Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
When Lucian had said we might not be leaving this place for a while, I hadn’t realized he meant it literally.
For nearly two weeks, we hadn’t stepped beyond the walls of his penthouse.
And I hadn’t minded one bit.
Late-morning light spilled across the bed, warming my bare shoulder where the sheets had fallen away.
The wall of floor-to-ceiling windows framed the Hudson in muted silver, the Jersey skyline rising beyond it in clean lines of steel and glass.
The world moved out there—boats cutting across the river, traffic threading through streets—but up here everything had been just about us.
I stretched slowly, wincing as delicious soreness reminded me exactly how I’d spent those two weeks.
Lucian had been relentless.
He hadn’t exaggerated when he promised to worship every inch of me.
My body had learned his hands the way it once learned fear, but this time there was no bracing for impact.
There was only anticipation. He was methodically rewriting every memory of touch.
I had reached the point where all he had to do was give me a certain look, and wet heat would surge between my thighs.
It was embarrassing how addicted I’d become to his touch.
Embarrassing.
And completely true.
We hadn’t just spent those days in bed. We had talked, for hours at a time.
About Ireland. About construction jobs and long winters and the first time he’d realized he was good at breaking things that needed breaking.
About my mother. About Madrid. About the parts of my life I used to ration out in careful fragments.
He had answered every question I had asked.
Every single one.
No deflection. No half-truths. No polished lies. The man was a mafia captain, and he had never once tried to manage my understanding of him. From the moment he first tried to take me in that church, he had been honest about what he was.
That honesty made it easier for me to open up.
I had done things I hated. I had survived in ways I didn’t want to remember. Lucian never flinched when I said them out loud. He never softened his voice in pity. He simply accepted them as facts and moved forward.
“You did what you had to do,” he’d said. “And you’re standing strong.”
That had mattered more than comfort.
The therapist had been his idea too.
I hadn’t even considered it. Therapy felt like something women in magazines talked about, not women who had spent years being told silence was obedience.
But Lucian had mentioned Lacey, and the doctor she trusted.
She was a woman born into this world. A woman who understood that the rules were different here—but that some lines were never meant to be crossed.
Dr. Maria St. Clair.
He’d made the call in front of me. Introduced us. Then he’d left the room.
Just walked out and closed the door.
No hovering. No listening through walls. No demand for a report afterward.
I had sat there staring at a stranger on a screen, unsure where to begin. The words had felt foreign in my mouth. But once they started, they didn’t stop.
Afterward, Lucian hadn’t asked what we’d discussed. Not once. When I brought up seeing her again next week, he had nodded and said, “Whatever you need.”
Whatever I need.
The phrase still startled me.
He didn’t try to control my healing. He didn’t try to fix me. He didn’t treat me like something fragile that might shatter under the wrong touch.
He trusted me to decide what I needed.
That trust was more powerful than protection.
Of course, when it came to my safety, he was impossible—over the top.
A new phone had arrived three days in, sleek, expensive, and fully loaded.
Also fully monitored.
He hadn’t pretended otherwise.
“Everything that comes in or goes out,” he’d said, sliding it across the marble counter toward me, “I can see.”
“And if I want to talk shit about you to Sofia?” I’d asked.
A grin had tugged at his mouth.
“Then don’t do it in the room with the phone.”
I’d laughed despite myself.
The tracking feature couldn’t be turned off either, even when the phone was off. The app tied directly into Nik’s system. Lucian had explained it without apology. Not as control, but as insurance.
I told myself I understood the difference.
Some days I did.
Other days, I lay in this bed staring at the skyline and wondered what it would feel like to walk down to the street alone. To buy coffee. To blend into a crowd without a shadow following me.
The thought stirred something uneasy in my chest.
Not rebellion.
Just awareness.
I rolled onto my side and reached across the mattress, fingertips brushing the empty space where he’d been. The sheets were cool because he had left early. Today was his first time out of the penthouse since bringing me back here.
