Chapter 8
THE SILENCE after Alaric and Magnus left pressed down. Their clipped voices and heavy boots still seemed to echo against the penthouse walls, but now that they were gone, the air changed. It wasn’t relief. It was heavier, hotter, more dangerous. Her confession hung in the air.
“I’m more afraid of not wanting to leave.”
Mariah stood frozen near the tall glass wall of Leif’s penthouse office, staring out at Dallas blazing bright in the morning sun, praying he wouldn’t comment on it.
The Trinity shimmered in the distance, winding silver through the sprawl of the city.
To anyone else it was just another weekday morning. To her, it was a miracle she was alive.
If Leif hadn’t paused with her in the hallway, holding her back with a steady hand at her waist as he bent close to speak, she’d have been inside the conference room when the blast ripped it apart.
She should have been gone, shattered with all the others, including Leif.
Instead, she was here, breathing in air that somehow tasted of smoke and of him.
Her reflection in the glass was almost unrecognizable.
Damp ebony hair curling over her shoulders from the shower, bare face pale and too sharp around the eyes, his clothes draped over her body.
The white lounge pants cinched at her waist were too big, sliding low on her hips.
The white dress shirt was worse, gaping at the collar, sleeves rolled to her elbows, soft silk brushing bare skin where there should have been her own clothing.
There was nothing beneath. No bra. No panties.
The thought made her pulse trip and her body tighten with restless need.
Every move reminded her that she was wrapped in him. Covered by him. Branded by him.
She lifted her hand and saw it faintly glowing, the lion etched there pulsing as though it could sense his nearness. It burned hotter every time he came close, mocking her with each beat of her heart.
Leif’s voice cut through the silence, tough and commanding. “Sit down. Please.”
That final word stroked down her spine like a request she couldn’t disobey.
She turned slowly, careful not to show how her stomach flipped, and crossed to the desk.
She sank into the leather chair opposite, folding her hands in her lap to keep them steady.
The distance between them seemed planned—he behind the desk, she in the chair—but she wasn’t fooled.
He owned the air between them. He always did.
Leif leaned forward, bracing both palms flat against the polished wood.
His forearms were taut, veins rising against the skin, the muscles shifting with quiet menace.
His blue eyes locked on her. Fresh shirt, his sleeves also rolled back, white-blond hair curling faintly against his temple.
He looked like power caged inside a man’s body.
Control sharpened into flesh and bone. But hunger gnawed beneath it. She still sensed it now.
“Three families didn’t send representatives,” he said. His voice was low, honed and decisive. “A funeral. A fever. A delayed flight. None of it holds.”
Mariah forced her chin up. “People do miss meetings for real reasons.”
“Coincidence doesn’t time a bomb to detonate fifteen minutes after the planned start of the conference.” The words cracked the air like a whip.
Her breath caught. He was right. She hated that he was right. “Then it was one of them.”
“Or someone else entirely.” His hand swept across the desk, waking the monitor with a flick. Three faces lit the screen, cold in the sterile glow. “Someone who wasn’t invited. Someone who thought absence was insult enough to kill for.”
She studied the profiles—hard faces, men carved out of grudges and power. Her stomach twisted. “So which do you believe?”
His gaze slid back to hers. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
They worked. The next hour blurred into the hum of the monitors, the shuffle of papers, the occasional clipped command into Leif’s phone.
She sat at his side now, drawn into his orbit despite every warning screaming inside her.
His presence pressed against her senses like the Brand on her palm. She couldn’t escape it. Didn’t want to.
The footage played on loop. 7:45, the sweep. Nothing out of place. 7:52, the flowers arrived—too lush, too heavy, not on the order list. 8:15, the blast, fire blooming and devouring the screen. Every second was too accurate to be coincidence.
Mariah leaned forward, pointing at the blurred courier on the feed. Her shoulder brushed Leif’s arm. Heat seared through her, impossible to ignore. “Too small for hired muscle. Too efficient to be careless. He’s practiced.”
“Disposable,” Leif muttered. “They’ll vanish him before we find him.”
“Not if we move fast.”
His head turned. She sensed his gaze before she saw it, dragging over her mouth, her throat, the hammering pulse in the hollow there. The air between them thickened and her breath stuttered.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he said softly.
