Liam stood still, the ghost of Elena's lips still burning against his, the soft sound of her retreating footsteps the only thing in the room besides Victor's deliberate silence. He didn't turn. Didn't need to. He knew that look—the one Victor wore when he was about to deliver news that required his full attention.
"I'm not even going to question what foolishness just happened there," Victor said, his voice flat, edged with the impatience of a man who had seen too much to be impressed by a kiss. "We've got more urgent matters."
Liam's jaw tightened. The word foolishness scraped against something raw, but he swallowed it. He could still feel her—the warmth of her surprise, the way her lips had parted under his. He wanted to follow her. To find her in the hall, to press her against the wall and finish what the interruption had stolen. The thought was a physical pull, a current in his blood.
Then Victor said it. "Eros."
The word cut through the haze like cold water. Liam turned, his expression hardening back into the mask he wore for business. "What about it?"
"Another shipment. The whole batch." Victor stepped closer, his broad frame blocking the doorway, his face grim. "The new stable, pure batch we had locked down. Raided and gone."
The air in the room seemed to thicken. Liam's mind clicked into gear, shifting from the warmth of the kiss to the cold calculus of loss. "All of it?"
"Every vial. We had it in a secondary warehouse—off the books, tight security. Someone knew exactly where to hit."
Liam exhaled slowly, running a hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble there. He'd had the stable batch moved after the last incident, after the laced bedding. It was supposed to be safe. "Why would they steal it?" he asked, more to himself than to Victor. "The compound is valuable, sure, but selling a pure batch like that—it's a liability. Anyone who moves it leaves a trail. What's the play?"
Victor shook his head. "I've got a few ideas, but nothing solid. Could be someone wants to flood the market, create chaos. Could be someone wants to weaponize it—use it on the right people, make problems for us."
Liam's mind was already racing ahead. He needed to think, to map the angles. "Study. Now."
He strode out of the game room, not waiting to see if Victor followed. The manor's main hall had evening light passing through the windows, but Liam's steps were sure, his focus narrowing.
By the time he reached the study on the second floor, his mind was already working through possibilities. He crossed to the large desk that dominated the room, flipping on the overhead light, then opened a drawer and pulled out a rolled map. He spread it across the desk's surface—a detailed grid of the city, marked with coded notations he'd made over years of business. Beside it, he placed a stack of clear plastic sheets and a fine-tipped marker.
Victor followed, closing the door behind him. "The warehouse was here." He pointed to a location on the eastern edge of the industrial district. "Off Bannerman Road."
Liam set a clear sheet over the map and marked the spot with a red X. "Time of the raid?"
"About three hours ago. No alarms triggered until after—they had someone inside, or they knew the system well enough to bypass it."
"Guards?"
"Two on rotation. Both found unconscious, no signs of forced entry. They were drugged."
Liam's marker paused. "With what?" Eros wouldn’t have that kind of effect.
"Low-grade sedative. Nothing connected to the Eros—different compound entirely. They didn't use the product to take the product."
"Professional," Liam murmured, writing a note on the clear sheet. "Too clean. This wasn't a smash-and-grab. This was a planned extraction."
He marked other locations on the map—the previous hit, the club where the shipment had been meant to go, the manor itself. He drew lines connecting them, searching for a pattern. "The batch was destined for the Velvet Rope. Hart's operation."
"That's what the paperwork says," Victor confirmed. "But whether Hart knew about the raid, or whether it was taken from under his nose—we don't know yet."
Liam leaned over the desk, studying the map. The lines formed a rough triangle: the warehouse, the club, and a third point he marked with a question mark. "If Sterns has it, why? They've got their own supply chains. Their own labs. Taking ours is a statement, not a necessity."
"Maybe they wanted the formula," Victor offered. "Reverse-engineer it."
"Maybe." Liam set down the marker and straightened, his eyes still on the map. "But the stable batch took us six months to perfect. Even with the compound in hand, replicating it isn't simple." He tapped the clear sheet. "Maybe he’s trying to hit one of our largest revenue streams, hit us where it hurts most."
"I've got feelers out," Victor said. "But the streets are quiet. No one's reporting anything unusual..."
Liam’s marker paused slightly over the map. “That’s not possible,” he said quietly.
Victor glanced up. “What isn’t?”
“Nothing ever moves cleanly in this city. Not at this scale.”
He tapped the plastic overlay once. “If this was Hart, there should be noise. Payments, movement, panic in supply chains. Something.”
A beat of silence passed as he considered his options.
“Then we widen the net,” Liam said. His voice had already shifted again—measured, decisive. “I want eyes on every channel tied to Stern’s operation. Financial, transport, distribution—everything.”
Victor straightened slightly. “That’s going to stretch the network thin.”
“Then stretch it,” Liam replied without looking up. He drew a slow line across the map, steady and controlled. “I don’t care how many layers it takes. How many informants we need to hire. I want to see the moment anything shifts, even slightly.”
His gaze stayed on the grid of streets and marked points.
