Chapter 32
Raze
The smell of gunpowder lingered in the air as I reached the gates, which were already open.
A terrifying weight dropped to the pit of my stomach, suffocating me.
The driveway flood lights were on, brighter than usual, illuminating a scene that was far from contained.
Two bodies lay near the outer perimeter, already zip-tied and disarmed.
Another was being dragged toward the security wing by one of my men.
Blood stained the gravel in uneven patches, dark and spreading.
I stepped out of the car before it fully stopped, gun already lowered but ready at my side as I moved through the front doors.
The foyer was chaos.
My sister stood in the middle of it, one Balenciaga heel firmly planted on a Russian’s face as he groaned weakly beneath her.
She pressed down harder.
“You picked,” she spat out, grinding the heel with clinical irritation, “the wrong house. On the wrong day. In the wrong shoes.”
The man wheezed something in Russian.
Tone leaned slightly and increased the pressure.
“I don’t speak that language,” she replied. “But I’m hoping it’s an apology.”
For some reason, Archie stood a few feet away, leaning on his cane. His expression was calm, but there was unmistakable admiration in the way he watched Tone methodically humiliate the attacker.
“You are remarkably efficient under pressure,” he commented mildly.
“I’m bored,” she deadpanned. “This is enrichment.”
That was when I saw Izzy.
She yelped—a sharp, breathless sound of relief—and ran straight toward me before I had fully crossed the foyer. Her arms wrapped around me with surprising force, and for a moment, everything else in the room dimmed behind the weight of that contact.
Alive. Unharmed. Here.
I exhaled for what felt like the first time since checking my unanswered calls.
“I’m here.” My hand settled instinctively at her back, grounding us both.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her hands still gripping the front of my shirt like I might disappear if she let go.
“You didn’t answer your phone.” Her voice was tight.
“I was in transit,” I responded.
Tone looked up from her current activity, squinting at us.
Her heel paused mid-press.
Her gaze narrowed between Izzy clinging to me and my arm still firmly around her waist.
Her brow furrowed deeply.
“When the fuck did that happen?” she demanded.
Silence followed.
Archie coughed into his fist.
I ignored them both.
“Are you hurt?” I growled at Izzy.
She shook her head quickly.
“No. Archie—” she glanced toward him, still processing “—handled it.”
I turned my gaze toward him. He inclined his head slightly.
Arrogant bastard.
“Your perimeter held up quite well,” he remarked. “All things considering.”
Tone lifted her heel and stepped back, looking at Archie with mild distaste.
“He’s still alive.” She seemed disappointed.
“For now,” Archie replied.
The sound of multiple vehicles pulling into the drive cut through the tension seconds later. Footsteps followed. Familiar and composed.
Atlas entered first.
Marcello just behind him.
Gianni followed last, scanning the foyer like a man cataloguing any further threats.
They stopped collectively at the threshold.
Atlas’s gaze swept the room once and saw the bodies, the blood. Then landed on Archie.
“You left a mess.”
“They arrived uninvited,” Archie returned.
Marcello’s eyes landed on Archie, then to the fallen men, then back to the structural damage.
“You’re nothing if not efficient,” he commented.
Gianni, meanwhile, stared directly at Archie. Longer than necessary. Tension immediately threaded the air between them. Archie acknowledged him with a slight nod. Gianni did not return it. Instead, he folded his arms.
“Well, it’s good to see hunting is still a social activity in this household.”
Tone scoffed.
“They kicked in the door,” she complained. “Rude, honestly.”
Atlas stepped further inside. “Debrief.”
Within minutes, we moved into the sitting room next door. Guards locked down the perimeter, and the surviving attackers were taken downstairs for questioning. The house quickly recovered from the chaos and settled into order, everyone moving with the kind of efficiency that came from experience.
Archie stayed near the edge of the room, calm and focused as he shared what he knew. He spoke plainly about how they approached the house, where they tried to enter, how the timing was coordinated, and how it all pointed back to the Chernov network.
Gianni listened, jaw tight the entire time. He didn’t interrupt or comment, but the tension between the two men was palpable.
Eventually, I stepped closer to him and angled my head toward the hall. He followed without protest.
The moment we were out of earshot, he spoke first.
“You’re trusting him too much,” Gianni warned me.
“He just helped defend this house,” I fired back.
“He was also once engaged to my wife,” he grumbled.
There it was.
Finally.
“That’s history,” I reminded him.
“That is not the point.”
I held his gaze.
“The point is that if the Russians discover he is the feeder, he dies.”
Gianni’s expression flickered, though only momentarily. He wasn’t one to dwell on emotion.
“He has crossed his own kind. Burned every bridge available to him. And he is still standing in my house, providing intelligence that protects our family.”
Gianni scoffed softly. “He’s insane.”
“He’s useful,” I countered.
A beat passed.
“He is also,” I added, “standing directly in the line of fire for us.”
Gianni ran a hand down his face. Then snorted.
“Fine,” he ground out. “But you might want to keep an eye on him.”
“For what?”
He leaned slightly closer.
“He’s notorious for falling for the women he meets,” Gianni reminded me. “And I did not miss the way he was looking at Antonella.”
I blinked once. Then twice.
“You’re delusional.”
“I’m observant,” he stated. “Let’s see how forgiving and gracious you are then, cousin.”
The hot water hit my shoulders the second I stepped under the spray, and still it wasn’t enough to wash the tension out of my body.
Downstairs, I could hear the muted movement of my men cleaning up what was left of the mess. Furniture being rearranged. Glass being swept. Low voices speaking in clipped, efficient tones. The aftermath of violence always sounded the same—composed, methodical.
