Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
BASTION
The first man whimpered when I stepped over him. The second didn’t move at all.
Both were still breathing—barely. Slumped at the edge of the alley behind the Black Vault’s freight corridor. Their mistake hadn’t been coming for the port schedule.
It was thinking I wouldn’t answer the alert myself.
I lit a cigarette with blood running down my knuckles, shielding the flame from the wind with my hand. Inhaled deep
My phone vibrated again.
Then again.
Emergencies. Delays. Port fallout. Eastside retaliation threats. Rome had been calling for thirty minutes, Luca’s updates hadn’t come through, and two more district syndicates were trying to muscle into tonight’s shipping manifest. A week ago I would’ve cared.
But now?
Now I just needed one thing.
I dragged the phone out of my coat pocket, and tapped the app.
Not messages or port security feeds .
Hers.
The mirror system came online immediately. Luca and I had it linked to our homescreens—because pretending we wouldn’t use it was the real delusion.
We didn’t track her out of boredom.
We tracked her because every fucking heir in the empire had her name on their lips now. Every second, a new deal was being drafted. Every hour, another family updated their merger clauses to accommodate her dowry.
There were no boundaries anymore. No privacy. Not for her. Not when the world had shifted on the day she turned twenty-one. So no, she didn’t get privacy.
She got protection.
She got us.
Even if that meant Luca and I checked her phone just as much as we checked our own. I hadn’t gone three hours without monitoring her calls, notifications, or alerts.
And right now—she was at a restaurant.
One of Villain’s most exclusive private lounges. The kind you didn’t walk into without a dozen handshakes, security credentials, and a last name that meant something. Red list only. Dynasty blood required.
I stared at the quiet notification flag at the bottom of the screen.
Private reservation. 4 guests. Tag: Dynasty Heirs.
She was sitting in a room full of men who wanted to own her.
My jaw twitched. My grip tightened around the phone.
The empire was heavier than it had ever been. Rome was starting to use, Luca was unraveling, and the penthouse we’d built brick by goddamn brick for her—was still fucking empty.
I needed to see her.
I needed to touch her .
Even if just for a minute. Even if I had to tear the whole city down to do it.
Another buzz. A port recall. I closed the notification and opened the high-clearance message chain. The one Luca and I used when subtlety wasn’t an option.
CROW-09: Authorize access. Disrupt Room B42 North Lounge. Five-minute window.
No cameras, alerts, surveillance trail.
I sent it.
The restaurant was fifteen minutes from here. Less if I didn’t stop at red lights. I had forty-three minutes to clean up the alley. To wipe the blood from my coat. To clear my schedule and erase my name from the manifest logs.
And then I was going to see my wife.
Because nothing—not the delusion of control, the empire, not the crown we bled to build for her was enough.
Because the one place in the world I hadn’t collapsed yet… was under her hands.
I didn’t check in at the front desk. I passed through the arched corridor—just as I’d instructed. Two servers crossed behind me, subtle nods confirming their part was done.
Room B42.
Private lounge, elite-tier and there she was.
Emilia.
Sitting at the far end of the table in a low-cut, backless navy dress. She hadn’t seen me yet. But I saw her.
God help me .
Every inch of her body sculpted like she’d been poured into that dress by the hands of God.
It hurt to look at her.
A pressure in my throat I couldn’t swallow. Because there she was, close enough to touch, but not mine.
Not yet.
She was surrounded by three heirs. All dressed in tailored suiting, subtle dynasty crests on their cufflinks. Each trying too hard to charm her. Each sitting too close.
She tilted her head to one of them, offering a practiced smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Her posture was perfect, elegant, but I saw it.
The tension in her shoulders. The way her hand fidgeted with the napkin under the table. The half-second she looked toward the exit like she was counting time.
So I signaled.
The first man’s phone buzzed.
He excused himself to take it.
The second was subtly tapped by a server—urgent message from his father.
Gone in under a minute.
The last was approached directly by management. A “scheduling conflict” about a previously confirmed meeting that had been bumped.
All three disappeared like they’d never been there.
She exhaled. As if she’d been underwater too long and could finally come up.
My poor fucking girl.
I stood just outside the entrance, watching her for one more second. I wanted to drag her from that table take her home, where she could be mad with us and we’d earn her forgiveness .
