Chapter Forty-Five
Rowen
The city was a blur of neon and shadow as I drove through Manhattan’s arteries, my hands gripping the wheel with more force than necessary.
Blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage I’d wrapped around my arm, but the pain was distant—a dull throb compared to the weight pressing against my chest. Rain began to fall, light at first, then harder, drumming against the windshield in a rhythm that matched my pulse.
The wipers swept back and forth, clearing the glass only for it to blur again. An endless cycle.
Like everything else in my life.
I should have gone straight back to Sinclair’s house. Should have let someone look at my wound properly. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
I needed time to think.
Time to figure out what the hell I was going to say to her.
The file I’d given Melissa’s brother contained more than just information—it contained pieces of a puzzle that, once assembled, would reveal the cold hard truth about the night of the Bloody Massacre back in Russia, and why Maxim and the few others were allowed to escape.
A truth Sinclair had spent years trying to protect, that was nothing more than an illusion now, no longer containable.
Yet the illusion was just that—an impossible dream slipping further from reach with every mile I put between us.
Guilt gnawed at me, sharper than the pain in my arm, and I wondered if there was still a way forward, or if I’d already doomed what little hope remained.
The city lights sparkled on the wet asphalt, blurred and bright, as I finally pulled to the curb and let the engine idle.
The quiet was broken only by the rain and my own ragged breaths.
With my breath shallow and my heart pounding, I slumped forward, resting my forehead against the steering wheel.
Closing my eyes, I could almost taste the urge to turn back, to destroy the file and the truth it carried.
The temptation swept through me—burn it all, erase the past, pretend none of it ever happened.
But I knew, deep down, that running would not save me this time.
I couldn’t run from Melissa, and I couldn’t run from the truth any longer.
My hands trembled as I reached for my phone, the weight of everything I was about to say pressing against my chest. For a moment, I hesitated, my finger hovering over her name, but finally, I dialed his number.
The words I needed to say, words I’d buried for so long, formed at the back of my throat. Heavy, but finally ready to be spoken.
He answered after only a few rings, his voice resolute and quiet. “Rowen?”
I swallowed, my voice rough and unsteady. “There is no other way forward, is there?” The question barely escaped me, raw and honest, as I gripped the phone tighter.
Sinclair’s answer was quiet but sincere, the words ringing clear through the line. “Only the truth will set you free, Rowen.”
A wave of regret swept over me, thick and suffocating. “I’m sorry, Sinclair,” I murmured, my apology barely above a whisper.
His reply was steady, a reassurance that steadied the turmoil inside me. “Do what you must. I will take care of the rest.”
With a final surge of frustration and anguish, I ended the call.
The phone slipped from my grasp, clattering against the dashboard as a guttural roar tore from my chest. My fingers clenched the steering wheel, knuckles white, as I tried to regain control over the storm inside me.
When I left the Trick Pony, I thought I’d left that life behind as I forged a new path for myself.
All the lies, secrets, and dark truths I had learned during my time in that place I’d buried deep, forgotten.
Now, to survive, I was going to have to use everything I was taught, everything I learned, everything I abhorred, and become the very person I swore I’d never be, become someone else entirely.
But before I did anything, Melissa deserved to know. She deserved to understand who she was falling for—not the carefully constructed persona, but the broken, damaged man beneath. The man who was about to embrace the Devil inside him and destroy the world around him.
The question was whether she could handle it.
Whether we could handle it.
I drove through Central Park, needing time to accept what I was about to do. The streets were empty at this hour, the rain keeping even the most determined night owls indoors. Trees lined the path, their branches heavy with water, bending under the weight like penitents in prayer.
Melissa had already lost so much. Ghost. Her sense of safety.
The future she’d imagined for herself and her unborn child.
Every time I looked at her, I saw the fractures—the way grief had carved itself into her features, the way she held herself together through sheer force of will. And I was about to add to that burden.
By staying in her life, I would drag her deeper into a world she fought desperately to distance herself from.
A world of violence and secrets, of men like Sinclair who moved people around like chess pieces, from organizations like the Society, which destroyed everything they touched.
