Chapter 2
Izzy
The building was abandoned the way bodies were abandoned—left where they fell, stripped of anything useful, and forgotten because no one wanted to deal with what remained.
Concrete walls wept with damp and mould.
The air carried the sharp tang of metal and rust, clinging to the back of my throat with every breath.
My footsteps echoed too loudly, each one bouncing ahead of me, betraying my presence as I moved from one level to the next in search of Nathan.
Every sound felt amplified. My own heartbeat seemed to scatter across the floors, chasing me down the halls.
I told myself I was being ridiculous.
I was following a man who’d been acting wrong for weeks. Late nights and vague answers. A phone he suddenly guarded like it contained state secrets. Sneaking out after midnight, assuming I’d sleep through his absence. When I’d run out of explanations, my mind had landed on the ugliest one.
Cheating. He had to be. Because that was easier than acknowledging I didn’t know who he was anymore.
“Great taste,” I mumbled, pulling my jacket tighter as I pushed deeper into the building. Was this really where Nathan would meet a would-be lover? The idea barely survived its own formation. Even in my own head, it sounded ridiculous.
The corridors twisted and doubled back, disorienting in a way that felt intentional.
Broken doors hung open on rusted hinges, groaning softly when the air moved.
Old machinery crouched in the shadows, hulking shapes frozen mid-task like animals put down and forgotten. Everything smelled old. Wet. Wrong.
I checked my phone. There was no signal. Of course there wasn’t.
The screen’s glow felt too bright, too fragile, so I shoved it back into my pocket and swallowed hard. What was I even thinking—coming to a place like this in the dead of night, alone, chasing a suspicion which was just that?
I called his name anyway.
“Nathan?”
My voice vanished the moment it left my mouth, swallowed whole by the space. There was no echo and no answer. Not even the courtesy of movement.
The silence pressed in until it rang in my ears. So complete that I convinced myself I could hear a pin drop—if there had been one to fall.
I kept walking.
Annoyance began to edge out fear, irritation flaring with every empty room I passed. He had to be here. I’d watched him come inside. I’d seen the car parked out front, engine ticking as it cooled.
I hadn’t imagined this.
I tried as hard as I could to convince myself that I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, even as the building seemed to close in around me, every step pulling me further from common sense—and closer to the unknown.
A stairwell waited at the end of the corridor, yawning open like a throat.
Dark. Narrow. Uninviting.
I stopped at the top, fingers curling once at my sides. Every sensible part of me whispered to turn around, to leave the building and take my pride with me. Whatever was down there didn’t want company.
I went down anyway.
The air changed immediately. Colder. Heavier. Damp enough to cling to my skin. The concrete beneath my shoes was slick, forcing me to slow, one hand dragging along the wall to keep my balance as I descended.
The basement opened wide and wrong.
Crates were stacked everywhere—too many, too tall, piled unevenly like someone had abandoned them in a hurry. Strange symbols were stenciled across their sides, sharp lines and markings I didn’t recognize but instinctively disliked.
That was when I heard voices.
Men.
Several of them.
Low. Not arguing—deciding.
My stomach dropped hard enough to make me dizzy.
I took a step back, pulse crashing in my ears, and my heel clipped the edge of something metal. It tipped, scraped, and fell with a soft clatter that sounded deafening in the stillness.
I sucked in a breath that tore at my throat.
The voices stopped.
The silence that followed was instant and absolute—thick with attention, heavy with intent.
It was a silence that meant I’d just been noticed.
Before I could run, a fist closed in my collar and yanked me forward so hard my feet left the ground.
Air ripped from my lungs.
I gasped—and slammed straight into his space.
He was the most terrifyingly beautiful man I had ever seen.
Dark hair. Sharp, cut-from-stone cheekbones. Eyes the color of cold steel, flat and assessing. His face was calm in a way that made my pulse spike harder than if he’d been screaming. Like violence wasn’t something he worked himself up to—it was something he owned. Something he decided.
He was lethal. I felt it deep in my bones, an instinctive understanding that this man ended things for a living.
