20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Ethan
“ D elivery for you, sir.”
I push my work aside, a tiny frown appearing between my brows as Perpetual walks into my office, holding a slim brown envelope. “I had the security guard open it to make sure it was safe, but neither of us took a look at the content.
Her statement is unsurprising because of the security protocol I implemented after a threat package was sent to my office three years ago.
I try to keep my affairs here separate from each other as best I can, but they sometimes intermingle.
Still… I can’t think of any reason I should be getting one. Delivery to my office, rather than my home or the usual drop points, feels deliberate. Intentional. Someone wanted to make sure I got this—pe rsonally.
“Thank you,” I say as she places it on my desk. Perpetual nods and leaves, but I don’t immediately reach for the envelope. Instead, I let it sit there, its presence unsettling despite its plain, unremarkable appearance.
I exhale slowly, rolling my shoulders before finally picking it up. The weight is negligible, but my gut tells me it’s heavier than it seems. With careful precision, I slide a finger under the flap and peel it open, my pulse steady yet aware.
The first thing I see is a photograph. Its’ presence should be unassuming, but it’s a picture of Natalie and me at dinner last night. I lift the envelope and let the rest spill out—more photographs of us from when we exited her apartment to the restaurant and left.
My fingers tighten around one of the photos, crushing it in my grip. My jaw clenches, muscles twitching as the message becomes painfully clear.
Natalie isn’t just caught in the middle. She’s the warning.
There’s no ransom note, no demand, just a silent declaration. They’ve seen her. Marked her. Decided she’s my weakness.
I inhale sharply, forcing the rage back before it consumes me. Then, with a sharp flick of my wrist, I hurl the crumpled photo across the office. It smacks against the wall before falling to the floor, just another piece of evidence that someone made a grave mistake.
They think they’ve found my vulnerability.
They have no idea what they’ve just unleashed.
Picking up my phone, I make a call, asking the other person to make an appearance. Unsettled, filled with anger and a new emotion, fear, I stand up abruptly, pacing to the window.
Being Ethan Cross means everyone is always trying to take me down—friends, enemies, and my cousin, because of his foolishness. It’s one of the reasons I chose to live a secluded life, earning myself the title of “elusive billionaire.”
I knew that the people who pledged loyalty could turn at any time, so I kept my eyes at the back of my head. I also had the scar to remind me in case I ever forgot.
Natalie was my slip-up.
I meant it when I told her that she had gotten into places other people never knew existed. I should’ve known this would happen. The moment I let her close, the moment I stopped thinking with my head and started feeling, this became inevitable.
“Boss.” Sebastian appears at my door, his manner promptly and ready to carry out orders.
I walk back to my desk, settling behind it with my emotions schooled into a firm mask. “Sebastian,” I say, “I need you to keep a pair of eyes on someone. I need it to be discreet, but if you have to do it yourself so there are no slip-ups, then you should.”
He nods squarely. “Yes, boss.”
Picking up a pen and a sticky note, I scribble down her address. “Natalie Monroe.” His eyes widen slightly as I mention her name, but he doesn’t comment on it.
Good.
That’s how I know I can trust him.
“She’s not to pick up on your presence,” I add. “You’re shadowing her, which means you’re there but not visible.”
It’s important that Natalie never finds out why because I don’t need her wading deeper into my life. At this point, I’m taking a step back, too—halting my feelings and prioritizing her safety until I can find out who took the pictures.
When I do, they’ll kiss the earth six feet underground while still breathing .
“You can go.”
“Yes, boss.” He slips the paper into his pocket and leaves as promptly as he arrives.
Despite my order to Sebastian, the uneasy feeling clawing at the back of my throat refuses to settle. I reach for my phone more times than I care to admit, my thumb hovering over Natalie’s contact. The urge to call her, to demand she come to my house where I know she’ll be safe, gnaws at me.
But Natalie isn’t the type to mindlessly follow orders. She’ll ask questions, ones I can’t answer without tipping my hand. She’ll see through any excuse I throw at her. And if I push too hard, she’ll fight me on it.
I exhale sharply, rubbing my temple as frustration simmers just beneath the surface.
She doesn’t know she’s in danger.
But I do.
And god , does it make me worry. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her.
***
I’m on my way home when I get a call from Luna Royale. It’s Leonard, and I immediately assume that my cousin has gone to do some more fucked up shit.