I thought about the house I’d shown her.
The backyard with space for a garden. The kitchen where we could cook together, where Danika could do her homework at the table while Melissa and I pretended we were normal people living normal lives.
It was a fantasy.
A beautiful, impossible fantasy.
Because men like me didn’t get happy endings. We got blood and bullets, and betrayal. We got midnight phone calls and bodies in the street. We got Sinclair’s voice in our ear, reminding us that we were never truly free, that every choice we made was already accounted for in his grand design.
The rain intensified, sheets of water cascading down, turning the world into a watercolor painting—all bleeding edges and indistinct shapes. I pulled over near Bethesda Fountain, killing the engine and sitting in the sudden silence.
My arm throbbed. I pressed my hand against it, feeling the warmth of fresh blood seeping through.
What did I want?
The question was simple. The answer was no.
I wanted Melissa. I wanted to wake up next to her every morning, to hear her laugh, to watch her rebuild herself into something stronger than before.
I wanted to be the man who helped her do that—not through control or dominance, but through partnership.
Through love. God, I wanted to love her the way she deserved to be loved.
But wanting something and being capable of providing it were two different things.
If I told her the truth—all of it—would she look at me the same way? Would she still let me touch her, hold her, make love to her? Or would she see me for what I really was: a killer, a liar, a man so steeped in darkness that light seemed like a foreign concept?
I thought about the way she’d looked at me in my office at the university. The way she’d surrendered to me, trusted me with her body and her vulnerability. That trust was sacred. Fragile. One wrong move and it would shatter.
And yet, keeping secrets felt like its own kind of betrayal.
She’d already been lied to by Ghost—omissions, half-truths, the careful curation of information designed to protect her. And look where that had gotten them. He was dead, and she was left picking up pieces she didn’t even know existed.
I couldn’t do that to her.
I wouldn’t.
But telling her meant risking everything. It meant watching her face change as she realized the man she’d been falling for was built on a foundation of carefully constructed lies. It meant accepting that she might walk away, might decide that the life I was offering wasn’t worth the cost.
And I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
The rain began to ease, tapering off into a light drizzle.
I started the engine again, pulling back onto the road.
The city stretched out before me, a labyrinth of steel and glass, of secrets and sins.
Sinclair’s influence was everywhere. In the buildings that bore his investments, in the people who owed him favors, in the very air we breathed.
He’d built an empire on manipulation and control, and I was one of his most valuable assets.
He’d saved me once. Given me purpose when I had none.
But that debt had compounded over the years, interest accruing until I owed him more than I could ever repay.
Unless I walked away.
Unless I chose Melissa over everything else—over Sinclair, over the university, over the life I’d known for so long it felt like the only life possible.
Could I do that?
Could I burn it all down for the chance at something real?
The thought terrified me more than any fight I’d ever been in. Because in the cage the rules were clear. You won, or you lost. You lived, or you died. But this—this was uncharted territory. This was a vulnerability without the safety net of violence to fall back on.
This was love.
And love, I was learning, was the most dangerous thing of all.
I thought about Danika. About the way she looked at me with those wide, trusting eyes.
About the responsibility I’d taken on when I’d promised to protect her.
She deserved a father figure who wasn’t constantly looking over his shoulder, who wasn’t one wrong move away from ending up dead in an alley.
She deserved better than me.
They both did.
But maybe—just maybe—I could become better. For them.
The residence came into view, its windows glowing warmly against the night. I parked and sat for a moment, gathering myself. My arm ached, my head pounded, and exhaustion pulled at me like an undertow.
Inside, Melissa was waiting. Inside, decisions would have to be made. I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel, allowing myself one more moment of weakness before I had to be strong again.
“Please,” I whispered to no one in particular. To God, maybe. To fate. To whatever force governed the universe and decided who got to be happy and who got to suffer. “Please let me make the right decision.”
Then I opened the door and stepped out into the rain-soaked night, ready to face whatever came next.
Ready to tell her the truth.
Even if it destroyed us both.