He hadn’t woken me.
Part of me had wished he had, but part of me had been relieved he hadn’t.
I was happy. Fully, quietly happy in a way that I’d never been. I trusted him. I believed in our future.
But the world outside those windows still existed. Delgado still existed. Franklin Whitaker still existed.
The underworld still demanded attention.
I stared at the river until a slow smile curved my mouth.
For nearly two weeks, I had belonged to nothing but this bed and the man who had taught me what it meant to be wanted without condition.
It had felt like a honeymoon without the ceremony.
Lucian had made it clear I was his, and he was mine. Not in a way that caged me, but in a way that quieted me. He had said he loved me, and he had said it like a man who understood the weight of the word. My heart was full.
I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, knowing I should get up. Knowing the quiet bubble we had built inside these walls couldn’t last forever. He had businesses to run. A city that answered to him whether he wanted it to or not. And I had a life to build.
For the first time, that thought didn’t terrify me.
I kept circling back to architecture. My mother’s drafting table. The way she used to talk about lines and load-bearing walls and the quiet responsibility of building something that would outlive you. I had always loved art, but I loved structure too.
No one should die the way she did. Not because someone cut corners on a job site. Not because greed mattered more than steel and bolts and inspections.
If I could design buildings that were both beautiful and safe, maybe that would be a kind of justice.
But first, there was work to do that had nothing to do with blueprints.
Lucian, The Syndicate, and now me—we were working on something bigger than any one club or monastery. We didn’t have enough proof yet to expose it. Not enough details. Not enough names. But the hard drive and the documents we had taken from the monastery were beginning to tell a story.
Patterns were forming.
Money trails. Transfers. Gaps in records that weren’t accidents.
Lucian had explained more about Nik’s skills, about the way he could peel back layers of digital camouflage until the truth bled through. He had said it with certainty. “Nik’s the right man for this,” he told me. “Give him time.”
I believed him.
With The Syndicate’s backing, it wasn’t a question of if. It was when.
But I wasn’t content to sit on the sidelines.
Elizabeth’s face still surfaced sometimes when I closed my eyes.
I didn’t know where she was, or if she was even still alive, but I refused to accept that she was lost. I would do whatever I could to help find the girls who had disappeared from that monastery.
I would not let them vanish into the dark because it was easier.
A flicker of nerves tightened low in my stomach.
Today was the first day I would step back into the world.
Lucian had to handle matters at Xyst and was almost boyish when he spoke about bringing me there.
The way he described building it from nothing, shoulder to shoulder with the other guys, it was obvious the place meant more to him than profit.
It was proof of what he had made with his own hands. Of his success.
He had painted it so clearly that I could see it in my mind—the lighting, the layout, the way power moved through the room without anyone naming it.
Just before he rolled me off his chest this morning to shower, he’d looked down at me and said I would need to dress up for the evening. He was taking me somewhere nice for dinner after he finished at the club.
“You’ll meet me at Xyst,” he had said. “I’ve got things to handle first.”
He had already thought through the rest.
Two men from DarkMatter would pick me up. He had texted me their photos, each image professional and clear.
“They’ll use the code phrase,” he said. “Fried eggs and hash.”
I had laughed so hard that I nearly fell off the bed.
“The poor men,” I’d said. “You’re going to make them say that with a straight face?”
His mouth had curved slightly. “If they can’t say it without flinching, they don’t get to drive you.”
The thought of those two hardened security men standing at the door of this penthouse, announcing Lucian’s favorite breakfast, still made me smile.
Excitement buzzed beneath my skin.
So did some nervous energy.
Xyst wasn’t just a club. It was Lucian’s territory. His world. People who answered to him.
For the first time, I would walk into that world not as leverage, but as his.
I pushed back the covers and sat up.
It was time to get moving.
The clothing Lucian had bought with Aria’s help should have been illegal.
