Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Leila’s POV
I didn’t care if I looked like I was being hunted by a wolf with blood on its teeth. I clutched my bag against my chest with both hands, cursing the moment I slipped into those stilettos. My heart hammered against my ribs, my pulse pounding in my ears like a war drum.
I didn’t see the road ahead of me. I didn’t see the car coming from the other direction.
Because I didn’t check. All I could see in my head was the image of that son of a bitch Blaze in my living room, smiling like a man with the world in his palm, while sitting beside Ollie, who was laughing, oblivious.
Home sweet home. The caption on the photo read.
God. My heart had already sunk to the pit of my stomach. My house, which was over an hour away from the Moreau Estate, suddenly felt as far away as taking a trip across the continent. Every second stretched, curled, clawed at my chest.
The sound of tires screeching and the loud honk of a horn, followed by the annoyed voice of a driver, pulled me to a stop. I covered my head as if that could shield me from the impact if that car had rammed into me.
“Lady! So help me God if I…”
His annoyed bellow barely reached my ears.
I was terrified to the bone. I’d never felt fear like this before—raw, primal, the kind that made your stomach feel like it was eating itself.
I couldn’t imagine a world without my son.
I lived for him, to make him happy, to raise him the best way I could.
He became my purpose right after I lost the will to live following Luca’s rejection.
And now Blaze…Blaze was threatening to take that away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffed, not glancing at the driver as I picked myself up, crossed the road, and hailed a cab.
He was going too slow, no matter how much I urged him to hurry. It was as if someone had just handed him a handbook on “How to Be an Upstanding Citizen Behind the Wheel.”
By the time the cab driver pulled up to my house, I barely waited for him to stop before I raced out of the car, distantly hearing the man call me crazy.
I burst through the front door and raced for the living room. “Ollie?” My voice carried through the entire house. Hell, probably the whole neighborhood could hear me.
The sight of Ollie holding a gaming console while he sat close—too close—to Blaze did two things to me.
First, I felt a wave of relief so strong it nearly knocked me over.
He was unharmed. He was fine. But then the reality that this man, the devil himself, was so close to my son terrified the hell out of me.
“Mom?” Ollie’s voice held a hint of confusion. Probably because of how crazy I looked. Sometimes, I hated how perceptive he could be. He could sense my distress like he could smell his favorite chocolate chip cookies baking.
I tried to pull myself together and pretend everything was normal. I summoned a smile that hopefully looked believable. Ollie broke into a wide grin and shot up from his chair with his game in hand.
“Look, Mom, I beat Uncle Blaze at LEGO!” Ollie rushed toward me, lifting the device above his head, beaming with pride.
Uncle Blaze?
“He said I’m better than all the guys in his office!” Ollie added, grinning with an excitement that made me sick to my stomach.
Blaze didn’t have an office. He worked for Cassius Kane—the leader of the syndicate my father was indebted to—carrying out their sick orders.
Torture. Punishment. Silence. He was one of the human subordinates recruited to infiltrate society on Cassius’ behalf, loyal beyond reason.
I’d never met Cassius, and I didn’t want to.
The rumors were enough. He was cruel. Heartless.
And he wouldn’t blink twice before ordering my son’s death.
I forced my smile wider, for Ollie’s sake, despite the storm waging war inside me. “That’s great, sweetheart. Why don’t you give me and…Blaze…some time to talk?”
He nodded eagerly.
“Afterward, we can make your favorite chocolate chip cookies.”
Ollie broke into an even wider grin, nodding his head with contagious excitement. Why would anyone even think of hurting such a sweet child? But Blaze wasn’t just anyone. He was a sociopath.
Ollie went back to the chair he’d been sitting in to gather his crayons. He and Blaze did some elaborate handshake that made my skin crawl. I made a mental note to tell Ollie to forget that little ritual the moment I got this man out of my house. Then Ollie disappeared up the stairs.
When I heard the soft click of his bedroom door closing, the smile on my face vanished like it had never existed. I shot a glare at Blaze that could have melted steel. If scowls could kill a man, Blaze would be six feet under right now—and I’d be doing a victory dance on his grave.
