“I don’t want to lose you either,” she whispered, tears shining in her eyes. “But I don’t know how to do this the right way.”
My heart skipped a beat at the vulnerability she was showing me. Both of us had taken on a lot to be together. But I meant what I vowed. I wasn’t ever going to let anyone hurt her.
“As long as we do it together, it will be right,” I said, my heart swelling with emotion.
Was this love? Had it always been love?
I studied her eyes, wondering if she was thinking the same thing, if she was feeling the same way. Everything I saw in her eyes reflected the raw emotion surging through me. I could only pray that she felt it too, that she wanted this too.
Our lips met in a collision of adrenaline, iron, and a decade of suppressed hunger. There was nothing delicate about it. It was a desperate, clawing need to prove we were still made of flesh and bone. I didn’t want to be gentle. I wanted to leave a mark on her so deep that Zeno’s blood debt would be incinerated by the heat of us.
“Bedroom. Now,” I growled into her mouth, not waiting for an answer.
I hauled her against me, my hand tangled in her hair, forcing her head back to expose the elegant, pulsing line of her throat. We didn't lose ourselves in kisses, we crashed together, a frantic exchange of breath and fire, our teeth clashing as we stumbled toward the bed.
She was a storm made flesh, beautiful like a wildfire, terrifying and absolute. I didn’t want tender. I wanted the raw, jagged edges of the woman who had stood in the crossfire and chosen me over her innocence.
When my mouth crashed into hers, it tasted of gunpowder and a decade of wanting. I kissed her with possessive ferocity,my hands marking her skin as if I could press the memory of the warehouse from her marrow and replace it with me.
Our bodies clashed, a frantic struggle to prove we had survived the dark. She was everything I had ever wanted, not because she was flawless, but because she was the only creature in this godforsaken city who was dark enough to mirror my own soul.
Obsession. It wasn't a light but a goddamn black hole, and I was falling into it with my eyes wide open. I didn't want to take her to a paradise beyond the city. I wanted to build a fortress of shadows around her.
I wasn’t in love. I was addicted to the way her soul mirrored the darkness within mine. She was my ruin, and I was going to worship every inch of the wreckage.
This was the only truth that mattered now. Not the city, not the syndicates, just the woman in my arms and the darkness we shared. I’d spent my life believing I belonged to the shadows, but Daphne hadn't brought me into the light. She’d shown me how to rule the dark.
I didn't want happiness. I wanted this jagged, desperate, absolute devotion.
“I love you, Daphne,” I whispered, the words feeling less like a gift and more like a surrender.
“I love you, too, Thal,” she replied, her voice steady despite the chaos of the night.
There were no stars written for us. No flowery promises. Only the blood on our hands and the empire we’d have to build to keep the world from taking what was ours.
After I’d claimed her, after I’d made sure she knew exactly whose name was carved into her skin, I held her with a white-knuckled grip. She collapsed into me, her body finally surrendering to the exhaustion of the kill.
I watched the rise and fall of her chest in the dim light of the penthouse, my mind circling back to that red stamp in the ledger.Transfer pending.
The city wasn't going to let us go. Zeno wouldn't let her go. And Rhea? Rhea was coming to collect a debt she thought was hers by right. They were all fools. Rhea thought she was calling in a marker. Zeno thought he was guarding a ward. But you can't collect what's already been consumed.
I looked at my hands, the hands that had held her as she became a killer tonight. I’d once thought I could protect her from the dark. I was wrong. The only way to save her was to make sure my darkness was bigger than Rhea’s. I wasn’t going to take her to the light. I was going to build an empire of shadows so vast that no one would ever find her.
“You’re mine,” I whispered into the silence of the room. “Not a debt. Not a payment. Mine.”
Thirteen
AFRAGILE TRUST
DAPHNE
The evening breeze swept through the park, brushing my hair from my face as I wandered along the winding paths.
I had left early that morning, slipping out of Thal’s bed while he still slept, craving quiet moments to clear my mind.
The children’s laughter sounded like a frequency I could no longer tune into, a broadcast from a planet I’d left a lifetime ago. I watched a mother push a swing, the rhythmic creak of the chains sounding like a ticking clock, and felt a cold, hollow disconnect.
My hands … the hands that had squeezed a trigger and felt the recoil of a man’s life ending only hours ago, felt heavy.
