoy. Or a mistake. Something’s telling me to go to the dock. The main pier. Where the warehouse is.” Liam’s hands tightened on the wheel. The intuition was a cold stone in his gut, older than logic.
Victor stared at him for a beat. He didn’t argue. He tapped the screen, pulling up a map of the docklands. “The main commercial pier is here. Larger warehouses, deeper water access. Should we call Presley? See if he’s en route?”
“No.” The answer was absolute. “He chose to leave without updating me. He took a vehicle; he may have taken them. That tells me he has either a very good reason to not be in contact or we shouldn’t reach out to him.” Liam’s voice was flat, final.
Victor absorbed that. His jaw clenched. Without a word, he reached forward, popped the glove compartment, and pulled out a second pistol, matte black and compact. He checked the magazine with a practiced, one-handed slide, the click of the catch loud in the quiet cabin. He racked the slide, chambering a round, then tucked it into his waistband at the small of his back. The movement made him gasp, a short, sharp sound he stifled instantly.
Liam didn’t look over. He saw it in his periphery. The wound, the strain. Victor’s breathing was almost inaudible to the engine’s roar. He pushed the car harder. The world outside became a smear of grey warehouses, chain-link fences, and the occasional glow of a security lamp. The air through the vents began to smell of salt and decay.
He wasn’t thinking of plans. He was seeing her. Elena was in his bed, her long brown hair fanned across his pillow, her intelligent green eyes soft with sleep. Elena is in the pool, hugging him, her body warm and forgiving against his. Elena was standing in the driveway, covered in Victor’s blood, her hands steady on the wheel. Each image was a splinter under his skin.
They hit the dock proper. The road changed to worn, uneven asphalt dotted with potholes that sent shocks through the low-slung frame. Liam slowed, killing the headlights. They rolled forward in the grey half-light, the only illumination coming from security floods on distant cranes and the first sickly yellow tinge of dawn bleeding at the horizon over the water.
“There,” Victor whispered, pointing a stiff finger to the left. “That’s our warehouse.”
A single warehouse stood apart, older, with corrugated metal walls stained with rust. A lone dock lamp burned above a large rolling door, casting a conical pool of light onto the concrete.
Liam guided the vehicle into the black mouth of an adjacent, empty loading bay, the tires crunching on gravel and broken glass. The engine died with a sigh. Silence rushed in, heavy and thick. The only sounds were the distant lap of water against pilings and the low whistle of wind through broken windows.
They got out, the doors closing with soft, precise clicks. The cold dock air was a physical slap, smelling of diesel, dead fish, and wet rot. Liam’s bare feet, now in leather shoes he’d shoved on in the garage, felt every pebble. Victor moved beside him, his movements careful, deliberate, each breath a visible plume in the cold.
Liam looked at the warehouse. No movement. No sound from within. The large rolling door was shut. A smaller personnel door stood ajar next to it, a slice of darkness.
Victor drew his primary pistol, holding it low against his thigh. His face was pale, waxy. “Two-man entry. You take point. I’ll cover, but my angle’s limited.” He nodded to his ruined shoulder. He is holding the briefcase in his other hand.
Liam didn’t answer. He was already moving, a shadow gliding across the open asphalt toward the wedge of darkness that was the open door. His own weapon was an unfamiliar weight in his hand, an extension of his will. He didn’t feel the cold.
He reached the door, pressing his back against the cold metal wall beside the frame. Victor took a position on the opposite side, his back straight, his injured arm held tight to his body. Liam listened—nothing but the wind and the water.
With a glance at Victor, he pivoted and went through the door low and fast, sweeping the immediate space with his gun.
Two dead bodies lay just inside the doors, pushed to one side. Cleanly shot through the head.
The warehouse interior was a cathedral of gloom. The single dock lamp outside bled weakly through grimy high windows, creating long, distorted shadows. The air was colder inside, stale, thick with the smell of old motor oil and something coppery. His eyes adjusted.
The space was largely empty. Stacks of metal crates filled the area, and in the center of the concrete floor, an open space with a single floodlamp was active. Two men lay dead on the floor, both shot.
Liam looked around and saw signs of a struggle, a cut rope near a folding chair, and an empty open water bottle thrown on the floor. What happened here? Aside from the real dead bodies, this looked like the scene for a movie.
Then they heard a slam from a door to the far side. Victor and Liam looked at each other and pointed, working their way around the room. They shifted between crates, avoiding the center lit-up area. As they made it to the far side, they found the door on the far side. The door unbarred and was able to be pulled open.
As they pulled open the door, the foud it leading to the back open pier.
Out on the end, Elena was on her knees. Her hands were bound behind her back with coarse rope, her ankles tied together. Her head was bowed, her long hair curtaining her face. Even from twenty feet away, he could see the tremble in her shoulders. Beside her, Lisa lay on her side, curled fetally, motionless. Neither woman was making a sound.
Standing over them, his back to the door, was Presley. He held a revolver loosely at his side. He wasn’t looking at the women. He was looking at a second man who leaned against a metal support column.
Ale’Xander Stern. Right there in front of him.
Anger welled up inside him. Starting to pull his weapon up. Then he heard the voice speak.
“—the point is moot, my friend,” Stern was saying, his voice strained but smooth. “She’s the leverage. You kill her here, you have nothing. Thorn will just bury you in a deeper hole.”
“My point was never leverage,” Presley replied. His voice was different. Stripped of all its butler’s polish. It was flat, dry, and utterly cold. “My point was pain. His family took everything from me. I take the one thing he’s started to care about from him. The math is simple.”
Liam went still. Not confusion or doubt. Recognition. The voice. The tone. The absence of restraint. Every quiet step through the manor. Every controlled movement. Every perfectly timed word.
It all fit.
Not a servant. Not a subordinate. A man who had been standing at his side—watching, learning, waiting. Presley hadn’t betrayed him tonight.
He had never been loyal to begin with. He was a snake working to wrap himself around him.
“Presley…” The name barely left his mouth. I think you are forgetting that you are wrapping around a Thorn.