Like it could erase what had happened.
It couldn’t.
I braced my hands against the tile and let the water run over my face, jaw tight.
They had come to my house.
My house.
Not a warehouse. Not a meeting ground. Not a territory line meant for bloodshed and negotiation. My home. Where my sister slept. Where Izzy walked barefoot through the halls. Where I had allowed myself, foolishly, to believe I could carve out a space untouched by the uglier parts of my life.
And they had kicked the door in like it meant nothing.
I had spent years building layers between my world and my family. Containment. Authority. Distance. Violence stayed outside. Business stayed outside. War stayed outside.
They had dragged it straight into my foyer.
My chest tightened at the memory of the unanswered calls. Archie’s. My men’s. Izzy’s.
That silence had been worse than any gunshot.
For those few minutes, I had been certain something had gone wrong. Certain I was returning to loss instead of chaos.
And I had not survived loss well the first time.
The bathroom door opened.
Izzy’s presence was less apparent than anyone else’s, but I felt it instantly.
The water shut off as I stepped out, grabbing a towel and dragging it over my hair before wrapping it loosely around my waist.
She stood near the doorway, arms folded, expression tight. Like she already knew what was coming.
“I’m sending you and Tone away.”
Her reaction was immediate.
“No.”
One word. Sharp. Final.
“This is not a discussion, Izzy.”
“It is if you’re talking about me like I’m a suitcase you can just relocate.”
My jaw clenched.
“This house is no longer secure.”
“It is literally the most secure place I have ever been in my life,” she shot back. “You have guards, cameras, reinforced walls, and a man with a cane that apparently doubles as an arsenal.”
“That is not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Raze?” she demanded, stepping closer. “That you’re scared?”
The word landed exactly where it hurt, quiet but precise. Because she wasn’t wrong. Fear was the very thing driving every decision that I was making.
“I am being cautious,” I clarified.
“You are being ruled by fear,” she lashed out.
Silence stretched between us.
“You think sending me away fixes this?” she screeched, voice rising now. “You think putting me somewhere far away where I sit and wait and wonder and imagine the worst is protection?”
“Yes.”
Her laugh was sharp and disbelieving.
“You can’t just discard me because something dangerous happened!”
“I am not discarding you.”
“That’s exactly what it feels like!”
Her eyes were bright now, furious and unyielding.
“You don’t get to decide I’m safer without you and just ship me off like that’s kindness,” she added. “You don’t get to let your fear make choices for both of us.”
My temper flared.
“My fear,” I repeated slowly, “is the only reason you are still breathing after today.”
“And I am still here because I chose to be!” she shouted. “Because I chose you. This house. This life. All of it!”
I stared at her.
“You would rather stay here?” I asked.
“No,” she replied instantly. “I would rather die in your arms than live a million miles away from you pretending I’m safe while you’re out here fighting wars alone.”
Something inside me collapsed. Before I could stop myself, I crossed the space between us and pulled her into me, one hand gripping the back of her neck as I kissed her with a force that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with relief, frustration, and something intoxicatingly close to obsession.
She didn’t pull away. Her hands fisted into my hair, grounding, steady, real. Alive.
When I finally pulled back, my breathing was uneven.
“You have no idea what it felt like driving back to this house.”
Her expression softened slightly.
“I did call you, Raze.”
“I saw.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I,” I admitted.
The words left before I could stop them.
Her brows knit together.
“I couldn’t reach Archie. I couldn’t reach my men. I couldn’t reach you.” My voice was lower now, rougher. “Do you understand what that does to a man who is used to dominance? To information and certainty?”
Silence.
“Chaos. That is what happens in my head when the people I protect stop answering.”
I looked at her properly then.
“For a moment,” I conceded, “I thought I had lost you.”
Her lips parted slightly.
“I don’t think,” I continued slowly, “I could survive another loss.”
The confession sat between us.
“Izzy, panic strips a man down to his worst truths. And mine is simple.”
I swallowed once.
“If something happened to you… it would break me. Worse than death would.”
Her eyes softened completely.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she pointed out gently.
“You cannot promise that.”
“I can promise that I’m not running,” she returned evenly. “Not from you. Not from this. Have some faith, Raze.”
Faith.
A concept I had long replaced with self-command.
She hesitated, then spoke again, softer this time.
“I’ve never felt worthy of love,” she disclosed. “Not with Nathan. Not with anyone. Not even… with you.”
Her words hit me in the chest, right where they would hurt. She looked down.
“He used me. Lied to me. Lived off me. To him, I was just something convenient. Disposable. So when you look at me like I matter, like I’m worth protecting, like I’m… yours… part of me keeps waiting for the moment you realize I’m not worth the trouble.”
My chest tightened.
“I take that personally.”
Her head snapped up.
“You think I would burn half a criminal network, relocate you to a fortified safe house, and put a bounty on a man’s head for your safety if you were disposable to me?”
She said nothing.
“I do not protect things I do not value,” I added. “And I do not fear losing things that are replaceable.”
I stepped closer, lifting her chin slightly.
“You are neither,” I finished.
Her breath hitched.
“And for the record,” my voice was quieter now, “sending you away was never about discarding you. But the idea of standing in another empty house after losing someone I…” I stopped myself, jaw tightening.
She searched my face.
“You what?” she breathed softly.
I met her gaze.
“…care about.”
And that, more than the gunfire, the blood, or the threats outside our walls, was the most relentless truth I had spoken all night.