Chapter 4
Ry
It takes me all of thirty seconds to pick out which bike belongs to the dancer.
Sleek. Black. Mean as sin. The chrome winks at me like it’s in on the joke, like it knows it’s about to be stolen.
I swing my leg over, the leather seat hot under me, the weight solid between my thighs.
When the engine growls to life, it purrs deep and throaty, a vibration that hums through my bones.
Oh, yes. Hello beautiful. God, I could almost come just from the rumble.
The city swallows me whole the second I hit the street.
Wind claws at my hair, the chaos of the city bleeding into me, fueling me.
Car horns, drunken laughter, sirens in the distance, the air tastes like gasoline and garbage.
I can’t help but grin. Chaos is comfort—it keeps the voices in my head occupied, drowns out the itch in my fingers that wants to carve answers out of someone’s skin.
Fifth Street isn’t far, but the closer I get, the heavier it presses on my lungs.
By the time I roll to the curb, the smell of burned dreams hits me first—char, ash, wet soot.
The once vibrant restaurant and offices above it are now nothing more than a burnt husk.
The front facade has collapsed inward, and the roof is partially caved in.
What’s left of the building looms like a ribcage picked clean, jagged bones clawing at the sky.
I pocket the keys and step off, boots splashing through puddles streaked with ash. Every crunch of glass underfoot is a reminder: someone did this. Someone thought they could take what’s mine.
I walk slowly toward the alleyway beside the building, each step heavy with a mixture of anger and sorrow. This was more than just a business—it was the first place that I rebuilt and developed after I took over the city. It was my building. My blood and sweat turned to blackened rubble.
As I round the back of the building, shadows clutching at me like greedy hands. And then—oh, there it is. Kai was right. Black paint, sloppy and deliberate, screaming a promise on the wall. A threat. My fists curl so hard my knuckles ache.
I stand there looking at it for a few moments, letting the rage settle in my bones.
That’s when I hear it—the shuffle of boots, the scrape of steel on concrete.
I tilt my head, listening. Five of them.
Heavy feet, different rhythms. Trying to creep, like cockroaches.
They think they’re hunting me. They’ve already wrapped the rope around their own necks and don’t even know it.
“Look at this, boys,” one sneers, trying so hard to sound cocky it almost makes me yawn. “A little mouse, scurrying into a trap.”
I whip around, eyes wide, mouth open in a gasp. I stumble back, clutching my chest. “Oh noooo,” I wail, trembling like a bad actress in a B-grade horror flick. Their steps falter, confusion tripping them.
Two in front, two flanking, one skulking in the rear like he’s a puppet master.
Classic. Predictable. I widen my eyes, step back, shrinking like a rabbit.
“Five against one? That’s hardly fair. What are you gonna do with me?
” My voice trembles, all breathy fear—but my pulse is thrumming with delight.
He laughs, the sound thick as tar. “Pretty little thing like you? You’ll make perfect bait. When your boys see you strung up, they won’t keep ignoring our boss.”
I whimper. Bend lower. Fingers curl around the blades in my boots. “Please,” I croon, voice breaking into a high, shivering note. “Don’t hurt me, Mister Bad Guys…”
The one who steps forward first doesn’t even realize he’s already dead. He leans in, trying to taste my fear. “You should never have come here. Things are about to get real ugly.”
And that’s when I laugh. A sharp, manic crack that echoes like gunfire. “Ugly?” I snarl, rising in a blur of motion. “Yeah, I can do ugly.”
The blades sing as I bury them in his throat. Blood sprays, painting the alley red. His body hits the ground before the others catch up to what just happened. The sound he makes is wet, a dying rattle.
“Oh,” I gasp theatrically, tilting my head at the corpse, “did I do that?” I giggle, high and sharp, before baring my teeth at the rest. “Three guesses who’s next!”
Chaos detonates. The others howl, blades flashing, lunging. Perfect. It makes my blood sing.
The first lunges and swings wide, sloppy.
But I saw his move from a mile away. I dance aside, giggling, and open him from hip to hip.
He crumples. Another comes screaming, knife aimed at my ribs, but I’m already moving.
I meet him steel-to-steel, sparks flying, and twist, burying my second blade in his throat.
He gurgles, spraying red. “Shhh,” I whisper, pressing a finger to my lips as he falls, “don’t ruin the moment. ”
Three down. I wipe blood from my lip, eyes bright. Two left.
