35. Phoenix
Phoenix
I’ve been awake since Atticus walked into the room, but I keep my eyes closed.
Not because I’m still half-asleep, but because I’m not ready to face the world.
The feeling of Con’s skin against mine, the solid wall of his chest at my back—it’s too good.
Too rare. His arm is heavy over my waist, not possessive exactly, but claiming in a way that makes my body want to melt into the mattress.
His breathing is steady. His heartbeat is slower than mine, deliberate, like even his pulse refuses to be rushed. I focus on that rhythm, letting it ground me in this narrow slice of peace. I know it won’t last.
The faint scrape of a chair leg across the floor snaps the thread between sleep and waking. Voices follow— low, masculine, carrying the weight of decisions that could end in blood.
I stay still. Listening.
Atticus is laying out a theory, his words clipped but confident. He’s always sure he’s the smartest man in the room. Maybe most of the time he is.
Parts of what he’s saying make sense. But it feels like a chess game played on the wrong board. Too complicated. Too self-referential. If the mafia is behind the disappearances, why would they send me here on a “wild goose chase”?
They wouldn’t need me to frame the Titans. If they wanted dirt, they’d plant it themselves. And there’s nothing I could hand over that they couldn’t fabricate better.
And yet—if it’s all bullshit—why does the staff think the Titans are involved? Rumors don’t grow in barren soil. Somebody planted that seed, watered it.
Now, I know they aren’t behind the vanishings. I’ve been close enough to see how they bleed when they’re cut. They’re not lying to me—they’re lying to themselves .
The Titans are brilliant, ruthless, powerful—but those strengths are also blinders. I don’t think this is about them, not really. But they’re incapable of imagining a world that isn’t shaped around their influence. When the world has always revolved around you, you assume every orbit is yours.
Something’s happening at the casino. I can feel it. The air hums wrong. Too many people are gone. Not just the beautiful girls who caught a Titan’s attention. Others. Staff who wouldn’t be missed by the gossip mill.
“Look, why don’t we just go find them?” Storm’s voice is sharp enough to cut. “I’ll kill them all, and then we’ll take them out on the yacht and chum the water. Make an evening of it—a little bloodshed, a little deep-sea fishing. Win-win.”
It’s the Storm the world sees. Dangerous. Careless. But beneath the brittle humor, I hear something else. The tension in his delivery is off.
It’s not the man who sat in the tub with me, shoulders shaking, water cooling around us while I held him through a fear he couldn’t voice. That man was real. This one—this is armor .
And it hits me—maybe that crack in his mask was something he’s never let them see. Maybe I’m the only one who has.
“You know, sounds like a good idea to me,” Maverick says, voice lazy but sharp around the edges. “Normally I’m not into the whole murder thing, but if it keeps Phoenix safe and stops people pointing fingers at us, I’m in.”
“This is not something we can come back from,” Con says, his chest tightening against my back as he speaks. The vibration hums through me, steady but laced with hesitation.
His arm flexes around my waist—subtle, but I feel the shift. It’s the touch of a man doing the math.
“I’m not saying it’s not an option,” Atticus adds. “I’m saying it’s not my first choice. I’d like to explore other possibilities before we resort to murder.”
“If you have another suggestion that keeps Phoenix safe, I’d love to hear it,” Storm says, the sarcasm dry enough to burn.
Silence. The kind that presses into your skin, prickles the back of your neck. They’re all waiting for someone to speak. No one does.
It hurts, knowing they’re weighing the cost and not finding a better solution.
I know the Titans do illegal, shady shit.
But I’ll be damned if they go bad because of me.
Drugs, alcohol, hookers—those aren’t the same as trafficking.
And the women here, myself included—we could leave.
I could use my safe word and walk away. There’s never been a moment where I wasn’t free to choose.
That’s not the kind of men my father borrowed from.
Being dangerous isn’t the same as running a criminal empire. I cannot —will not—be the reason they cross that line.
The mafia boss’s number is in a file hidden in my room.
Maybe tonight, when they’re asleep, I’ll call him myself.
Mafia men are businessmen. He’ll want to deal.
He’ll understand I’m an asset—one worth keeping alive.
If I ruin that value—scar my face, take a fall from the balcony—I become a poor investment .
Businessmen hate bad investments. They hate losing face even more.
Or maybe I’ll go another route. Steal that detective’s number from Storm. Feed her everything she needs to make the biggest bust of her career.
I don’t know yet. But I have to do something.
Letting them bleed for my problems isn’t an option.
Yes, Storm fought for me. But that was against two bottom-feeders, not the top tier of the mob boss’s muscle. He’s brilliant, but brilliance doesn’t stop a bullet. Neither does trauma. Neither does ego.
I have to move first. Turn myself in. Leak intel. Run.
Is running even an option anymore?
Or have I already dragged them into the undertow so deep that even if I vanish, they’ll still be marked?
Con shifts behind me, and I realize my fists are clenched under the blanket. My heartbeat is too fast. His breath warms the back of my neck, and for a second I almost let myself believe it means I’m safe .
But safety isn’t real here. And the longer I stay, the more I believe I’m going to have to burn something down to make it out alive.
It’s six a.m. before I can work up the nerve to do what needs to be done. Six in the morning before I’m sure all four of my men are asleep.
Con tucked me into his bed last night and stayed there, one arm anchored across my waist like he could keep the world from getting to me if he just held tight enough. I never made the call. But maybe I don’t need to.