And my traitorous heart stuttered anyway.
I should have been screaming. Thrashing. Begging for my life.
Instead, I stared.
God help me, I stared.
Someone behind him swore under their breath. Another man let out a short, humorless laugh.
“What the hell is that?” one of them demanded.
“A problem,” someone else spoke up. “Jesus. Where did she come from?”
A gun slid into my peripheral vision, dark and steady, pointed at my head.
Cold washed through me, instant and paralyzing.
My breath hitched—and only then did I realize his hand was locked around my neck. Not crushing. Not gentle. Measured. Like he knew exactly how much pressure it took to keep me still without snapping anything vital.
I hated the part of my brain that noticed how steady his grip was.
“Put the gun down,” he ground out harshly.
The words were brittle. Absolute.
They cut through the space in a way that told me he was the authority here.
“She saw the deal,” the man with the gun hissed.
And the hand on my throat tightened just enough to remind everyone in the room who decided whether I lived or died.
“Relax. She saw concrete and crates,” the man holding me said without looking at me. His voice was calm, almost bored. His gaze never left my face.
I tried.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry and tight, like it might close on me if I breathed wrong. His eyes dropped to my mouth—just for a second—and something ugly and confusing twisted low in my stomach.
Heat.
Shame followed instantly, hot and choking.
What is wrong with you?
“Who sent you?” he demanded.
My voice barely made it past my teeth. “I—I—”
He tilted his head, studying me like I was something alien he was seeing for the first time—something he had no idea what to make of.
The big man with the gun pointed at my head stepped forward, looking my captor in the eye.
“You’re soft tonight, Cavalho,” he ground out. “This is sloppy.”
The hand around my neck tightened.
Just a fraction—but enough.
Enough that a sick, lucid thought cut through the noise: This is where he squeezes. This is where I stop breathing.
My brain started to misfire, panic short-circuiting everything at once.
The men began talking over each other, voices stacking and blurring, and suddenly all I could think of were those stupid horror movies Nathan loved.
The ones I’d sat through pretending not to be scared, burrowed into his side while he laughed at my jumps.
I could see it now. The ending.
A headline. A statistic. A body no one bothered to look too hard for.
So this is where following my lying, secret-hiding boyfriend lands me, I thought wildly. A wooden box. A slab of concrete. Forgotten.
The man holding me stepped closer.
I tried to twist away, instinct taking over, but the hands on me locked tighter, crushing the movement before it began. My breathing went sharp and frantic, each inhale scraping my lungs like they were already failing me.
“Please,” I whispered.
The word tasted like defeat, and I hated myself for it.
Something crossed his face then—but it wasn’t sympathy. It wasn’t regret. Something cold and detached. Like he was weighing the risk of keeping me alive, nothing else.
His other hand came up.
There was a syringe in it.
Oh. God. For the love of all that is holy—
I wanted to scream. The sound built in my chest, clawing for release, but my lungs seized, panic strangling it before it ever reached my throat. My vision tunneled, black spots dancing as he saw the terror on my face.
“I’ll be gentle.”
Gentle, my ass.
The needle skimmed my skin before piercing my neck, a sharp sting followed by the unmistakable sensation of something warm sliding into my bloodstream.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I tried to curse out loud, to fight, to do anything—but my tongue wouldn’t cooperate. My body betrayed me completely, strength bleeding out of me as the world tilted.
Cold rushed through my veins, fast and merciless, like someone had pulled a plug and drained me from the inside out. My knees gave way.
I didn’t hit the ground. He caught me.
Strong arms came around me—firm, uncompromising—keeping me upright as everything inside me slipped loose. My cheek brushed his chest for a heartbeat too long. He smelled immaculate. Not cologne-heavy or sweet, but precise: clean soap, faint smoke, and something colder underneath. Danger.
The last thing I saw was his face above mine. Focused. Intent. Lethal.
And devastatingly handsome, because apparently my brain hated me.
Then the edges of the world softened, folded inward, and went dark as I melted into his arms.