51. Michael
Michael
Brett’s name flashes across my burner.
I’m still in Vegas, the Strip glaring beneath me like a neon hellscape, Krystal locked upstairs with her organic kale bowl and prenatal vitamins, and me drinking scotch out of habit, not pleasure.
“Talk,” I answer.
Brett lets out a long exhale — the I’ve-been-through-hell kind.
“Boss… you’re not gonna like this.”
My jaw tics. “Try me.”
He tells me everything.
Every.
Last.
Bloody.
Detail.
Roman showing up like a roach in the night.
The council’s paranoia.
Vito pulling a gun.
The girls showing up at the station.
My wife standing there with her belly showing.
Brett zip-tying Roman.
Claire slapping him.
The lockup.
The escape.
Him taking Remi’s woman and making her his again.
Everything exploding and yet—somehow—they’re all alive.
He leaves nothing out.
By the time he finishes, I’m gripping the balcony rail so hard it cuts into my palms.
“Kate took the wheel,” Brett says, almost proud. “She’s running the business. And I’m running the mobsters. We actually work good together.”
Something primal in me snarls.
“That’s my job,” I growl.
“Yeah,” Brett says, “well, your wife decided someone needed to step up while you’re babysitting Miss Fake-Seedling upstairs.”
My blood hits a boil.
“I’m coming out there,” I snap. “Tonight.”
“No,” Brett barks. “No, you’re not. It’s hot as fuck here. The Feds are about to swoop. I got a meeting with them in the morning. We gotta make sure these charges stick to the Redmonds and the council.”
I pace the balcony, scotch forgotten.
“They’re freaking out on this end,” he continues. “Everyone is. Too many loose cannons. Too much noise. You show your face here? They’ll connect dots I can’t un-dot.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not letting Kate run this alone.”
“She’s not alone,” Brett says. “She’s got me. She’s got Claire. She’s got her network. And she proved tonight that she’s a hell of a lot scarier than she looks. Boss… she ordered Roman locked up with nothing but water and sugar packets.”
That stops me cold.
“She what?”
“You heard me.” Brett chuckles. “I think she might be more ruthless than you.”
I can’t tell if I’m turned on or terrified.
“Listen,” Brett says. “You stay in Vegas. Let the council think you’re clueless. Someone’s gonna slip, and you need to be there to hear it. We’re gonna squeeze them from both sides. Call it… a two-front war.”
The bastard isn’t wrong.
My shoulders drop a notch.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Put her on.”
There’s a shuffle. A whisper. A soft gasp like she wasn’t ready.
Then—
“Michael?”
My chest cracks open.
“Hey, baby,” I breathe, her voice hits me harder than the scotch. “You okay?”
“I’m… managing,” she says. “And the baby’s okay. We’re okay.”
I close my eyes.
“Brett told me everything,” I say softly. “You handled Roman?”
“I did what I had to.”
Of course she did. Of course she fucking did.
“You’re running the show now, huh?”
She laughs—tired, raw, so damn beautiful. “Someone has to. You left me with a disaster.”
“I’ll fix it,” I promise. “I swear, Kate, I’m coming home as soon as it’s safe.”
There’s a pause.
Then she whispers:
“Come back to us, Michael.”
Not just me.
Us.
My throat tightens.
“I will,” I swear. “I’m not losing you. Or our child. Not again. Not ever.”
Her soft breath crackles through the line.
“Stay alive, Michael.”
“You, too,” I whisper back.
Then Brett snatches the phone and hangs up before I can say one more word.
By dawn, Vegas belongs to me.
Not on paper—yet.
Not publicly—yet.
But spiritually? In the marrow of the Strip?
Yeah. It’s mine.
I’ve got lieutenants lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in the executive suite, each one sweating bullets under the fluorescent lights. Krystal’s uncle and the council are rotting in holding cells back East, and every West Coast player with a pulse knows the tides have shifted.
I plant my palms on the conference table and let my voice cut through the room like a razor.
“Roman’s compromised. The council’s compromised. Anyone tied to them? Compromised.”
A murmur ripples.
“From this moment on,” I say, “I run Mystic Moon Vegas. And if anyone wants to challenge that, now’s the time.”
Silence.
The kind of silence predators make when they’re deciding whether to bow or bite.
One of Roman’s old captains clears his throat.
“Boss… you sure Roman?—”
I lift one eyebrow.
He shuts the fuck up.
Good.
I send them all out with instructions: lock down every account, freeze every asset, interrogate every man who so much as whispered loyalty to Roman or the Redmonds. When I’m done, I’ll have an army—or a graveyard. Either works.
It’s noon when the last man leaves and I finally feel the release of pressure in my chest.
Kate’s safe.
Brett’s alive.
The council’s imploding.
The feds are circling like vultures.
I can almost taste freedom—her sweet mouth, soft skin, the life growing inside her. Every step I take is toward her now. Toward home.
But the universe?
That bitch never lets me breathe.
I’m halfway down the hallway toward the penthouse when I hear it:
A soft click.
A roller suitcase being zipped.
Then—
“Going somewhere?”
