Chapter Eight - Simon
The underground shakes with noise the moment I step out of the locker room.
The crowd roars for blood long before the fighters give it.
Heat rolls off bodies packed shoulder to shoulder.
Sweat, alcohol, and adrenaline mix into something raw and feral.
Most men would be overwhelmed by it. I welcome it.
I wrap my hands as I walk, the tape pulling tight over bruised knuckles. This place is chaotic to everyone else, but to me, it’s controlled—my rules, my fighters, my schedule. The chaos bends around me, never the other way around.
When I climb into the ring, the shouting spikes, people slamming cash into the hands of bookies. Across from me, tonight’s opponent bounces impatiently, trying to look fearless. His eyes dart at the crowd, then at me. He’s already losing.
The bell cracks through the noise. I move fast. His first punch barely leaves his shoulder before I duck under it and slam my fist into his ribs. He gasps, stumbling, and the crowd roars. He recovers, throws a wild hook, and I sidestep cleanly.
Another strike—jaw, solar plexus, cheekbone. Precision. Calculation. No wasted movement. No hesitation.
He hits the mat before the first minute ends.
The referee raises my arm while people scream my name. I barely hear them. The fight burns through the tension in my muscles but does nothing for the rest of me. Restlessness crawls under my skin, sharp and insistent, refusing to settle.
I leave the ring and push through the crowd.
Women lean in, trailing fingers along my arm, trying to pull me close.
One laughs too loudly, tilting her chest forward.
Another strokes my shoulder, voice sugary and bold.
I give polite nods, empty smiles. None of them interest me.
None of them stir even a flicker of heat.
My mind is already elsewhere.
I move into the back corridor, letting the noise fade behind me. The dim hall smells of rust and cleaning chemicals.
Ardaleon waits near the exit, arms crossed, Viktor beside him. My brother’s eyebrows lift when he sees me.
“Quick work,” he says. “Your mind wasn’t here.”
“I finished the fight.” I grab a towel and wipe the sweat from my neck. “That’s what matters.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s what’s bothering you.”
He’s not wrong. I toss the towel aside and head for the exit. “What’s the update?”
“The cartel is shifting again,” Viktor says. “Movement on the docks. Something about a new courier.”
“We’ll handle it after the drive,” I answer, but my thoughts drift again, unbidden.
Eden.
Her voice at the café. The tremble she tried to hide.
The way she watched me like she wasn’t sure whether to step closer or run.
It hits me in flashes—her hands wrapped around her notebook, her soft reply when I asked if she felt uneasy, the shift in her eyes when she let me see her guard slip for a second.
Ardaleon catches the distraction immediately. “See? You’re thinking about her.”
I open the exit door and breathe in the cold air. “I’m thinking about Rafael Cortez and his attempts at war.”
“You’re thinking about both,” Ardaleon says, following me out. “Only one of them is making you look like that.”
I stop at the curb, jaw tight. “Like what?”
“Focused,” he says simply. “But not on the right thing.”
I ignore him. The street is quiet, slick with earlier rain. Our car waits a few yards down, engine idling. I walk toward it, each step steady, deliberate.
Ardaleon keeps pace beside me. “You’ve watched her more in a week than some of our enemies in a year.”
“Observation is precaution.”
“Then why does it look like obsession?”
I turn, leveling him with a look that makes most men back down. My brother only raises an eyebrow. He’s always been fearless—annoyingly so.
“Drop it,” I say.
He smirks, but he lets it go. “Fine. Then focus on the work. Rafael is moving. This fight wasn’t about the ring. You needed an outlet.”
“I don’t need outlets,” I reply. “I need information.”
“Yet you’re restless.”
We reach the car. Viktor opens the back door, and I slide in. Ardaleon closes it behind me and moves to the passenger seat. The interior smells of leather and cold air, familiar and grounding. The city blurs outside as we pull away.
I should be thinking about the docks. About Rafael’s men. About the strategies waiting on my desk. Instead, my mind keeps circling the one thing it shouldn’t.
Eden, standing in the afternoon light with her notebook pressed to her chest. Eden, shifting on her feet when I asked why she was far from her usual area. Eden, looking at me like she felt something she didn’t dare name.
Her fear was real, yes—but not the kind that makes people stupid. It was measured. Intelligent. That alone draws me more than it should. Most people either crumble or attack when they’re afraid. She does neither. She steadies. She adapts. She feels and still observes.
That combination is rare. Dangerous. Except I can’t stop replaying it.
The car turns onto a wider avenue, where neon lights smear across the windshield. Ardaleon glances back at me. “You going to tell me what exactly you want with her?”
“No.”
“You planning to let her go?”
“Also no.”
He huffs a dry laugh. “So we’re pretending this is logical.”
“It is,” I say, though the certainty in my tone feels strained.
“Sure,” he mutters. “If that helps.”
The city passes in long streaks of color. I close my eyes briefly, trying to force my mind back to the cartel, to Rafael’s next move, to the empire I built and must protect.
I open my eyes again, staring out at the city that belongs to me. I control territory. I control men. I control fear and silence and survival.
I can’t control this. The thought settles with a weight I don’t appreciate.
