Chapter 1 – Lydia - Queen of Ashes #2
He's seated behind a desk, one arm resting on the edge like he's claimed this space as his own. A computer screen angled just slightly away. A file open in his hand. He looks settled, permanent, like he's always belonged here and I'm the one trespassing.
He glances up.
And stops.
Just like I do.
That same moment again—the world narrowing to the space between us, to the way his gaze finds mine and holds it without flinching.
Only this time, we're not across a crowded club.
This time, there's no distance. No plausible deniability.
Just six feet of empty air and the weight of everything we're not saying.
He doesn't speak. Neither do I.
For three whole seconds, we just watch each other, and I feel the dread I'd been holding at bay bloom into something stronger. Something that tastes like danger and feels uncomfortably close to want.
And everything in my training tells me: this is bad.
Because I can’t read him.
I can read everyone. I always have. That’s what made me valuable to Elias Voss — a man who once played this world better than anyone, before he got loved up. My former boss. My first real lesson in power.
That’s what kept me alive in Drazen’s web. I read faces. Micro-expressions. Eye flicks. Finger twitches.
But this man?
Nothing.
No tell.
No give.
“Mr. Ward,” I say, stepping into the office.
He nods once. “Yes.”
His voice catches me off guard—low and even, with a roughness at the edges that sounds like gravel wrapped in velvet. Not loud, but textured enough to feel. It's the kind of voice that doesn't need volume to fill a room.
I offer a faint smile and close the door behind me.
“I’m Lydia Carr. I consult for some of your partners. I was told you could help clarify a few logistics discrepancies.”
No reaction.
He gestures toward the chair across from him. “Have a seat.”
I do. Cross one leg over the other. My knee doesn’t bounce. My hands rest loosely on my thigh.
He leans back.
“You want to show me what you’re here for, or should we keep pretending this is a real audit?”
I don’t blink.
Neither does he.
“Well,” I say, voice like satin over a blade, “that depends. Are you going to tell me what you’re pretending to be?”
There’s a pause. A longer one, this time.
Then, for the first time, his mouth tilts. Just slightly.
Not a smile.
A crack.
“I guess we’re dropping the paperwork, then.”
“Yes,” I say. “Let’s.”
He leans forward.
He isn't aggressive or even particularly confident, just close enough to notice things most men miss.
The curve of my shoulder.
The way I don’t flinch.
He studies me with the same precision I use on men before I gut them emotionally. Only this time, I’m the one being read.
I hate it.
“You work for Dom?” he asks.
“No.”
“Drazen, then.”
I say nothing.
He watches my mouth, like he's cataloging the pause.
“Interesting.”
He leans back again, and I feel like I’ve lost something. The room feels different now, heat pressing closer.
I glance once at the walls. No cameras. No recording devices. But that doesn’t mean anything.
Who knows better than me, how a person’s mind can double as a weapon? And this man is a recording device. You can feel it. Everything you say gets etched into him. For what purpose, I can’t tell yet.
He’s not sweating. Not nervous. And most importantly, he doesn’t seem afraid.
And he should. So, either he’s very stupid… Or very dangerous.
I change tactics.
“You’ve been working here for a long time?”
“Long enough.”
“Long enough to know what you’re laundering?”
“If you’re asking that question, you already think you know the answer.”
That makes me smile.
Not just because he’s a bit of a smartass, but because it’s true.
“So, why the fake front?” I ask. “Why the suit and the business cards and the boring desk?”
He doesn’t look insulted.
He just shrugs.
“Sometimes the best place to hide is somewhere no one wants to look.”
I tilt my head.
“And what are you hiding?”
He looks at me.
Too long.
And for a second, I forget to breathe.
“Nothing I want to explain,” he says.
The temperature in the room rises by ten degrees.
I uncross my legs. Stand.
He doesn’t move.
But his eyes follow.
“Drazen won’t like unknown variables,” I say.
“Then I guess he should get to know me.”
“Is that what you want?”
A muscle ticks in his cheek. His eyes say yes.
His mouth says nothing.
I step toward the door. I don’t turn my back on him.
I reach for the handle.
But just before I leave, I can’t help but say, “You were very obvious when looked at me last night.”
A beat.
Then his voice, quieter this time, spreads across the distance between us: “You looked back.”
I don’t respond.
I walk out.
And I don’t breathe again until I’m in my car, hands on the wheel, heart finally admitting that yes, this man is going to be a problem.
The drive back to the club feels longer than it should.
I park in the same spot. I take the same stairwell down. But everything hums louder now. The lights seem more artificial. The floor under my boots is too polished, too slick. It’s like someone scrubbed the truth out of the room before I got here.
Dom’s waiting again. He gestures for the file without speaking. I hand it over. He doesn’t even bother to open it, and watches me instead.
“Well?” he says, a thick brow quirking.
I sit down across from him and cross one leg over the other, keeping my spine straight. I’ve practiced this posture since I was nineteen, rigid but unbothered. Always unreadable.
“He’s clean,” I say.
Three syllables.
A decision.
Dom raises one brow. “That quick?”
“There’s nothing to link him.”
“Drazen won’t like that answer.”
“He’ll like the part where his name never came up.”
