Chapter 9
Raze
I knew the second she walked in that my night was about to get worse.
Not because of the woman standing beside her—Izzy barely had time to register in my mind before my sister’s voice started ricocheting off the walls of my house like a thrown knife.
Tone.
Of course it was Tone.
She had the uncanny ability to step into any situation and immediately start rearranging it like the world had been waiting for her to arrive and fix the furniture.
My voice dropped low when I growled her name.
“Tone—”
I didn’t even get the chance to finish the sentence.
She kept walking like she hadn’t heard me at all, heels clicking confidently across the marble floor.
“Raze, if you say ‘Tone’ one more time like it’s a command,” she shot back over her shoulder, not slowing down in the slightest, “I’m going to start calling you by your government name in front of your men.”
That stopped me cold. My eyes flashed toward her.
“Don’t.”
It came out sharper than I intended, but the warning was real.
There were very few people on earth stupid—or brave—enough to threaten that particular piece of ammunition.
Tone, apparently, was both.
Her grin widened. Not amused. Predatory.
“Try me.”
Christ.
I breathed slowly through my nose, the way you do when you’re trying very hard not to commit a felony in your own foyer. In my head I started counting to ten, but the numbers were less mathematics and more a list of ways I could remove my sister from the premises without technically killing her.
It didn’t help.
Instead, I turned away from her before I said something regrettable and directed my attention at the guards stationed near the entrance.
“Keep eyes on the perimeter.” My voice was clipped. “Put extra men on rotation. No one comes in without my word.”
One of them straightened immediately.
“Yes, sir.”
They moved without question, which was the only reason the entire situation hadn’t already unraveled into chaos.
Behind me, Tone threw her arms wide in exaggerated delight.
“Well, would you look at that!” Her voice dripped with mock sincerity. “He’s so hospitable.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
“Tone,” I warned again.
There was less heat in it now, mostly because I knew damn well warning her was useless. Tone treated boundaries the way children treat wet paint signs—an invitation.
“Raze,” she mimicked instantly, matching my tone perfectly.
Then she tilted her head and smirked.
“See? We can both do it.”
The sound of laughter caught me off guard. It was small. Soft. Like it hadn’t been used in a while.
My head flew toward Izzy before I even realized I’d moved.
For a brief second—barely long enough to register—warmth slipped through the cracks of my irritation. Seeing her laugh, unguarded, did something strange to the tension coiled in my chest.
But the moment passed as quickly as it arrived.
I shut it down. Emotion had no place here. Still, I saw the way she looked at me after.
And Tone saw it too. Her smile eased slightly. Still playful. But sharper now, like she’d spotted something valuable and quickly pocketed it for later use.
My sister lived for information. And she was the most unyielding person I knew when she thought she had leverage.
“Come on.” She suddenly hooked her arm through Izzy’s before the woman could even react. “Let’s get you out of his clothes.”
I stiffened.
My voice followed them down the hallway before I could stop myself.
“They’re custom made clothes.”
Tone didn’t even break stride.
She just glanced over her shoulder, unimpressed.
“I know,” she said dryly. “And that somehow makes it better.”
Izzy glanced back at me as Tone tugged her toward the corridor. Just for a second.
I stood there in the foyer, shoulders squared, expression carefully neutral. But my eyes followed them.
Followed the way Tone had linked herself to Izzy like they’d known each other for years instead of minutes. Like she had already decided this woman belonged under her protection.
And just like that, I understood something uncomfortable.
The rules in my house had changed.
Not because I’d changed them. Not because I wanted to. But because my sister—one of the only people on earth who had ever loved me without fear—had just walked through my door and started rewriting them.
I hadn’t expected Tone to stay.
That was the truth of it. Not just overnight—here. Under my roof. Inside the perimeter. Close enough that I could hear her moving through the house, her presence already pressing against places I’d spent years fortifying.
I’d done a good job of keeping my sister at arm’s length.
Not because I didn’t love her. Because I did.
Too much.
After my wife died, something in me recalibrated.
It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t shatter loudly.
It just… closed. Like a door that locked from the inside and never reopened.
Love, I learned, wasn’t soft. It was leverage.
It was exposure. It was an invitation for the universe to take something from you and dare you to survive it.
I barely had.
