Chapter 10
Ryder
Mamá appears in the doorway. I hear her bracelets before I see her, a soft metallic chorus that announces her the same way it did when I was a child.
I glance up from the half-zipped suitcase on the bed.
She’s leaning against the frame of the guest house door as if she has every right to be there, one manicured brow lifted, lips curved in lazy curiosity.
She looks immaculate, of course. Silk blouse. White trousers. Gold layered her throat and wrists. Not a hair out of place.
“Leaving already, carino?” She asks, voice warm and prying at the same time.
“I’m packing the last of our things,” I say, folding one of my shirts with more force than necessary. “Meeting the movers at the new house. We’ll move in officially tomorrow, after the cleaners leave.”
Her gaze drifts around the room, cataloging the boxes, the open closet. “That was fast.”
“One of the perks,” I reply lightly, “of marrying a man with connections.”
And it’s true.
When you’re married to a Bratva leader with ties to a real estate mogul and half the city council, things happen at warp speed.
Paperwork disappears. Keys appear. Entire houses change ownership overnight like it’s nothing more than moving pieces on a chessboard.
It doesn’t matter that Liev is a freshly crowned Pakhan.
He’s being taken seriously, and I can tell it’s a relief, even if he’ll never admit it.
My mind flashes back to the morning after we toured the place.
Liev standing in the doorway of the bedroom with his jacket slung over one shoulder, watching me with that unreadable stare.
“I bought it,” he’d said.
Just like that.
No discussion. No warning.
I’d bristled instantly. “You what?”
“The house. It’s ours.”
I remember the heat climbing my neck, the instinct to argue, to push back, to prove I wasn’t something he could just purchase like property.
But then he’d stepped closer. “Tell me you didn’t like it,” he’d murmured.
The challenge in his voice had melted straight into my stomach.
Because I had liked it.
Too much.
The memory leaves me off-balance. I snap back to the present and shove the last of my clothes into the suitcase, zipping it hard enough that the sound feels like punctuation.
Mamá is still watching me; her knowing smile makes my skin itch.
“You seem tense,” she says.
“I’m fine.”
“Marriage is an adjustment.”
There’s something loaded in the way she says it.
I sling my bag over my shoulder. “I’ll manage.”
Her eyes soften for a split second. It’s almost maternal, but it doesn’t last. “Call if you need anything.”
I nod and brush past her, needing distance before she starts asking questions I don’t want to answer.
Outside, the air feels lighter. I pull out my phone as I walk and text Liev.
Meeting movers at the house. Heading over now.
He’s across town with the mayor, making our presence in Miami look respectable on paper. Necessary, he’d said. Boring, I’d countered.
His reply comes a minute later.
Be careful. Text when you get there.
I exhale slowly, realizing my shoulders have dropped for the first time all morning. My fight-or-flight instinct, the one that usually hums like a live wire under my skin, starts to quiet.
It should feel like relief. But I know what it means: I’m getting comfortable. Starting to trust him; starting to trust my husband.
But in my world, the second you relax is the second someone decides to use you.
I stare at his name on my screen for a moment longer than I should. Then I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine, trying to convince myself that this marriage is still just business.
Even as my pulse betrays me.
* * *
Three hours at the house sounded manageable when I left that morning. Stand around. Point. Make sure nothing gets broken or stolen. Easy.
Instead, it turned into constant vigilance.
Answering questions. Directing boxes. Unlocking rooms. Signing forms. Watching strangers carry pieces of my life—previously in storage in Savannah—through doorways.
Slipping back into the car finally, I rest my forehead against the steering wheel and breathe.
I’m tired. Not sleepy tired. Wired tired. The kind of tired where your brain won’t shut off no matter how much you want it to.
One of the movers kept looking at me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was—attraction? But I’m in a sweatsuit, hair half-up and falling out, no makeup. It could’ve been surveillance.
I rub my temples and mutter to myself, “You’re being paranoid.”
My new husband runs part of an international crime syndicate, so there are likely new enemies. And I’ve been gone from Miami for long enough to know that I have to relearn the city.
Of course I’m jumpy. Anyone would be.
Still, the feeling doesn’t go away.
