The makeup. The hair. The way the fabric sits on my body. The collar at my throat. It all says the same thing. Not Olivia.
Product.
My throat tightens. Tears burn behind my eyes. I don’t let them fall. Not here. Not for them.I hold my own gaze. Forcing myself to stay present. To not disappear. To not let them take more than they already have. Fear is there. It sits in my chest, steady and real, not the sharp panic from before but something deeper.
Awareness.
This is happening. This is real. And I’m still here.
My hand lifts slowly, hovering near the collar, not touching it. Not risking it.
I swallow.
Stay alive.
The thought comes back, stronger now. Clearer.
Stay alive.
My eyes don’t leave my reflection.
He’s coming.
I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I know him.
And that’s enough.
Stay alive.
He’s coming.
Carter comes back into Logan’s office with his phone in his hand and a look on his face that tells me the call connected before he says a word.
The room shifts. Not loud. Not obvious. Just enough that every man in it understands we’re about to step into another kind of war.
The auction clock on Dom’s laptop keeps counting down.
Forty-three minutes.
Every second is a blade.
Carter looks at Logan first. Then at me. “He answered.”
Logan nods once. “Speaker.”
Carter’s jaw tightens, but he does it. He taps the screen, sets the phone on Logan’s desk, and the line opens to the room. For half a second, there’s nothing.
Then a man’s voice fills the office. Smooth. Calm. Amused. “Carter Pearce,” Matteo Vittorio says, his accent faint but there, wrapped around the name like silk over a knife. “I wondered how long it would be before you called.”
Carter doesn’t react. “How long have you known?” he asks.
Matteo chuckles softly. “About the auction? About the girl? About your club stomping around a network it doesn’t fully understand?”
No one moves.
My hands stay loose at my sides.
Matteo keeps talking, unhurried, like we’re not staring at a countdown with Olivia’s life attached to it. Like time belongs to him because, in this moment, it does. “Be specific,” he says.