She reached for her wine, unaware that the entire moment had been arranged for her.
By me.
So she could have five minutes of silence. And I could have five minutes of her. I stepped inside.
God, she was beautiful. Not polished dynasty-perfect.
My kind of beautiful.
The kind that made me want to hurt every man who’d dared to touch her wrist tonight.
She didn’t look up until I pulled out the chair beside her, not across from her. Fuck being respectful and dynasty rules right now.
Slowly she looked up, and when our eyes met, she offered me a smile.
A cold, polished, dynasty smile. One that had been trained and sharpened over years of survival.
“Bastion Crow,” she said smoothly. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
She said my last name like it wasn’t already hers.
I sat down beside her. Let my knee brush hers beneath the table.
Didn’t speak at first I just… looked.
And she looked back.
Her gaze raked over me once, slow and deliberate. She took in the bruising along my jaw, the healing cut near my temple, the new tattoos beneath the open collar of my shirt. No tie or dynasty gold.
Maybe she was inspecting the damage.
Maybe she was judging me—for showing up like this, for looking every inch the violent kingpin I was expected to be.
I didn’t care.
Because I was already staring too .
At her hair, pinned in a style I knew wasn’t her favorite. At the diamond choker that didn’t belong to her collection.
At the way her pulse kicked just beneath her jaw when I didn’t say anything.
“I thought you didn’t attend public events,” she murmured, turning slightly so she was facing me.
“I don’t.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Yet here I am,” I said. “Couldn’t let you sit here alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” she corrected, glancing at the now-empty chairs.
“No. You were surrounded.”
And for the first time since I sat down—her breathing changed.
Just slightly.
Enough to make me want to reach across the space between us and touch her. Pull her chair closer. Unhook the necklace that didn’t suit her. Strip every trace of this dynasty performance from her skin until she remembered who she was before all of this.
And I hated it—that necklace.
Hated that it sparkled where ours should have rested. Hated that someone had dared to give my wife something so visible. So claiming. So fucking public.
I leaned back in my seat, jaw tense. I hadn’t attended her birthday.
Because if I had seen the parade of heirs lining up with gifts and mergers and open contracts, I would’ve killed someone before the candles were lit.
My control had been fraying since the day she turned twenty-one and became everyone’s favorite opportunity. Everyone’s favorite meal .
Still, I kept my eyes on her neck. That delicate skin. The hollow of her throat.
I kissed her there, in the hallways of the academy. Claiming her throat when everything was still good between us. Before the world tore her away.
Now all I could think about was wrapping my hand around her throat and pulling her in close, dragging her out of this world and back into ours.
“Was that necklace a birthday gift?” I asked finally, voice lower than I meant.
She blinked once, then arched a brow. “For a minute. I thought you weren’t going to speak at all. Just stare.”
I almost smiled. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Her lips curved, and for a moment… she softened.
“It was a gift,” she said, her voice catching just slightly at the end.
That was when I noticed it.
The velvet jewelry box still sitting on the table beside her half-finished wine. So it was from tonight. Not just a necklace, a claim.
I leaned forward, slow, never breaking eye contact.
And gently—very gently—I reached up and swept her hair over her shoulder.
She froze but she didn’t stop me.
Just let me touch the delicate clasp at the base of her neck. “This doesn’t suit you,” I murmured.
Then I unhooked it.
The necklace came free, falling into my palm and I dropped it on the table like it was worthless.
My hand didn’t leave her. And I stared into her eyes of the woman we’d been building an empire around for the last three years .
God, our wife was beautiful.
She just stared back, trying to remember how to breathe while I memorized every fucking detail of her face again. I loved that. I still had an effect on her.
And for five seconds I felt like the world might finally fucking stop spinning if I could just hold her here long enough.
If I could just keep her.
And then she shifted. Turned her body toward me—so fucking close now that if I leaned forward, just an inch or two, I could kiss her.
Fuck, maybe I should take the moment for what it was and break the world open. Remind her what her body did when it was underneath mine.
Her knee brushed mine under the table, accidental. Still, it was enough to flood me. The tension, need from waiting three years. My dick was hard just from proximity. From one fucking accidental touch.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice quieter now.
“Hungry.” I lied.
“You hate food with long names.”
I didn’t answer.