“Is it contained?” I ask as I respond, tapping Paul, my driver, and muttering about the change of location. “Is he still at the club?”
“The prosecutor?” Leonard whispers. “Yeah. He said if he leaves, he’s going to come back with enough evidence to shut down the place .
I’m confused. Prosecutor? I thought this was about Anthony making a fool of himself and the Cross name. But— fuck. It hits me. He’s talking about Joe Geller.
My fingers curl tight around my phone, and the metal digs into my palm. Annoyance and ire at having to disrupt my schedule over something that minor lodges like a pest in my chest, but I also know I shouldn’t ignore it.
“What does he want?”
“To see you, boss,” Leo replies. “He’s not alone. There are three of them and a ton of papers. We got a heads-up, so I cleared out a section before they arrived.”
The bastards. They’re nothing more than a headache, but even aches can become persistent. You either have to remove them… or remove them. There’s no other option.
I’ve been playing it easy for too long.
The car does a sharp U-turn, pushing me along the chair. I rub my temple. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Yes—”
“Did Anthony stop by today?” I inject.
“No, boss. He’s been absent for a while.”
I’m not about to mistake Anthony’s inactivity as a lesson learned. I know he’s stalling, waiting for the right moment to show up again.
Well , I might have something for him. I could do it my way—keep the leaches from the door by burying the gold hard enough that they wouldn’t find anything, but they’ve proven to be unrelenting pests.
Getting Joe Geller to back off, especially when his history of illegal activities, would shake the prosecution’s office, but I’m past being civil.
In some way, my father was right. You don’t wait for people to make mistakes before you put them in their place .
And they’ve crossed too many damn lines.
After the call with Leonard, I sent a simple message to Anthony.
“ Meet me at Royale. No guns.”
He sends me one back as though he’s been waiting at the phone, probably tapping his feet and drumming his fingers. “ I thought you’d never ask.”
When I walk in, Joe Geller and two other men I don’t care to recognize are in my office, and I motion for Leonard to give us some privacy. Three men are outside the office, and three more are downstairs, holding back any unexpected visitors.
He nods, walks out, and closes the door behind him. In the time it took to get here, my ire has turned to quiet rage, partly from the audacity and some from self-criticism.
I let it get this far. I let him think I was approachable.
A rookie mistake.
“Mr. Cross,” Geller grins. “So nice of you to finally join us. We were worried that we’d have to wait all day.”
“The level of importance you accord yourself is fascinating, Geller,” I say with forced warmth and much… interest as I lean back, folding my arms loosely.
My gaze pans across the room, from the crooked prosecutor to the others who are no better than him. “For someone who is the spokesperson, you seem to think you are at the center of this wild goose chase. And you know it, or you would’ve come to my office, not the club.”
The cockiness in his eyes falters a tiny bit, but it’s enough to take another stab at him. I don’t intend to do more than that because I have far more pressing issues to attend to .
Leaning forward, I let him feel the brunt of my stare—eyes that don’t blink as they stare into his and the weight of a fury simmering beneath the surface. My lips curl into a mean smirk.
“I’m curious—what do you tell your superiors when they tell you to invade my space? Yes, sir? Yes, ma’am?” My tone turns mocking as it drops. “Because a little birdy told me you’ve been passed over for promotions more times than anyone in your office.
“Is it that they consider you so incompetent, or do you make it a habit of chasing your tail? Then again,” I shrug, turning to the others, “It looks like you’ve added more mutts to your circle. You’ve outdone yourself, alright.”
“We have evidence of fraudulent activities and drug-related crimes,” the man to the left—a sweaty thing wearing a cheap brown suit, speaks with his chest puffed out. “You’re going where you belong, Ethan Cross. So talk smack all you want.”
How interesting.
I wasn’t going to pay them any mind individually, but—
“You,” I nudge my chin at him, “how many legal firms did you apply to before you realized you were a nobody? One, two?” I grin mockingly as I raise five fingers. “Ten?”
The door is thrown open before he can respond—although I doubt he had anything to say—and Anthony strides in, wearing a maniac grin. If my cousin weren’t a Cross, he’d make a perfect henchman.
Unrestrained.
Untrainable.
Only listens to go.
He slaps his palm against my desk with a resounding crack, the kind that makes a man’s spine stiffen. His grin is sharp—too wide, too knowing. “Hi, cousin,” he drawls, his voice like sandpaper over steel. “What’s this? A little peace treaty negotiation?” His gaze flicks to Geller, and his expression shifts, a shadow of recognition darkening his features.
