Adrian's POV
My phone won't stop buzzing.
Fifty-three calls in ten minutes. Every lowlife informant, every desperate citizen, every greedy bastard in New York City suddenly knows where Elena Moretti is hiding.
One million dollars buys a lot of loyalty. Or destroys it.
"We need to move her," Marcus says, already pulling security footage on his tablet. "Now."
I watch Elena on the couch, Marcus's jacket draped over her shoulders. She's stopped shaking, but her eyes are too wide, too aware. She knows what a million-dollar bounty means.
She's going to run.
I can see it in the way her body tenses, the way she's calculating distances to the door, the elevator, the windows. Survival instinct. I recognize it because I have the same one.
"Don't," I say quietly.
Her eyes snap to mine. "Don't what?"
"Don't run. You won't make it past the lobby."
"You don't know that."
"I do." I cross the room, keeping my movements slow, non-threatening. "I know because I've been tracking Damian's people for two years. I know their response times, their patterns, their methods. You step outside this building, you're dead or back in his hands within fifteen minutes."
She stands, swaying slightly on her bandaged feet. "And staying here is better? You said it yourself—people are already calling. How long before someone in this building sells me out for a million dollars?"
Valid question. I respect that she's thinking tactically despite the fear.
"This building has thirty-two residential units," Marcus offers. "Adrian owns twenty-eight of them. The other four are occupied by people who owe him their lives. Literally."
Elena looks at me differently now. Trying to figure out what kind of man owns an entire building just for security.
A paranoid one. A careful one. A man who learned young that the only person you can trust is yourself.
"You can't protect me forever," she says. "Damian won't stop. He never stops."
"I know." I pull out the USB drive from my pocket, holding it up to the light. "That's why we're going to destroy him instead."
Her breath catches. "We?"
"You have evidence. I have resources. We combine them, and we bury him so deep he never sees daylight again."
"Why?" The question is barely a whisper. "Why would you help me destroy your own brother?"
The answer claws at my throat. Because I should have stopped him three years ago. Because I saw what he was becoming and did nothing. Because every bruise on her body is my failure.
But I don't say any of that.
"Because he needs to be stopped," I say instead. "And you gave me the ammunition to do it."
My phone buzzes again. I glance at the screen and my blood runs cold.
"What?" Marcus reads my expression immediately.
I turn the phone so they can see the message:
I know she's with you, brother. Let's make a deal. You give me what's mine, I won't tell Mother what you really do for a living. You have until sunrise.
Elena's face goes white. "Your mother?"
"Catherine Cross." I pocket the phone, mind already running through scenarios. "She has a heart condition. Stress could kill her. Damian knows that."
"He's going to tell her about your business," Marcus says. It's not a question.
"He's going to tell her I'm a criminal." The word tastes like ash. "That I've killed people. Run illegal operations. Everything she spent twenty years trying to forget about our family."
My mother thinks I run a legitimate security company. She thinks I help people. She doesn't know about the gray areas I operate in, the deals I broker, the secrets I bury. She doesn't know her oldest son is exactly what our father was—just better at hiding it.
The thought makes me sick.
Elena's voice cuts through my spiral. "Don't."
I look at her.
"Don't give me back to him." Her chin lifts, tears streaming down her face. "I'd rather die than go back. Do you understand? I'd rather die."
The conviction in her voice is absolute. I've heard death threats before, but this is different. This is truth.
"That won't happen," I say.
"You don't know that. If choosing me means destroying your relationship with your mother—"
"I'm not choosing between you and my mother." My voice is harder than I intend. "I'm choosing to stop a predator who's been terrorizing you and using our mother as a shield. There's a difference."
Marcus's tablet chimes. He looks at it and curses. "We've got a problem."
"Another one?"
"Someone just breached the service entrance. Building security stopped them, but..." He turns the tablet to show me grainy footage of three men in dark clothes being escorted out by my people. "Damian sent scouts."
"How did they get past the perimeter?" I demand.
"They didn't break in. Someone let them in." Marcus's jaw tightens. "We have a leak."
The words hang in the air like poison.
Someone in my organization sold me out. For a million dollars, someone I trusted enough to have access to this building just tried to hand over a terrified woman to a monster.
My phone rings. Not a buzz—a full ring. The tone I programmed for one person only.
My mother.
Elena sees my face and knows. "He already called her."
I answer. "Mom."
"Adrian." Her voice is shaking. "Is it true? Did you kidnap Damian's girlfriend? He just called me, crying, saying you stole Elena, that you're holding her against her will. He sounds devastated. What's going on?"
I close my eyes. Of course Damian struck first. Of course he painted himself as the victim.
"Mom, it's not—"
"He said you're dangerous. That you've been lying to me about what you do." Her voice breaks. "Tell me he's wrong, Adrian. Please tell me he's lying."
I look at Elena. At the bruises on her arms. At the terror in her eyes. At the evidence of three years of systematic abuse.
I can tell my mother the truth and destroy the one person I've spent my entire adult life protecting from the darkness of our family.
Or I can lie, and condemn Elena to death.
Marcus shakes his head slightly. Warning me. Whatever I say next will determine everything.
"Mom," I start carefully. "Damian isn't—"
The lights go out.
All of them. The entire building plunges into darkness.
"Backup generators should kick in," Marcus says, already moving.
They don't.
My phone is still connected. I hear my mother's confused voice. "Adrian? Adrian, what happened?"
Then I hear something else.
The elevator. Moving.
Coming up.
But the power is out. The elevators shouldn't work.
Unless someone overrode the system.
Marcus and I look at each other in the darkness. We both know what this means.
Damian isn't waiting until sunrise.
He's here now.