With clenched fists, I stomped toward him. “How dare you come to my home? How dare you sit with my son?”
Blaze lounged on my sofa like he owned the place, one leg crossed over the other, looking like he’d been waiting for afternoon tea instead of threatening a child.
He looked like he always did—a sharp smile, with dirty blonde hair and tattoos covering every visible inch of his body.
Scars decorated the parts of his skin that weren’t inked, and his face bore two jagged stitches that revealed he’d been in a fight recently.
A game controller dangled from one tattooed hand.
“Leila…” he drew out my name with a sinister smile on his face. “You didn’t tell me your kid’s a mini genius. He beat me three times at that LEGO game. Three times. At some point, I thought he was cheating.”
“My kid is not a cheat,” I ground out.
I don’t know why I said that. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what this psychopath thought about Ollie should have been irrelevant.
“He’s cute, too. I see he gets that from you.” His eyes shamelessly dropped to my chest, lingering a second too long.
I wanted to dig my fingers into his face and pluck out his eyeballs. The sight of him looking at me that way made every nerve in my body scream with revulsion.
“You know, Leila, I was here long before I even sent that text to you,” Blaze said casually, like he was discussing the weather. “Long enough for me to get to know the kid and decide that he deserved a few more days in this world.”
The blood in my veins turned to ice. My hands trembled with a mixture of rage and terror that made me feel like I might explode.
Blaze uncrossed his legs slowly, deliberately, that sinister smile still playing on his lips. Then he stood, his massive frame looming over me. The smile disappeared, replaced by hard features and a gaze that sent daggers straight through me.
“I’m not usually this generous. But after meeting your boy, I figured I’d turn this into a little preview.”
“A preview of what?” I spat. He stepped forward. Slow. Precise. It was meant to intimidate me, and damn it, it worked. I felt fear travel down my spine like ice water. But I didn’t show it. I stood my ground. After all, this was my house.
“A preview of how easy it is to get to your son.” His gaze turned dark, and so did his voice.
“Where’s Valerie?” I managed to ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“She’s been taken care of. Don’t worry, she’ll be back to you in the next hour or so.” His tone was so nonchalant that it made my blood run cold. “Had to give us some privacy for this little chat.”
Blaze took another step closer, his massive frame casting a shadow over me. “You’re behind on your payments, Leila. That’s not like you.”
“I know, I know. But I need more time—”
“More time?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You’ve had a year to figure this out. A whole fucking year since your daddy left you his little gift.”
The mention of my father sent a fresh wave of fury through me. Even in death, that man was still ruining my life. Still putting my son in danger because of his gambling addiction.
“I’ve never missed a payment before,” I said. “Never. This is the first time, and it’s only because—”
“Because what? Because you have to take care of your bastard son?”
The word hit me like a slap. White hot rage flared in my chest. “Don’t you dare—”
“I don’t care about your little boy, Leila.” He stepped closer, his breath hot against my face. “I only care about my money.”
Through gritted teeth and with every ounce of control I had left, I spoke. “I can get you the money. I just need another week. Maybe two.”
“Two weeks?” Blaze’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Do you think this is a charity, Leila? Do you think we’re running a fucking food bank here?”
The way he spat the words, I felt his saliva hit my face. Then he stepped even closer, lowering his face to mine until he was only a hair’s breadth away. I could taste his horrible breath—cigarettes, alcohol, and something that reeked like death itself.
“You know what your problem is?” he said, his toxic breath hot against my face. “You still think you have choices. You still think you can negotiate.”
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Have you no conscience?”
I watched as his eyes sparked with amusement before laughter rolled out of him. “Conscience?” He laughed again, like I’d just told the world’s funniest joke. “Conscience is for the weak.”
“Look, Blaze, I work my ass off every day to pay my father’s debt—”
“His debt that became your debt the moment he put a bullet in his brain,” Blaze finished coldly. “Funny how he chose the easy way out and left you to clean up his mess.”
The words cut deeper than any physical wound could. Because they were true. My father had been a coward. He’d chosen death over facing the consequences of his actions, leaving me to shoulder the burden of his two-hundred-thousand-dollar gambling debt to the Tusk Syndicate.