I start the car and pull onto the quiet road, gravel crunching under the tires. The new place sits farther inland, tucked into a neighborhood with bigger lots and fewer eyes. It’s safer, supposedly.
Less traffic, less noise, and less help if something goes wrong. The GPS says it’s twenty-five minutes back to my parent’s house. There are long stretches of pavement cut through trees and low marshland, and the occasional house set back behind gates or hedges along the way.
I drive with one hand on the wheel, while the other hand drums against my thigh. I’m trying to bleed off the restless energy still buzzing under my skin.
“You’re fine,” I say out loud. “You’re just tired.”
My voice sounds too loud in the empty car.
I check the rearview mirror out of habit.
Then I check it again.
A silver SUV turns onto the road behind me.
Far back. A totally normal distance.
Still, my pulse ticks up. I watch it for a full thirty seconds. It stays.
“Lots of people drive silver SUVs,” I mutter. “Congratulations, Ryder. You’ve discovered traffic.”
I snort softly at myself, trying to shake it off. Then the light hits it just right.
No plates.
My stomach drops.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay, that’s…that’s not great.”
I take the next right turn without signaling.
The SUV follows.
My throat feels dry. Another turn. Narrower road.
Still there.
“Maybe they just live out here,” I say, voice tight. “Maybe—”
The SUV accelerates. It closes the distance between us fast, and now I can see that all the windows are tinted.
“Shit.” Adrenaline slams into me so hard my hands start shaking.
I floor it.
The engine roars as the car surges forward, tires whining against the asphalt, and trees blur past. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
The SUV stays glued to me.
“They’re not following you,” I lie to myself. “They’re just—”
The first hit comes out of nowhere. Metal slams into my back bumper. The entire car jerks forward.
“Jesus—!”
I fight the wheel, correcting, but they hit me again, harder.
A clean, deliberate strike.
A pit maneuver.
They’re not trying to scare me.
They’re trying to stop me.
They hit again, and the world goes sideways.
Everything becomes sound and motion and glass and screaming metal. Trees flash outside the windshield, and the steering wheel rips from my hands.
Something cracks.
My shoulder smashes into the window.
The car rolls.
Then silence.
For a second, I can’t hear anything except the ringing in my ears. I’m upside down, seatbelt biting into my chest, hair dangling toward the ceiling.
“Move,” I rasp. “Move, move, move.”
My wrist screams when I unbuckle, but I drop onto the roof and shove the door open with my good shoulder. I crawl out onto the road, gravel biting into my palms.
Everything smells like smoke and gasoline. I stagger to my feet and look back. My head is spinning.
The silver SUV is overturned a few yards away. The hiss of the engine sounds too loud on the empty stretch of road, like a warning.
Move.
Pain shoots up my right ankle when I put weight on it. It’s sharp and hot, and my shoulder throbs where it slammed into the window. My wrist feels weak. It is probably sprained, but I don’t think anything is broken, so I’m not stopping.
I limp toward the tree line, breath sawing in and out of my chest. Gravel crunches under my shoes, then dirt, then brittle grass.
The ditch beyond the road slopes down into a thin strip of scrub and palms that leads toward a shabbier part of town I’ve passed a dozen times.
Low buildings. Flickering neon. Bodegas with barred windows.
Places to disappear.
I don’t look back again. Looking wastes time. My brain is already sprinting ahead of my body.
Who the hell was that?
Not random; too clean. Too deliberate.
Someone knew where I was going and knew I’d be alone.
My thoughts snag on one detail that I refuse to let go. Only one person knew I was going to the house today.
Liev.
My stomach twists so hard I almost stumble.
No, he wouldn’t.
Would he?
This whole thing started as a business arrangement. A marriage of convenience. Territory, ports, and power.
People kill for less, the logical voice in the back of my head whispers. Maybe this is easier for him. Maybe I’m inconvenient.
Maybe this is how he ends it.
A staged accident on an empty road.
My teeth grind together until my jaw aches. “Don’t be stupid,” I whisper, though I don’t know who I’m trying to convince.
Trust has never kept me alive.
I pick up my pace despite the pain. My heart is hammering in my chest as I head for the faint glow of bodega lights in the distance.
Fine.
If he wants me gone, he’s going to have to catch me first.
Again.