Every piece was high-end, tailored, cut for women who walked into rooms expecting attention. The kind of wardrobe Sofia would have considered necessary. Not me.
It had taken me hours to go through everything: structured suits, dresses that clung in ways that made promises without being vulgar, and shoes that felt like weapons if you knew how to stand in them. I laid each option across the bed, stepped back to assess, changed my mind, and started over.
Tonight mattered.
I had met a few of his inner circle already, enough to understand the importance of those in the room when they gathered.
But Xyst was different. From the way Lucian spoke about it, it wasn’t just a club.
It was a crossroads of the underworld. Money.
Power. Influence. Men who didn’t answer to anyone but themselves.
I wanted him to be proud.
Not protective. Not indulgent.
Proud.
I bet Sofia knew all about Xyst.
I’d tried to call her twice today. I also texted her this morning and again after lunch.
No response, but that wasn’t unusual. Sofia lived on her own schedule.
When we returned from Spain and Lucian finally allowed me enough space to breathe, I’d reached out to her in a rush of nerves.
I had expected anger. Maybe frustration over The Black Ledger incident.
Instead, she had devoured the drama.
She had posted about it without naming names, of course, but the speculation alone had pushed her followers past three million. She thrived on chaos the way other people thrived on routine.
When I told her a little about Lucian, she had screamed through the phone.
“You’re dating a made man?” she had asked. “Scarlett, this is elite.”
She had even joked that maybe she would give Giovanni a real chance after all.
Originally, we were supposed to go out tonight. That plan dissolved when Lucian told me he needed to be at Xyst and wanted me there with him. Sofia had pouted for a minute, then declared it more interesting this way.
There was a part of me that missed the idea of another wild night with her.
But if I were honest, I didn’t want to be anywhere Lucian wasn’t.
Today had been the first time since the safe house that we had been apart for more than a few hours. The absence had rattled me in a way I didn’t like to examine too closely. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t weakness.
It was awareness.
This world had teeth.
I’d spent the afternoon primping and preening. A full-body makeover.
The dress I finally chose was white and fitted, beaded in a way that caught the light without begging for attention. Cap sleeves framed my shoulders. The hem fell a few inches above my knee. The neckline dipped low enough to show off my cleavage.
The pumps were black, the heel high enough to lengthen my legs without threatening to break an ankle. I practiced walking the length of the living room once, then twice, until my stride felt natural.
In the jewelry case, I found a teardrop necklace that shimmered when I lifted it toward the window. I told myself it had to be crystal because if it were a real diamond, I would be too nervous worrying about losing it. Surely Aria wouldn’t hand me something that cost more than my first apartment.
I followed two makeup tutorials and did my best to recreate a smoky eye. It wasn’t Margaretta-level artistry, but it sharpened my features and deepened my gaze. I studied myself in the mirror for a long moment.
I looked as if I belonged on Lucian’s arm.
That realization sent a slow rush of heat through me.
I cinched the belt of my black coat tight and glanced at the time. It was nearly seven.
Right on cue, the intercom chimed.
The sound cut through the quiet of the penthouse.
I opened the security app on my phone and brought up the front camera feed. Two men stood outside the door. Dark coats. Neutral expressions. Professional posture.
They could have been anyone.
My pulse jumped before I could stop it and before I compared them to the photos Lucian had sent me.
I tapped the microphone icon. “Hello.”
The taller of the two stepped closer to the camera. He offered a polite half-smile.
“Miss Hayes. This is Angelo. Mr. Byrnes asked us to escort you to Xyst.” He paused, then added, “He told us to tell you he loves your fried eggs and hash.”
The tension in my chest loosened.
A laugh slipped out before I could swallow it. I imagined Lucian delivering that instruction with a straight face.
“Of course he did,” I muttered.
I took one more look at the screen and compared him to one of the photos. They matched.
I set my shoulders, drew in a steady breath, and walked toward the door.
This was the first step into his world.
I unlocked it and pulled it open.
It was showtime.