So I kept Tone away—from my work, from my houses, from the places where violence lived too comfortably.
I paid for her security from a distance.
I made sure she had everything she needed without letting her see the machinery behind it.
If she was safe, it was because she didn’t know too much.
If she stayed alive, it was because she stayed away.
That had been the plan.
Now she was here. Dumped shopping bags by the console like she belonged. Like this wasn’t a place men bled and deals were made and enemies were erased. Like my house wasn’t built to withstand sieges.
I stood alone in the foyer long after she and Izzy disappeared down the hall.
The guards had resumed their posts. The house had returned to its low, humming silence. But something had changed. The walls felt closer. Less obedient.
I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed slowly.
This was a mistake.
Not Tone—never her. Letting her stay.
Because I knew what followed. Vigilance. Fear. That constant, gnawing awareness that every decision I made carried weight not just for me, but for someone I couldn’t afford to lose.
I’d already buried one woman I loved.
I wouldn’t survive another.
That was the part no one understood. They thought it was cruelty. A certain kind of coldness. But it was fear, refined down to something usable. I kept people distant because distance was survivable. Because grief had taught me that proximity was a liability.
I turned toward the hallway—and stopped.
The thought came uninvited. Sharp enough to sting.
So why is it different with her?
Izzy.
She was still here. Still under my roof. Still surrounded by the same dangers I’d spent years insulating Tone from. She might not have been family, might not have meant anything to me in the way that word implied—but she was a human being.
Tone had been right about that.
I didn’t like that she’d reminded me of the girl’s humanity, and I liked it even less that it had landed right where she directed it - at my conscience.
Izzy didn’t know what she’d stepped into. She hadn’t chosen this life. She hadn’t maneuvered her way into my orbit with ambition or greed or leverage. She’d been pulled in by circumstance and bad timing and a man she trusted.
And I’d let her stay.
Worse—I’d insisted on it.
I told myself it was practical. That keeping her close meant safety. Information. Reduced risk. That she was safer here than anywhere else.
All true.
None of it was the whole truth.
The truth was uglier.
I’d seen fear in her eyes, yes—but also defiance. Curiosity. A refusal to fold just because the room demanded it. She talked back when she shouldn’t have. Held my gaze when smarter people would’ve looked away. She didn’t beg. Didn’t posture. She adapted.
That kind of resilience was brutal.
I walked into my office and closed the door behind me, leaning back against it for a moment longer than necessary. The room smelled faintly of smoke and polished wood. Familiar. Mine.
I’d spent years mastering this environment. Bending it to my will. Making sure nothing unexpected got close enough to hurt me.
And yet here I was, violating my own rules.
Tone was staying because she was blood. Because loving her was unavoidable.
Izzy was staying because… what?
Because I didn’t want to send her away?
The realization didn’t sit well.
I pushed off the door and crossed to the desk, resting my hands against the edge. My reflection stared back at me from the darkened glass of the window—older than I felt, harder than I wanted to be. A man shaped by loss and convinced it would repeat itself if he ever stopped paying attention.
I’d told myself Izzy didn’t matter. That she was temporary. That once I got what I needed, she’d be gone and my life would settle back into its familiar, bloodless rhythm.
But that was a lie.
Because if danger existed—and it did—then keeping her here made me a hypocrite.
And I hated hypocrisy almost as much as weakness.
Tone’s words echoed, unwanted and persistent.
She’s a human being.
Not leverage. Not collateral. Not a problem to be managed.
A person.
I closed my eyes briefly, jaw tightening.
This was how it started. Not with love. With rationalization. With telling yourself that you were different, that you could control the fallout, that you’d learned enough from the last time to survive the next.
I hadn’t.
I already knew that.
The truth settled in my chest, uninvited and unwelcome: if something happened to Izzy because of me—because I’d kept her here, because I’d decided to play Russian Roulette with her life—I wasn’t sure what part of me would be left intact.
And that scared me more than confirming she mattered at all.
I straightened, squaring my shoulders, forcing the feeling down where it belonged.
Authority was still mine. Decisions were still mine.
But the line Tone had drawn wasn’t going away.
Neither was Izzy.
And for the first time since my wife died, I had the sinking sense that the fortress I’d built wasn’t keeping danger out anymore.
It was keeping me trapped inside with it.