Her lips parted. Her body betrayed her, leaning closer. “Should I be?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, his hand moved, fingers brushing the inside of her wrist where it rested on the desk.
His thumb stroked once. Twice. A rhythm so intentional it stole the air from her lungs.
The Brand in her palm flared, pulsing heat through her veins.
Her nipples tightened against the semi-transparent silk shirt, aching.
Heat pooled in her belly, wetness slick between her legs.
She clenched her knees together, frantic for friction, and a tremor rolled through her.
For one suspended second, she thought he’d close the distance, drag her against his mouth. She wanted him to. Needed him to. Her lips parted in invitation.
But he didn’t. He pulled back, snapping the thread, turning to the monitor as though nothing had happened. Control slammed down over him like iron bars. She gasped, furious at the loss, hating how much she craved his touch again.
They sparred, voices sharp in the heavy air.
“Maybe the funeral was real,” Mariah suggested quietly, dragging her damp hair back from her face. “Maybe they stayed away to avoid suspicion—so that if a bomb went off, their absence would make them look innocent rather than complicit.”
“Or to avoid dying in the blast they arranged themselves,” he countered coldly. “Self-preservation isn’t innocence.”
She shook her head. “Absence doesn’t equal guilt. If I wanted to throw suspicion, I’d stay away too.”
His mouth curved, not a smile. Something darker. “You think like me.”
The words twisted hot in her chest. They shouldn’t have thrilled her. But they did. She turned back to the screen, pulse racing.
Then came the river.
“You mentioned something earlier,” Leif said quietly. “The river.”
Her stomach dropped. She’d prayed he’d let it go. “It was nothing.”
He came around the desk, bracing a hand on the wood beside her hip, his body crowding hers without touching. His scent wrapped around her, clean soap, smoke, cedar, and male heat. Her lungs constricted.
“Don’t lie to me. You said to start with the Trinity River if I decide to burn the city to find you again. That fire follows current. Now, what the fuck did you mean?”
She stiffened. “You should already know what goes on there without asking me. The Trinity is where they move cargo that can’t be seen—arms, fuel, sometimes bodies. It’s a corridor for smuggling and for corruption and violence and weapons, or fire, Leif. That’s why I said fire follows current.”
His eyes locked on hers. “Whose territory?”
Mariah shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Where?”
Her voice barely worked. “If I had to guess? Trinity Crossings. Too many blind spots. Too few cameras. Easy to remain anonymous.”
The silence burned. His gaze dragged down her face, lingering at her mouth before climbing back to her eyes. “You ration what you tell me.”
Her chin lifted. “So do you.”
“That’s because it keeps you alive.”
“Maybe I ration to keep you alive, too.”
The heat coiled tighter, suffocating. His thumb brushed her wrist again, slow, claiming, dragging over the jump of her pulse. Her thighs trembled, pressed hard together. The ache between them sharpened, liquid and insistent.
He leaned closer, his mouth hovering a breath from hers. His eyes burned, restraint fraying, control cracking. His breath ghosted over her lips, hot and rough. Every nerve screamed for him to close the distance, to devour her, to take.
She tilted, lips parting—
For the second time, he drew back, leaving the air between them stretched thin and intense.
The silence that followed seared her skin.
Mariah shifted in the chair, trying to ignore the ache pooling low in her belly, the damp heat that betrayed her.
She wanted to cross her legs, to rock her hips, to do anything that would ease the burning desire, but she couldn’t—not with his eyes on her, not with his restraint coiling tight across the room.
Leif said nothing for a long time. His jaw ticked once, twice. Then he turned back to the monitors with brutal precision, swiping to another set of feeds. “Three families absent,” he said, voice low, clipped. “Each with motive. Each with weakness. We’ll pull at every thread.”
Mariah dragged in a breath and forced herself to focus. The screen lit with profiles, names, histories. The first was a man with watery eyes and a mouth set in a permanent scowl. She knew him—everyone did. Old money. Old grudges. Too proud to bend, too greedy to walk away.
“He lost a son last year,” she said quietly, almost against her will. “Car crash. The Dantes sent flowers. The Severins didn’t.”
Leif’s eyes flicked to her. A muscle jumped in his cheek. “He’d kill over less.”
“Would he risk everything?” she pressed. “A bomb in your building? That isn’t just revenge. That’s suicide.”