My heart jumps.No. No. No.
My father would lose his mind if someone broke in.
I slip through the back entrance near the chef’s kitchen and quietly climb the staff staircase toward my wing of the house. The hallway feels so quiet and still. Every instinct in my body screams to turn around but I keep walking. My bedroom door is open slightly, and I stop breathing. Slowly, I push it wider. Nothing looks disturbed or broken, no sign that anyone was in here—except.
A folded note rests perfectly in the center of my pillow.
My stomach twists violently as I cross the room slowly with trembling hands. I pick it up and flip it open.
My whole world tilts as I read the note.
“I’ve missed you, Firefly. Did you miss me?”
A gasp tears from my throat as tears fall from my eyes. I recognize the handwriting, but beyond that… There’s only one person in this world who ever called me Firefly.
And Hayden Marks is dead… isn’t he?
Hayden
“Burn-Usher”
I’ve been out of lockup for six months.
Six fucking months of freedom and somehow prison still follows me everywhere like a ghost latched onto my back.
The funny part?I still don’t fully know how I got out.
One day, I’m rotting inside Whitestone, fighting for survival every second of every day. The next, guards are dragging me into an office, uncuffing me, sliding paperwork across a metal table, and telling me I’m being released under “special circumstances.” The warden is clearly in someone’s pocket, but it’s not Judge Fitzgerald's.
I still call bullshit. Nothing comes free in my world. Especially freedom. People don’t just walk out of prison after being sentenced to life. Not unless someone powerful opens the cage. And powerful people always come to collect what they’re owed.
Inside, I learned real quick there are only two choices.
Become prey… or become something worse.
I chose worse.
I made allies.
Dangerous ones.
Men who smiled while carving people apart.
Men with tattoos crawling up their throats and bodies buried beneath their names.
Men who taught me how to survive prison politics without ending up dead in a shower.
But allies come with prices attached.Favors. Debts. Blood.
Tonight was one of those debts.
Which is why I threw the race against Reid ‘Spade’ Rodriguez. The son of ‘El Hefe.’ Cartel assholes.
I lean back against my Ducati outside the warehouse while cigarette smoke curls into the cold night air around me. The races are dying down now. Engines cooling. Crowds thinning, and drunks stumbling around counting cash.
But my focus never leaves her.
Ophelia Fitzgerald. My Firefly.