“And when it does,” he added, voice lower now, “I want to know before it moves twice.”
Liam nodded slowly. He picked up the marker again, drawing a circle around the warehouse, then an arrow pointing toward the club. "Next, we need to know if Hart knows anything. I was planning to confront him at the gala anyway—this just gives me more reason to."
"You think he's in on it?"
"I don’t see a motive, and he didn't get where he is by being clean, but I also think if not him, someone near him may be our leak. We don’t know what kind of part he plays in this yet. When it comes to the drugging here—that was a setup. Someone wanted me distracted, or wanted Elena compromised. "
Victor was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're bringing her to the gala."
It wasn't a question. Liam's hand stilled on the marker. "She's the art consultant. It's her job."
"And the kiss?"
Liam looked up, meeting Victor's gaze. "Irrelevant."
"No." Victor crossed his arms. "I've known you too long. You stopped thinking about the shipment the moment she walked into the room, and you didn't start again until I said, ‘Eros’." His voice remained calm, matter-of-fact. "I don't care what happens between you two. I care whether she's become something someone can use against you."
Liam's jaw tightened. He set the marker down with a deliberate click.
"She isn't a weakness."
Victor held his gaze, unconvinced.
Liam looked back to the map, forcing his attention onto the web of lines and symbols spread across the plastic overlay. Facts. Patterns. Variables. Things that could be measured.
"The kiss changes nothing," Liam said. "We have work to do."
Victor studied him for another beat before giving a curt nod. "Good. Then let's keep it that way."
Liam uncapped the marker and drew another line across the map with more force than necessary.
"Now," he said without looking up, "tell me about the shipment."
Victor accepted the dismissal. "Fine. But if Sterns has that Eros, and if they're planning to use it, we need to move fast. The gala is in three days. That's not a lot of time to trace a shipment that's already gone dark."
Liam looked back at the map. The red X stared up at him, a wound on the grid. "We need another angle. Someone on the inside at Stern's operation. A source who can confirm the shipment passed through their hands."
"I've got a contact in their distribution chain. Low-level, but reliable. I'll push him tonight."
"Do it. And get me everything you have on Hart before the gala. I want to know who he's meeting, where he's eating, who he's sleeping with."
Victor pulled out his phone, already typing a note. "Anything else?"
Liam was quiet for a moment. His eyes drifted to the edge of the map, where the Thorn Manor grounds were marked, and beyond them, the lake where Elena had floated with her friend. The memory of her laugh—soft, tentative, alive—flickered through him. He pushed it aside.
"Double the security detail for the manor while I'm at the gala. I want eyes on Elena at all times."
"You think she's a target?"
"I think someone already drugged her once. I'm not giving them a second chance."
Victor nodded, finishing his note. "I'll make the arrangements."
He turned to leave, but Liam's voice stopped him at the door.
"Victor."
"Yes?"
"Don't read more into what you saw." Liam kept his eyes on the map.
Victor raised an eyebrow.
"She serves a purpose," Liam said evenly. "I'm simply making sure she continues to serve it."
Victor regarded him for a long moment. "If you say so, sir." Then he left, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Liam stood alone in the study, the map spread before him, the red X bleeding into the paper. He reached for his phone, thumb hovering over Elena's contact. One message. One word. Are you okay?
He didn't send it.
Instead, he set the phone face-down on the desk and picked up the marker again, drawing another line on the clear sheet—a question mark over the gala venue, a dotted line toward Hart's club, a circle around the word Sterns.
Work. That was what he needed. Focus.
But even as he plotted the next move, his thoughts kept straying to the one variable he couldn't account for.
He forced his attention back to the map, tracing a route from the raided warehouse to the gala venue with his finger. The marker had left a dark blot where he'd pressed too hard, the plastic beneath it permanently creased. He smoothed the sheet flat, but the indentation remained.
Unless it wasn’t external at all.
The thought lingered longer than he liked.
Close enough to taste. Close enough to be inconvenient.
His lieutenants.
Liam’s jaw tightened slightly as he held the idea in place, turning it over with the same precision he used on everything else. Years of loyalty. Years of trust. Years of men who had stood beside him when there was nothing to gain but survival.
Years of loyalty. Years of trust. Years of men who had earned their place beside him. None of it made them untouchable.
He exhaled slowly through his nose. Control. That was what this was. Control the variables. Control the outcome. Control the damage before it spread.
He looked back down at the map.
But the pattern still didn’t resolve.
He picked up the marker again, hand hovering over the clear sheet.
Then, without thinking, his hand moved lower on the sheet. The marker touched the plastic.
Elena Rossi.
The letters sat there, dark and precise, out of place among the geometry of his business. A red X for the warehouse. A dotted line toward Hart’s club. A circle around Sterns.
And her—no connection. No category. No reason she should be there at all.
Liam’s jaw tightened. Taking the marker, he pressed a new line came down hard across her name. The plastic buckled under the pressure, ink pooling into the crease like something that refused to stay contained.