“Where are you going?” Con’s voice is still heavy with sleep as I slide from the bed.
“To the bathroom,” I lie, leaning down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
His eyes stay closed, but the corner of his mouth tips up as he yawns. A moment later, he’s gone again, breaths deepening.
I wait anyway—counting them until they’re slow and even. Then I slip back to my room .
I dress swiftly and silently in the darkness, finding a pair of shorts that aren’t too short. A shirt that won’t get me stopped in the street. Old sneakers.
I will not let them suffer for me.
There’s nothing I won’t do to keep them from drowning in my damage, and I won’t watch Storm spiral further into his demons because of me.
I won’t watch any of them lose their freedom.
Atticus would probably thrive in prison—he’d have the guards working for him in hours—but I’m not giving anyone the chance to find out.
The suite door clicks shut behind me. For a moment, the ghost of Con’s warmth still clings to my skin—the faint scent of his cologne, the solid weight of his arm across my waist—before the emptiness swallows it whole.
I keep my head down as I move through the silent casino floor, the air inside humming faintly with electricity, the overhead lights dimmed to a tired glow that turns the rows of slot machines into shadowed sentinels. My sneakers whisper over plush carpet still warm from the night’s crowd.
Outside, the doors sigh open and the morning air hits—cool, salt-laced, tinged with the faint musk of the river. The city is hushed, the cobblestones damp beneath my soles, the only sound the soft lap of water against the pilings below.
I won’t have far to go, I know. They’ll be watching, aware that I’m important to the Titans by the simple act of them attempting to pay my debt.
Sure enough, I haven’t walked a full block when something prickles along the back of my neck, an animal awareness that I am not alone.
I glance over my shoulder—nothing but the dim street and shuttered windows—but the feeling doesn’t fade.
It follows me as I walk, keeping pace in the hollow space between my footsteps.
I tell myself it’s just nerves, that Savannah before sunrise is bound to feel empty and strange, but every corner I turn feels too quiet, every shadow too deep. My sneakers scuff on the uneven stones, the sound loud in the stillness. A single gull cries overhead, and I nearly flinch.
Half a block later, I catch a flicker in the reflection of a darkened shop window—a shift in the shadows across the street. When I look, there’s nothing there. Just the rhythmic sway of a tattered flag above a closed café. My heart keeps up a drumbeat anyway .
By the second block, the air seems heavier, the kind that wants to press you into moving faster, and I have to stop myself from breaking into a run. A muffled engine hums somewhere behind me, low and steady, then fades. I tell myself it’s nothing.
But it’s not nothing.
The third block is narrow, the buildings leaning in like they’re trying to listen.
I’m halfway down when the black van noses into view from the far end, its headlights off, moving with the kind of deliberate slowness that makes your stomach turn.
The prickling on my neck becomes a full-body chill.
By the time it pulls across my path and stops, I already know—this walk was never mine to finish.
Pedo-stash isn’t with them, but Baldy is, and he looks pissed. There’s already sweat beading on his forehead and trailing down to his jowls, even in the brisk morning air.
He’s not alone.
Out of the van hops five other men. These aren’t the same caliber as the two who attacked me in the alley. They’re tall, muscular, and truly intimidating .
“That her?” the tallest of them says, taking a step towards me.
“Yeah,” Baldy says, smirking like a schoolyard snitch.
The big one steps forward and draws a bowie knife from the back of his jeans. The blade is wide, the edges jagged with rust. It’s not a weapon built for finesse—just damage.
“Now I understand what all the fuss is about,” he says, raking his gaze over me like he’s peeling away skin.
I take a step back before I can stop myself.
“Oh no, guys,” he taunts. “I think I scared the little lamb.”
The men behind him laugh. Knives appear in a dull gleam of steel. Two slide brass knuckles over their fingers with a glint in the streetlight that makes my stomach turn.
I almost want to tell them they won’t need the brass knuckles. My bones break pretty easily.
“What do you want?” My voice almost breaks on the words .
“I’m sorry, sweetheart—what was that?”
I square my shoulders. “What do you want?” My voice comes out stronger this time, even if my pulse is jackhammering.
He scratches under his chin with the tip of his blade, pretending to think. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what my boss wants. You know how it is—jackass boss rides you hard?—”
His smirk deepens. “Actually, I’m guessing you’re pretty familiar with a boss riding you hard.”
More laughter, and then he sobers.
“See, my boss isn’t too fond of yours. He sent me to deliver a little message.”
Fuck.
I should have stayed in Con’s bed. Safe. Warm. But no, I had to prove something. I wasn’t being stubborn. Just stupid.
“What kind of message?” I ask, stalling for time I don’t actually have. Praying for a miracle I don’t believe in.
He shrugs. “Not something you can write down. It’s more of a… show-and-tell situation. ”
My eyes scan the street. No cars. No open businesses. No one to hear me scream.
The big guy’s gaze drops to my legs, then my chest. “Your little friends told my boss you were untouchable. We’re here to touch you. All of us. And we might keep touching you long after your corpse goes cold.”
Cold sweat beads along my spine, and the taste of metal goes sour in my mouth. I shuffle backwards, my bravado finally breaking.
“Oh, don’t be like that, sweetheart. We’re just gonna have a little fun?—”
A sound rustles behind me, a rock or something scraping against the sidewalk.
The words stall in his mouth as his eyes shift past my shoulder.
I don’t turn. My fingers curl into fists.
Because either help just found me?—
Or it’s already too late.