The next stumbles, fear in his eyes. Oh, I love that look. He tries to retreat but I kick his legs out and he hits the concrete hard. “Where you going, huh? We were just getting to the fun part.” Before he can squeal, I straddle him, burying my blade in his chest, twisting until his body stills.
That just leaves the leader. Oh, he’s shaking now, but desperate dogs bite hardest. And I want him alive.
He charges, desperate, a roar on his lips. I move to slip past, but he’s better than I gave him credit for. He slams me hard against the bricks. My knives clatter to the ground, and cold steel presses into my throat.
“I’ll cut you open,” he hisses, spittle hitting my cheek, “and fuck what’s left. Shove their knives in you one by one so they can join in from hell.”
I laugh. Blood trickles down my neck from his blade, and I laugh in his face, sharp and jagged. “God, you’re creative. I almost like you.”
And then—bang.
The shot rattles the alley, warm spray splattering across me. His eyes go wide, his mouth opening in a silent oh before he crumples, knife dragging shallowly across my throat on the way down.
The leader’s corpse is still twitching when Hudson storms into view, all broad shoulders and black fury. The alley is a slaughterhouse—bodies leaking red into dirty puddles, steel gleaming where it dropped, smoke still curling from his gun. And he looks like the executioner.
His eyes lock on me, and it’s like being pinned by a thunderhead. Dark, electric, full of the kind of rage that makes men kneel. And his focus is solely on me. I tilt my head, grin splitting across my face, blood dripping down my neck.
“Aw,” I rasp, voice ragged but amused, “you ruined my fun.”
Hudson doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even blink. He advances, gun still raised, each step a promise of violence. “Fun?” His voice is molten iron, low and sharp. “You call this fun?”
I giggle, high and breathless, stepping over the twitching body at my feet. “I was winning.” I sweep an arm wide, theatrically presenting the carnage. “Four down, one to squeal, and you—” I jab a bloodied finger at him—“you stole my encore.”
The barrel of his gun dips as he closes the last steps between us. His free hand snaps out, fingers clamping around my arm hard enough to bruise. He jerks me forward, chest to chest, his face carved from stone and storm.
“You think this is a game?” he snarls, voice rough with barely restrained rage.
“You think bleeding yourself out in alleys makes you untouchable?” His eyes flick to the thin line of blood still seeping down my throat, and for a second, the storm flickers into something else.
Fear. Frustration. Then it’s rage again, sharper.
“You could’ve been dead before I got here. ”
I laugh in his face, sharp and feral, blood spattering his cheek. “But I’m not.” I tilt my head back, lips curling wickedly. “And admit it—you love watching me dance with death. Makes your cock twitch, doesn’t it?”
His jaw ticks, hard enough to crack teeth. “Get in the car,” he growls, dragging me out of the alleyway and toward the waiting SUV.
I stumble once, laughing through it.
One of his men waits near the SUV, stone-faced, and Hudson doesn’t hesitate—digging into my pocket for the bike key and tossing it to him like I’m a misbehaving child caught stealing candy.
I watch the man mount the stolen motorcycle, and it roars to life. “Hey!” I protest, my voice pitching high with mock outrage. “That’s mine!”
Hudson whirls on me, jerking the SUV door open. His face is carved from fury. “Get. In.”
For a beat, I almost laugh in his face again. Almost push him. But there’s a line in his voice, one even I’m not stupid enough to cross right now. So I slide into the back seat, smirk curling back onto my lips as the cut on my neck throbs.
“You’re mad because I had fun without you,” I purr, stretching out across the leather like I own it. “Next time, Hudson, I’ll save you a dance.”
The door slams, hard enough to rattle the whole SUV.
Hudson slides into the driver’s seat like a storm barely contained, slamming his own door.
The engine growls when he turns the key, the sound a perfect match for the tension vibrating off him.
He peels out, tires screaming against asphalt, and the silence that follows is heavy—thick enough to choke on.
His hands strangle the wheel, veins standing out across his forearms. His profile is cut in hard lines, jaw locked, eyes forward like if he looks at me too long, he might break something. Maybe me. Maybe himself.
The city blurs past until suddenly he jerks the SUV onto the shoulder, tires biting pavement with a sharp screech.
We’re outside a drugstore. The sunlight bouncing off the windows is blinding, obnoxious, ordinary.
The kind of place people come for toothpaste and aspirin.
Meanwhile, Hudson looks like he came here to bury a body.
I reach for the door handle. He’s there before I can blink, yanking it open. “Stay.” The word is a knife, sharp enough to skin me where I sit.
