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“You can’t go down that rabbit hole, Sirenna,” Mia murmurs, now peeking around the pane of glass between us. “Joseph is one of the most disgusting bastards I know. What he did had nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. He was punishing you for getting dirt on him and leaking it to the press.”
“He was my husband for five years,” I reply, my fingers curling into the tiles. “You don’t do those kinds of things to people who once meant something to you.” Despite the hot water and the heat steaming the glass pane, I start to shiver.
“I understand that these things hurt even if we’re braced for them to happen,” she argues carefully. “I, of all people, know that. But you need to steel yourself because now that Joseph is gone, all of his businesses, including his enemies, are your problem.” She pauses, surely thinking about the texts on my phone. “Especially the enemies.”
“That bastard, he knew what he was getting me into.” All my muscles flex painfully as I watch the water flow toward the drain between my feet. “It’s probably why he did it. He knew that he could no longer stop the shitstorm that was coming at him. He was going down, and there was nothing he could do about it. So he fled and left me to get ripped to pieces in his place.” I laugh, the sound hoarse and bitter. “I can’t think of a better strategy to destroy someone.”
“He might well be dead, Sirenna.”
I scoff. “Oh, he’s not dead. We would have found a body. The kind of people that he deals with, if they wanted him killed, they would have made a show of it. Set an example. They would have butchered him and scattered his remains all over the city–the way they made it clear they would do with me.” And that wasn’t even the worst threat.
“Many want to take over his empire,” Mia says, making herself comfortable on the closed toilet seat as I wash my hair and my body. “He’s a Triad member. One of the links that connects the underworld with the world of top finance. Access to his banks is worth this city’s weight in gold.”
I scrub myself faster, the new reality firing up my nerves. By the time I step out of the shower, I’m on full alert, an anxiety attack looming.
“This is bullshit, Mia. I’ve been saying it since this morning, and it seems I’m gonna be saying it for a long time from now on.”
She doesn’t argue with me. She knows this is dark shit, and she’s fully aware it can swallow me whole. I see it on her face when I wipe the steam off the mirror. It gives me the chills, seeing the fierce Mia Rogers so worried.
“You should come to stay with Declan and me for a while,” she says when I’m done blow-drying my hair, and we can finally hear each other again.
I stare at myself in the mirror, seeking the powerful, effervescent woman I used to be. But the face staring back at me is only vaguely familiar. That woman and this version of me share the same straight nose and uptilted dark eyes, but the intensity those eyes used to have is muted. I never had a plump mouth, my features are rather pinched and severe, but my lips look even thinner now, and my face is almost gaunt.
“That wouldn’t be fair to you and Declan,” I say quietly, resting my hands on the sides of the sink. “You’re preparing for a wedding, you don’t need this kind of heat.”
“I’m sure Declan–”
“I’m sure he would, too,” I cut her off, “because there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to please you. But he could spare the trouble. Trying to protect me would mean facing a war.”
“Sirenna, my future husband is one of the most powerful men in the world,” she reminds me kindly.
“So is Joseph. Keeping me safe will be hell with the city’s nastiest overlords trying to get me. Declan can’t protect me forever, and you know what?” I square my shoulders. I may be a broken woman with a drinking problem, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let these assholes tear me down. “I spent a lot of time trying to bring down Joseph Carter for the nasty shit he was involved in. I failed. But now? I’ve never been in a better position to take down half of this city’s evil rats. I could actually achieve something meaningful here.” My eyebrows dip in the mirror as I inch closer to a tough decision. “Right now, I don’t need a protector. I need an ally.”
Mia’s eyebrows rise slowly. “And you don’t think Declan and Jax would come in handy as allies?”
“This isn’t their fight, Mia. Jax kicks ass on the stock market, and Declan runs diamond mines. They have nothing to do with the drugs and pharma mob that Joseph got himself involved with. It would be like having an oil sheik fight a social media mogul. No, I need someone who shares the same fight. Someone who has a personal stake in it.”
Mia walks behind me, running her hands through my now dry, silky platinum hair.
“Before you do anything about those guys, we need to find out what happened to Joseph,” she says.
“We don’t have the time to investigate that. Those assholes out there would get in the way. I’m a direct rival to them now, an unprotected one with open flanks. I’d be surprised if I made it to the next street corner without a kidnapping attempt.” I glance out the bathroom door toward the window. The outside world will never be safe for me again unless I do something about it.
“There’s only one person who can help me now.” I release a long, shaky breath, a name on the tip of my tongue. The name that sent icy shudders down Joseph’s spine every time he heard it. “Zayne Thorngren.”
A void sucks away the air when I release it out into the space between Mia and me.
“Zayne Thorngren?” she repeats, her voice quiet. “You mean the Lex Luthor of the real world?”
“Yes. The Lex Luthor of the real world.”
“Sirenna, Zayne Thorngren has been Joseph’s greatest enemy for years.”
“My point exactly.”
Mia places herself in front of me, hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your logic. If anyone is going to take you down on sight, it would be Thorngren. Shouldn’t he be at the top of your list of people to stay away from?”
