Chapter 18
A slash of sunlight pierced a gap in the blackout shades and fell across the bed.
Emily stirred, groaning as her muscles protested too many hours on her feet.
Stretching to relieve the stiffness, her fingers brushed the space beside her and met only cold, rumpled sheets where a warm, powerful body should have been.
She sat up and listened. The house was still. No footsteps. Not even the hum of the AC. And no coffee aroma.
She slipped out of bed and tugged on Alec’s discarded T-shirt from the night before. After a quick morning pit stop, she went in search of him, padding barefoot across the hardwood.
She found him in the living room, standing at the window in jeans and bare feet, staring out at the water.
“You didn’t sleep,” she said softly.
He didn’t turn. “I couldn’t.”
She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind. “You’re mad at me.”
“I am,” he agreed. “I’m also terrified for you.” He turned, his hand curling around her jaw. “You’re in deeper than I expected.”
“You knew this was a risk—”
“I was in denial. That party last night—foreign buyers, the New York Mafia involved—this is bigger than any of us thought. That guy with the lisp wasn’t just a lieutenant.
He’s the boss’s son. The de facto new boss while the old man serves a life sentence.
They hunted Cari for three years, and probably still are.
That’s why Dev keeps her under such heavy watch. ”
“Cari mentioned she was a Denali,” Emily breathed. “But I didn’t know all the details.”
“These are bad guys, Em. They shouldn’t know you exist. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t think you’d fit into my skirt.”
She meant it as a joke, but his silence made her wish she’d stayed serious.
His fingers flexed on her jaw. “I couldn’t bear to see you hurt. Or worse.”
Her hands slid up his chest. “I’ve been hurting for eight years, Knight.
Since my parents died. Since Ethan. Since I pushed you away.
And since I realized girls like Beth Ann were disappearing because of the same evil.
” Her voice cracked, and his arms tightened around her.
“This is the only way I know to stop the pain. The nightmares. The questions,” she whispered.
“Maybe I’m crazy, but I need to make their sacrifice—and yours and mine—mean something. ”
He pressed his lips to the top of her head, his voice rough, cracking.
“You mean more than something. You mean everything.” He exhaled hard enough to part her hair.
“I get why you need this to move on. I feel the guilt, the rage, the frustration of not knowing why, and the need for vengeance. That’s part of the reason I haven’t shut this down. ”
“But it’s my choice.”
“Dev would pull you if I insisted. But I don’t want you looking at me and always thinking what-if. And I want you to sleep easy, to live in peace—with me. Which is why you have to come back in one piece.”
She looked up at him through a mist of tears, wishing it could be different. It was in her power to make it so, to walk away from this. But he was right. She would still be stuck in this awful limbo of frustration, rage, and the overpowering need for someone to pay for the lives they’d destroyed.
Her family’s. Hers. And Alec’s.
“You should shower and dress. We’ve got a meeting in an hour.”
She was about to invite him to join her—wanting that closeness—when he stepped back, disengaging. “I’ll make coffee.”
Feeling double the guilt. Emily turned and walked upstairs alone.
***
The conference room at Devlin HQ smelled of caffeine and tension.
Emily’s first time here, after what she’d found in her father’s journals, the décor had been the last thing on her mind.
Today, her gaze snagged on the huge hardwood table and the high-backed leather chairs that should have looked imposing.
Instead, they seemed almost undersized for the men who occupied them—all broad shoulders and long limbs, built like Alec and cut from the same intimidating cloth.
Devil sat at the head of the table, arms folded, eyes sharp. Rhys, Mateo, Leland, Jace, and four other men Emily hadn’t met filled the remaining seats. Callan was there too, hunched over his laptop. On the wall behind him, a monitor glowed with the image of a sprawling estate.
“Coral Gables,” Callan said, tapping the keys. “One of our guys monitoring in the command center caught a conversation between Regina and Benny. He mentioned a private estate—called it ‘the next big one.’”
“The owner is Richard Benson,” Devil added. “Inherited his millions from daddy. Your typical entitled rich asshole.”
Callan brought up Benson’s photo.
Emily studied him—mid-forties, beady eyes, a smarmy grin that made her skin crawl, and a diamond stud glinting in one ear. Her stomach turned. She’d seen that grin before, in nightmares.