Dom watches me like he’s trying to count my pulse through my teeth.
“What’s your read on him?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate.
“Civilian. Confident. Doesn’t push.”
“Dangerous?”
“No more than the city made him.”
Dom taps the folder closed. Fingers loose, casual. He could snap a neck with those hands. I’ve seen him do it; once, years ago. A man who touched someone without asking.
Dom believes in rules. As long as he’s the one who writes them.
“You’re sure?” he asks.
“Yes.”
It’s not just a lie.
It’s a precise lie.
Because Silas Ward isn’t as clean as he’s trying to look.
And if I had to guess?
He’s watching us with the same caution we’re watching him.
But saying that now would raise too many questions. I need time. Space. I need to understand what I saw in his eyes when he looked at me and didn’t blink.
So, I lie.
I can’t tell if Dom buys it.
He leans back in his chair. “Drazen will want a follow-up,” he says.
“Of course.”
“He might want you to get closer.”
I say nothing.
That’s what he’s waiting for, isn’t he? A reaction. A flicker. A shift.
He gets nothing.
Until I speak.
“He’s not my type.”
That makes Dom grin. “You don’t have one.”
“Exactly.”
I stand.
Dom holds up the folder like it weighs more than it should.
“I’ll pass this on,” he says. “But if V doesn’t like the answer, he’ll come to you directly.”
“I’m counting on it.”
I leave the office with my heartbeat in check, my breath steady, my hands clean.
But inside?
Something's shifting—a pull I can't quite name that isn't fear or desire, just raw awareness, which makes it all the more dangerous.
Because I don’t let people matter.
I don’t let them register.
That’s how Elias Voss taught me to survive.
Don’t look too long. Don’t stay too close. And never let the knife turn inward.
But this man, Silas… he looked at me like he already knew where to cut.
And I liked it.
Even now, walking back through the club, I can feel the mark he left on my thoughts. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t smile. Didn’t flirt.
And I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
By the time I reach the exit, I know two things.
One: He’s not going away. And two: Neither am I.
The sun’s low enough to make the buildings bleed color across their glass fronts. Miramont looks more honest at this hour, that strange strip of time when nothing’s quite day or night.
I hate it.
The city feels like it’s watching me.
I’m two blocks from my apartment when my phone lights up.
Viktor Drazen.
I don’t let it ring twice.
“Lydia,” I answer.
Silence.
Then, “I hear you met our new friend.”
His voice is slick. Soft. That syrupy menace he wears when he's pretending he’s not dangerous, which always means he's more dangerous than usual.
I keep my tone dry. “You’ll need to narrow that down.”
“Silas Ward.” He says the name like a blade.
My hand grips the steering wheel harder than necessary.
“Dom’s already filed the report,” I say.
“I don’t care about the report.”
I wait. He doesn’t fill the space.
He wants me to.
So I do.
“He’s clean,” I say.
A breath across the line.
Then: “That’s not what I asked.”
He knows.
He always knows.
I choose my words like glass I might have to eat later.
“He’s composed. Controlled. Knows how to be invisible without hiding. That kind of presence doesn’t grow overnight.”
“And your instinct?”
“He’s not reckless.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
I stare at the intersection ahead.
The light turns green. I can’t move.
My voice is still, somehow, smooth when I admit, “I don’t trust him.”
“Good girl,” Drazen says. “Neither do I.”
That phrase lands like a palm to the throat.
Always girl.
Never woman.
Not with Drazen.
“I want you to get close to him,” he says.
I knew it was coming.
Still, something in me clenches. “How close?”
“Close enough to see him flinch. If he ever does.”
“He might not.”
“Then make him.”
I exhale through my nose. “And if he’s just a front?”
“Then you’ll crack him open and find what’s inside.”
He doesn’t ask if I’m capable.
He knows I am.
That’s why he keeps me close.
Why he hasn’t killed me, like the others.
Because I’m useful.
Because I’m dangerous.
Because once, a long time ago, I belonged to someone Drazen hated. Keeping me is his version of a trophy. I guess those can be weapons, too.
I let the hush drag between us. Then I say, “I’ll need clearance to move without being tracked.”
“You already have it.”
I blink.
He’s never said that before.
Not once.
It’s not freedom.
It’s permission to disappear.
Which means whatever he’s planning… It's bigger than just a background check.
“Lydia,” he adds, tone colder now, “I’ll need you at the club again tonight. And don’t you mistake latitude for trust. You’re still mine.”
“I will never forget.”
“Good. Because if you fuck this up—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He doesn’t have to.
He ends the call.
I sit there, in the driver’s seat, the phone dead in my lap.
Outside, the wind shifts. A piece of paper lifts from the sidewalk and dances against a trash can before catching on the wheel of a parked bike.
The moment feels heavy.
I haven’t disobeyed Drazen since I traded freedom for leverage.
But something in me wants to.
And it’s not because I want to protect Silas.
I don’t.
It’s just that a part of me wants to understand him.
And that’s worse.
Curiosity is a soft word. A luxury.
In this world, it’s a weapon you point at yourself.
I tap the screen and pull up Silas’s file again. Just his name. Just his address.
Then I close it.
It’s not like I’m done looking.
Just that I’ve already memorized it.