Krystal turns around slowly.
She’s dressed in white designer sweats, hair curled, makeup sharp as a blade. There’s a suitcase beside her, a Louis Vuitton train case on top, and a look in her eye I haven’t seen before:
Awareness.
Calculation.
And worse—purpose.
She smirks.
“You look surprised, Michael.”
“I’m more surprised you’re breathing,” I say flatly.
She laughs—bitter and hollow.
“Oh, come on. You thought I was helpless? Some ditzy little party girl? A drugged-up slut you could lock in a mountain cabin?”
I say nothing. Let her talk her way into the grave she’s digging.
“You treated me like an incubator,” she spits. “Like a walking womb. But while you were out there playing king of Vegas, I realized something.”
She touches her belly.
“It was with me the whole time.”
My jaw tenses.
“I’m the bloodline,” she says softly, eyes gleaming. “I carry the heir. I have all the power now.”
“No,” I growl.
But she keeps going.
“The council? My uncle? They’re all in lockup, and I’m innocent. I didn’t know a thing.” She smiles—wide, crazy, beautiful in the most catastrophic way. “When the dust settles, I swoop in, baby in tow, and take my rightful place.”
I let out a slow, murderous laugh.
“We’re not married, Krystal.”
She freezes.
“What?”
“You heard me. The wedding was fake. A legal sham. I never married you. You’ll inherit nothing.”
A vein pulses in her neck.
Then—her smile returns, but thinner, sharper.
“Even better,” she whispers. “Then it’s war. Game the fuck on, Michael.”
She reaches for her suitcase.
I block the doorway. “You’re not leaving.”
She tilts her head with a sweetness that terrifies me more than her screaming ever has.
“You really think you can stop me?”
“Watch me.”
She moves fast.
Faster than I expect.
Krystal snatches a carving knife off the kitchen island and presses it to her stomach.
My stomach drops.
“Put it down,” I bark.
“No.”
Her hand presses harder—harder—until the tip indents her skin through the thin cotton of her shirt.
“Krystal—”
“One more step,” she whispers, “and I’ll kill your precious little baby and walk out of here with blood on my shirt and a perfect fucking alibi. Try explaining that to the council.”
My heart slams once, violently.
She’s not bluffing.
The madness in her eyes is cold this time—controlled. A different flavor of dangerous.
“Move,” she orders. “Or I swear I’ll gut myself right here and tell everyone you did it.”
I step aside.
I hate it.
But I do.
She rolls her suitcase past me, chin high like a queen dismissed from her own court.
At the door she pauses, looks over her shoulder, and blows me a kiss.
“See you back in Bayview, Mikey.”
Then she walks out—calm, steady, lethal.
The door shuts behind her.
And I exhale the darkest breath I’ve taken since the night Kate ran.
I’m still staring at the empty penthouse doorway where Krystal disappeared when I finally force myself to call Brett.
He answers like he always does—half a snarl, half a joke, all loyalty.
“Damn Mikey, I was just about to call you—miss talking to me?—”
I cut him off.
“She’s gone.”
A pause.
Not long.
Just long enough for him to understand exactly what I mean.
“Krystal?” Brett finally says.
“On the lam,” I confirm. “Heading back to Bayview. Bags packed. Clear-headed. Purposeful. And she’s got this look—like she thinks she’s the council now.”
Brett curses under his breath.
“She told me,” I continue quietly, “she’s going to raise our baby as her heir. She wants vengeance. She’s—different. Cold. Focused. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That bitch?” Brett scoffs. “Really? She’s always been two crayons short of a full box.”
“Yeah,” I say darkly. “That’s what I thought too. But now? I don’t know if she finally snapped or if she played me all along. Maybe she played both of us. She presses a knife to her stomach. Threatened to kill our baby if I didn’t let her leave. I’m scared Brett.”
Silence stretches on the line.
For the first time, Brett doesn’t have a smart remark.
“I got you, brother,” he says. His voice is low, lethal. “And I got baby Waters. I’m not gonna be a godfather who lets that psycho bitch anywhere near your kid.”
I rub a hand over my face.
It’s been days since I slept.
Maybe months since I really breathed.
“It’s too hot right now,” Brett continues. “We gotta let shit settle. At least on paper. But don’t worry—I'll put Vito on her tail. We’ll track her every move from the moment she touches East Coast soil.”
“Good.” I swallow hard. “Brett?—”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think…”
The words feel like broken glass in my throat.
“Do you think Kate still wants to be with me? After everything? After Krystal? After all of this?”
He exhales—long and slow.
“This is a fucking soap opera, boss,” Brett mutters. “A high-budget one with more guns and prettier women.”
My chest tightens.
“But yeah,” he adds. “Yeah, she wants you. She’s your wife. She’s carrying your baby. She’s in deep, Mikey. She ain’t walking away. Not from you.”
He pauses.
“But shit’s not gonna settle down soon.”
We both know it.
“It’s gonna get worse before it gets better," Brett says. "A hell of a lot worse.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest.
Krystal is going home.
And she’s bringing war with her.