Chapter 36
The drive home blurs together in a haze of bass, cocaine, and rain-slicked streetlights.
Knox leans back in the rear seat of the town car, collar open, head tipped against the leather. His jaw aches faintly from grinding. The inside of his nose still burns from the last line he has taken off the VIP table.
He thinks it’s worth it.
The driver keeps his eyes forward as the estate gates slide open.
Gravel crunches under the tires while the car curves up the long drive. The mansion rises out of the dark beyond the hedges, tall windows glowing warm against the wet night.
Safe.
That word settles comfortably in Knox’s chest.
The car stops beneath the covered entrance.
One of the guards steps forward and opens the door. Rain drips from the brim of the man’s cap.
“Evening, sir.”
Knox barely looks at him.
“Yeah.”
He steps out, swaying slightly as his shoes hit the stone. The world tilts pleasantly. His heart still races from the cocaine, every nerve buzzing.
Frank, the night supervisor, closes the car door behind him while another guard moves aside to let Knox pass through the front entrance.
The doors shut with a soft click.
Inside, the mansion is quiet. Too quiet for this hour, maybe, but Knox barely registers it.
He rolls his shoulders loose and climbs the staircase two steps at a time.
By the time he reaches his bedroom, the cocaine high has begun to twist into heat under his skin.
He peels off his jacket and tosses it across a chair. His shirt follows.
The bathroom lights snap on automatically when he steps inside.
He turns on the shower. Steam is already beginning to fog the mirrors as hot water pounds down from the rainfall head.
Knox steps under it and groans softly.
The water beats against the back of his neck, washing away the smell of perfume and sweat from the club.
His mind drifts as the heat soaks into his muscles.
He thinks about the blonde from the VIP section, the one with the short dress and the sexy smile who slipped her number into his hand before he left.
She said she would meet him tomorrow night after his meeting.
Knox imagines her on her knees already, mouth open, hair pulled back while he grips it.
The thought makes him smirk under the spray.
His thoughts shift to the meeting scheduled for the next afternoon with Elliot. Elliot wants to discuss the fallout from the manor.
The water streams down his chest as another memory surfaces.
Asher.
Asher had always been the loudest one in the room. The first to grab a bottle, the first to cut lines across the table, the first to laugh when someone started screaming.
They used to party for days without stopping.
Now Asher is dead.
Knox frowns slightly as the thought lingers.
He still doesn’t know who killed him.
Part of him wonders if it had been Seth.
Knox had seen the reports afterward. The bodies in the manor. The chaos that followed.
Nobody has ever managed to locate that place from the outside. The estate had been scrubbed from every record and buried behind shell properties and restricted access roads. Even most members of the Collective have never been there in person.
Everything burned afterward.
The physician is dead. The guards are dead. No survivors have surfaced. Knox has assumed the victims died in the fire.
That is the logical explanation.
Still, the question creeps in now and then.
What if someone had gotten out?
The steam thickens in the bathroom.
Knox closes his eyes and tilts his head back, letting the water pound against his face.
Then the lights go out. The bathroom drops into sudden darkness.
For a moment he doesn’t move.
“Jesus,” he mutters, blinking into the dark.
He reaches out and shuts the water off.
Silence swallows the room immediately.
Knox steps out of the shower and grabs a towel from the rack, wrapping it loosely around his waist.
“Hello?” he calls.
No answer.
He steps into the bedroom, water dripping down his chest.
“Frank?”
Still nothing.
The house intercom sits beside the bed.
Knox presses the button.
“Hello?”
Static.
He frowns.
“Frank, answer the fucking intercom.”
Nothing comes back.
The silence begins to feel wrong.
Knox walks to the bedroom door and opens it.
The hallway beyond stretches long and dim, lit only by faint emergency lights along the baseboards.
His heartbeat picks up.
“Frank?”
Still nothing.
He moves toward the staircase.
His bare feet make soft sounds on the wood floor.
When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the smell hits him first.
Knox steps into the foyer.
Two guards lie on the white marble floor. One faces the ceiling, eyes open and empty. A dark hole punctures the center of his forehead. The other sprawls near the door, his throat torn open by a gunshot.
Blood has pooled across the marble, spreading slowly outward in glossy red sheets.
Knox stares at them.
“Oh fuck.”
The words slip out before he can stop them.
He turns and runs.
The towel nearly slips loose as he takes the stairs two at a time.
Knox rushes in the bedroom and yanks the nightstand drawer open. His hand closes around the handgun inside. He pulls it free and spins toward the hallway.
Two figures stand in the doorway.
They wear black from head to toe, gloves, fitted clothing, and skull masks that conceal their faces completely.
They had not been there a second ago.
“Who the fuck—”
One of them steps forward.
The other stays slightly behind, watching.
Knox lifts the gun and pulls the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
He pulls it again.
Click.
His stomach twists.
The first figure raises a hand calmly and opens their palm.
A single bullet drops to the floor.
Then another.
And another.
One by one, they fall from their fingers and tap softly against the wood.
Knox’s breath catches.
The first figure reaches up and pulls the mask down.
For a moment, his brain refuses to process what he is seeing.
A face he recognizes from the manor.
Brooke.
His eyes snap to the second figure.
The mask comes off more slowly this time.
Seth.
Knox’s stomach drops as if the floor has vanished beneath him.
And for the first time, he was afraid.