“He looks slimy,” she said with a shiver.
“He is,” Dev said. “And so are his associates—Marco Benedetti, and formerly, Vincenzo Denali of Brooklyn.”
“Fuck me,” Alec muttered. “We were so close.”
“But no cigar,” Dev replied without so much as a lip twitch.
Callan clicked to the next slide. “The estate’s locked down. Guards, motion lights, alarms. Emily, we’ll need your help to access the mansion.”
“What do I do?”
“The alarm on the service door by the kitchen can be paused for deliveries,” Callan explained. “I’ll show you how. The guys will handle the rest.”
She nodded, absorbing every word.
“For all his top-dollar security,” Callan continued, “Benson’s weak in one area.”
“Let me guess,” Leland drawled. “His system’s unsecured.”
Callan smirked. “It took me five minutes to hack in. A fifth grader could’ve done it.” He flipped to the next slide. “Here’s the guest list for Friday night.”
Emily didn’t recognize the names, but the whistles around the table told her the men did.
“Jesus,” Rhys breathed, clearly unsettled. “That’s an extensive list.”
“Mighty big wallets in that crowd,” one of the unfamiliar men noted. “What’s going on? An auction?”
His last word stayed suspended in the silence that followed. Even the hum of Callan’s computer seemed to quiet. Emily’s stomach roiled at images of naked, cowering young women paraded in front of leering men, numbers whispered, hands raised, lives reduced to inventory.
Beside her, tension rolled off Alec in palpable waves. “She’s out,” he said tightly, already done with the discussion.
Emily didn’t flinch. She couldn’t. Not now. Not when it mattered.
She laid her hand on his forearm, steady and deliberate. “I’m already in,” she said.
“You’re in as fucking bait,” Alec snapped back.
“Yes,” she said evenly. “But they think I’m a twenty-year-old waitress-slash-wannabe chef. They don’t know I’ve got a team of badass PIs covering my six.”
Her attempt at military jargon, something she thought the badasses would appreciate, went over like a lead balloon until Mateo drawled, “She’s got a point. We live and die by the element of surprise,” which made things worse.
A muscle jumped in Alec’s jaw. Rhys coughed into his fist. Leland leveled a sharp look his way. And Mateo grunted, shifting when someone kicked him under the table.
“Sorry.” He glanced between her and Alec. “Bad analogy.”
“She goes in, but not alone.” Dev didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “Jace will pose as a buyer.”
“Jace?” she asked.
One of the new guys lifted his hand—dark hair, quiet presence, calm eyes. He hadn’t spoken once.
“He’s not a club member. Regina won’t recognize him.” Dev’s gaze shifted to the man at her side vibrating with tension. “He’ll show interest, keep eyes on her—close enough to intervene if needed, far enough not to tip them off.”
“And if something goes wrong?” Alec asked.
His answer was as scary as it was lethal. “We burn the fucking place down to get to her.”
Callan advanced through the next few slides—floor plans, escape routes, surveillance angles. “We’ll have eyes in every room. Audio, thermal, motion. If she moves, we track it.”
“What about buyer security?” Mateo asked.
“They’ll all have at least one,” Leland said. “We’ll need to evacuate the girls and neutralize resistance fast.”
Emily’s voice was quiet but steady. “What happens if I’m taken?”
Alec turned to her, eyes blazing. “You won’t be.”
Dev provided a more practical answer. “We follow your signal and extract you.”
He made it sound simple. “What if they take my clothes with the panic button. My shoes with the tracker?”
“We thought of that,” Callan said, producing a small box. Inside, a pair of earrings gleamed. “There’s a transmitter embedded in one of the stones.”
It seemed surreal, something out of James Bond. “You’ve got contingencies covered, it seems.”
“We can’t predict everything,” Alec said, voice low and dangerous. “I’m counting on you to keep her safe,” he added, locking eyes with Jace. “Are you up to this?”
Jace nodded, quiet but steady. “I’ll protect her with my life.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Emily squeezed Alec’s arm, feeling the iron tension in his muscles. Her gaze swept the room, eyes meeting every man’s one at a time. “If you’re ready to end this, I am too.”