Eden is becoming a problem, and I’m not sure I want to solve it.
***
The club swallows us the moment we step inside.
Heat, perfume, liquor, and the low throb of bass wrap around the room like a second atmosphere. Lights slice across the crowd in quick pulses—blue, red, gold, then darkness before the cycle begins again.
Bodies sway, laughter spikes, and every table is crowded with people trying too hard to matter.
My men move first—Viktor and Kirill scanning the crowd, slipping into the room’s rhythm without losing their edge.
Lukyan, my cousin, drifts to my left, broad-shouldered and grinning like he owns the place.
Ardaleon is on my right, quieter, sharper, already reading the room like a book he’s memorized.
We move through the club like a single, calculated force. People part without realizing why.
I take the booth reserved for us in the back, the leather creaking when I settle in. Bottles of expensive liquor line the table. Ice clinks, glasses fill, laughter spills from Lukyan’s mouth as he teases one of the bartenders who brings our drinks.
I lean back as the scene unfolds. Women drift close almost immediately, drawn in by proximity, power, and curiosity.
One slides onto the bench beside me, her perfume thick and sugary. She touches my arm lightly—testing, bold. Another leans across the table with a smile that promises a night she assumes I want.
I give them the same charm I always do—easy, polite, with a cool smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. A nod here. A murmur there. Enough to entertain, never enough to invite. They notice. They always do.
The spark they’re looking for isn’t there.
Desire doesn’t stir. Interest doesn’t flicker. Their softness, their perfume, their practiced flirting—none of it touches me.
My mind is elsewhere.
On Eden. Her voice. Her sharpness. The way she assesses a room without announcing it. The careful distance she keeps. The tremor she tries to hide. I see her in flashes, little moments that wouldn’t mean anything to most.
She’s lodged in my thoughts like a trigger that refuses to reset.
I take a drink, letting the burn slide down my throat. The club hums around me—dice being thrown on a nearby table, poker chips snapping together, someone cheering after a bet pays off. Lukyan leans back, laughing at some joke Ardaleon throws at him.
The night should feel good. It usually does.
Instead, restlessness coils under my skin, fed by the memory of her voice.
The hours blur. Deals discussed in coded language. A brief argument between two drunk men that Kirill ends with a single look. More women drifting in and out, hoping for attention I don’t give. Games of chance, shots of liquor, smoke curling from cigars in the VIP booth next to ours.
Then Viktor approaches through the crowd—silent, focused, and cutting through the noise like a blade. He leans down beside me, voice low enough only I hear.
“She went to a police station today.”
The club seems to pause around me. I set my drink down slowly. “Details.”
“She didn’t speak to anyone,” he says. “Didn’t file anything. Didn’t go inside. She stood at the entrance for a few minutes, looked around, then walked away.”
Ardaleon, seated beside me, tenses slightly. “Checking her options.”
“Or testing boundaries,” I murmur.
Viktor nods once. “We followed her the whole time. No one approached her. No phone calls. No messages after. She seemed… conflicted.”
Conflicted. The word settles deep in my chest.
Lukyan whistles low across the table. “If she’s thinking about talking, we need to move before she does.”
“No,” I say.
The single word shuts down the conversation around us. My men look at me, waiting, knowing I measure everything before I commit.
I lean back, letting the thrum of the club wash around me again, letting myself feel the shape of this new development.
She almost stepped inside. Almost.
Fear pushes people into certainty. Curiosity pulls them into danger. Eden is caught in the middle. Torn between what she knows and what she senses. That tension—the line between running and staying—is exactly the moment I’ve been waiting for.
The moment where she’s vulnerable enough to bend.
A slow grin unfurls across my face—not warm, not soft, but sharp. Predatory. Satisfied.
Ardaleon sees it and shakes his head. “That look means trouble.”
“For who?” Lukyan asks.
“For her,” Ardaleon says, though his tone carries a flicker of something else. Recognition, maybe even concern.
I rest my forearms on the table, fingers curling loosely around my glass. The liquor glints under the shifting lights as I turn it lazily in my hand.
“She’s pushing against the edges of her fear,” I say. “Trying to decide what she is to me.”
“You think she knows she matters?” Lukyan asks.
“She feels it,” I answer. “She doesn’t understand it yet.”
“Should we bring her in?” Viktor asks. “Before she slips the leash?”
A cold amusement curls through me.
“She’s not slipping anywhere.” I lift the glass to my lips, not drinking—just letting the edge touch my mouth as the grin deepens. “She’s been in my orbit since the night she watched Hector die. Whether she realizes it or not.”
Ardaleon leans back, arms crossed. “And now?”
“Now,” I say, setting the glass down gently, “she’s moving exactly how I expected her to.”
The club lights cut through the haze, illuminating the men at my table—the Sharov family, the core of an empire built on precision and brutality. They all watch me, waiting for the next directive.
I rise from the booth, resting my hands on the edge of the table as I stand. “It’s about time,” I murmur, voice low but carrying through the booth.
Ardaleon glances up. “Time for what?”
I let the grin resurface: slow, dark, hungry. “Time I take this trouble away.”