My hackles rise. I let out a sharp bark, feral and biting.
Hudson leans in, his shadow filling the doorway. His eyes are dark and lethal as they burn into mine. “Bark at me again and I’ll put a collar on you and show you what I do to a bad dog.”
His voice is a growl, his breath hot against my face. Then he slams the door, rattling my bones, and stalks inside.
My thighs squeeze together involuntarily. Jesus fucking Christ. What’s wrong with me? I should hate that. I should claw his eyes out for daring. But instead, I’m left squirming in the seat, my pulse pounding. Yeah. Definitely fucked in the head.
When he finally emerges, his shoulders are still tight, but the edge is dulled. He tosses a plain bag onto the passenger seat and drops behind the wheel again, exhaling hard through his nose like he’s trying to exorcise the fury.
For a long moment, he just stares at the dash.
His fingers tap the wheel in a restless rhythm.
Then his gaze flicks up, meeting mine in the rearview.
His eyes are still dark, still dangerous, but there’s something else now—something softer hiding under the cracks.
“You okay?” His voice is quieter, almost human.
I grin, face stained with blood, and shrug. “Peachy.”
“You’re a fucking mess,” he mutters, gravel dragging over every syllable. “Don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re bleeding all over my car.”
I wave him off like it’s nothing. “It’s just a scratch. Handled myself pretty damn well, in case you didn’t notice.”
His eyes narrow, disbelief sharp enough to cut. “That scratch looks like someone tried to cut your throat open.”
I wince as I press a hand against it, feeling the sting deepen now that adrenaline’s fading. “Relax. I’ve had worse. Still breathing, aren’t I?”
He doesn’t relax. Not even close.
I smirk, leaning forward just enough to let my voice curl around him like smoke. “You know, you sound like a grumpy old man with a hero complex. Next thing I know, you’ll be waving a cane at me.”
For the first time, his lips twitch. A shadow of a smirk. “Maybe I should get one. Use it to beat some sense into your ass.”
Heat flushes low in my belly, and I fall back into the seat with a laugh. “Kinky.”
The SUV lurches back onto the road, the silence no longer suffocating but humming, electric, strung tight between us. When we pull up outside the apartment, he kills the engine and just sits there. “You really know how to push my buttons.”
I grin at him, baring my teeth. “What can I say? It’s a talent.”
His gaze meets mine, hard and unreadable. “That talent’s going to get you killed.” But there’s that ghost of a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
I lean back, eyes glittering. “Then I’ll die keeping you young, old man.”
Something dark flickers across his face. “There are better ways to make me feel young,” he murmurs seemingly to himself, and the weight of it lingers in the air, heavy and hot.
Then it’s gone. He grabs the bag, pushes his door open. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
For almost two years I had built a wall between us.
Ignoring the way my body reacted to him and the subtle undercurrent of tension that had slowly built over that time.
The twins might make the occasional joke about that but I would never betray them by acting on anything.
In the hours since the sun rose today, my whole world seems like it has tilted off its axis.
It feels like I have taken a step in a direction I can’t retreat from now but at the same time so did he.
And I have a feeling the twins may have played a part in that.
Hudson nods to the guys stationed outside the Devil's Lair, and for a moment, my heart thuds in my chest. The thought of the twins being inside the club makes me suddenly uneasy; if they see me like this, I can only imagine their reactions.
I can almost picture them locking me away in some tower to keep me safe.
So, I sigh softly in relief when we walk through the club and only see the workers, with neither of my men in sight.
Inside the apartment, the silence is wrong. No twins. No laughter. No music. Just the thrum of my blood in my ears. Hudson’s eyes sweep the room, sharp and clinical, muttering “Clear” like he’s exorcising ghosts.
I almost stumble when he spins back on me at the bottom of the steps. His hand catches my chin, tilts my face up. His thumb drags the edge of the cut, and I growl low in my throat. He ignores it, eyes narrowing on the wound.
“You’ll live,” he says, finally releasing me. Then he thrusts the bag into my hands.
I frown at him, suspicious, tugging it open. My stomach drops when I see what’s inside—hair dye. No box. No sticker. No way to know the color. That asshole.
I glare at him. “You didn’t even ask me what I wanted.”
His smirk is wolfish, pure sin. “Consider it payment. For me saving your ass.”
I snatch the bag from him, stomping toward the bathroom with a muttered curse. The smile tugging at my lips betrays me anyway.