“You,” he points, moving with eerie smoothness, closing the distance until his face is inches from Geller’s. “I know you from somewhere.”
He steps back, tapping his chin as if he’s playing a game, like the answer is just on the tip of his tongue, and he’s savoring the moment before spitting it out.
“He’s the prosecutor,” I say dryly, ending the show before it escalates.
Anthony claps his hands together in a single, jarring slap. “That’s it! That’s how I know you. You’re the motherfucker trying to put my family away.” His smile vanishes in a blink, and before Geller can flinch, he jabs him—hard—right in the chest. Geller stumbles, wheezing, his face paling as he instinctively glances at the door.
The other one—the mouthy one—shifts, his eyes darting between me and the exit. Fight or flight?
“I’ll help you out,” I say, rising from my chair and rounding my desk at a slow, deliberate pace. I roll up my sleeves, flexing my fingers as I approach. “You have two choices. You either walk out of here and tell your bosses you want off this case, or you stay, and Anthony breaks your knees.”
My cousin snorts, rolling his shoulders like a caged animal itching for release. “Not just break them,” he murmurs, voice dark, almost amused. “I’ll make sure you never walk again.”
The prosecutor swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “We—we’re prosecutors. We work for the government,” his voice quivers, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple. “You won’t get away with this.”
I tilt my head, my smile slow, predatory. “We already have. ”
“But,” I wave my hand, “I’ll make it even more comprehensive for you. See this office,” I point to the corners, “the camera feed can be wiped out before you leave. If you came here with any recording device, it’ll be destroyed. And the best part of it?”
I can see the dread written on their faces as I walk to the door and the heaviness of my silence stretching like a net. I pause when I get there and look over my shoulder with a satisfied smile.
“Nobody will care. Not when Geller’s bribery and extortion history comes to light. The story? You two were working with him, and he was feeding intel to the mafia. You’ll be as good as a criminal in the public’s eye.”
How the tables turn nicely.
“Then again,” I purse my lips, opening the door slightly to show them a taste of freedom. “You could leave. Take my first option. Save your knees.”
Leaving the door ajar, I walk away, but not before Geller’s scream cuts through the air.
The other two don’t hesitate. As I anticipated, they bolt for the exit, desperation in their wide eyes. But they’re sloppy, panicked. One makes it past the threshold—his fate waiting for him ahead, but the sweaty one isn’t as lucky.
A hand around his tie stops him dead in his tracks.
He gags, clutching at my wrist, his eyes bulging as I yank him back. His breath reeks of fear, and I lean in just enough for him to feel the weight of his mistake.
“Where do you think you’re going?” My voice is calm, almost pleasant, but the venom beneath it seeps through. “To tattle?”
His head shakes so violently that sweat flings from his temple. “No. Not at all. I wouldn’t—I swear. I’m going to turn down the case, that’s all.”
I tighten my grip just enough to make him whimper. “I don’t believe you.” I let the silence stretch between us, let his terror work against him. “You walked in here thinking I’d be scared. That I’d back into a corner.” I cock my head, watching as his lips tremble. “And you think I’d let you leave just like that? No consequences?”
His throat bobs, his pulse hammering beneath my grip.
I smirk. “No. I didn’t think so. I’ll put you to good use.”
One of the men slides a chair over, and I push the man down on it. He sits, shaking all over. I grab another and set it in front of him, sitting down.
I tighten my grip on his tie just enough to make his breath stutter. His entire body is shaking, but I don’t let up. I want him to feel the weight of his choices, the certainty of what happens if he betrays me.
“You’ll be my eyes and ears in your office,” I murmur, my voice a low threat. “You’ll tell me everything—every whisper, every plan, every fucking move they make.”
He nods frantically. “Okay. Okay. I swear.”
Pathetic.
I don’t need men like him—spineless, easily bent. Weak-willed men crumble the moment pressure is applied. But that’s the beauty of it. The more I have, the easier it is to make examples.
I release him, watching as he stumbles back, gasping for breath. His trembling hand goes to his throat, but I don’t care. My mind is already elsewhere.
There are bigger problems to handle, like the dead man walking who has decided to put a target on Natalie Monroe.
That?
That’s something I’m going to enjoy handling personally.