Chapter 33 Chloe
Chloe
“Untie her, Rico.”
The rope loosen just enough to let me move my hands. My hands shake violently as I reach for the papers. My pulse is a jackhammer in my temples. Miles is slumped in the corner, bruised, bloodied, coughing, but alive. My stomach flips, guilt slicing sharper than the warehouse’s cold concrete.
Victor leans against the table Rico dragged in. His cigar’s still smoldering between his fingers, eyes gleaming with that cruel patience only a man like him can summon. “Ah,” he says, voice smooth like oil over gravel, “Time to make this easy, pretty thing. Sign here, and this is all behind you.”
I glance at the pen, the paper, my hands. My mind screams to refuse, to run, to claw my way out. But I need leverage. I need a weapon. I need to get Victor off me before he kills me or Miles.
I pick up the pen, slowly, deliberately, making sure he sees me comply. His smile widens, predatory, and he moves toward me, confident. “That’s my girl,” he purrs. “See? Cooperation is easy.”
“Where should I sign?” I whisper, voice trembling with fury I can barely contain.
Victor crouches close enough that I can smell the whisky on his breath.
His hand grazes mine as he points at the line, and in that instant, something snaps.
I ram the pen upward into his eye, hard, sharp, hot.
His scream tears the warehouse apart, ragged and furious, and he stumbles back, clutching his face.
I don’t hesitate. I bring my forehead down into his nose, over and over, my skull cracking against his bone. Blood soaks my hair, runs down my arms, but I don’t care. I only care that he feels pain, only care that he stops, only care that he doesn’t touch Miles again.
Victor roars, a sound that makes me want to curl up and die as he pulls me from the chair.
The crash makes pain ricochet down my back, knocking the breath out of me.
Then Victor, he overpowers me, wrapping his hands around my throat. Panic burns through my chest. I can’t breathe, can’t see straight, and I hear Miles scream somewhere behind me. My vision darkens at the edges, my skull pounding like a drum, but I bite, kick, shove with everything left in me.
A sickening crack echoes across the warehouse, and he collapses, limp.
I cough and stumble backward, gasping, scraping myself from beneath him, blood slick against my skin.
I can taste copper, feel bruises blooming across my ribs and face, but I’m alive.
The pen—still clutched in my hand—is red and slick.
There is a hammer protruding from the back of the dead man’s skull.
Rico steps forward, hammer resting on his shoulder, eyes calculating. “Enough,” he says simply. “You can walk out of this, you just need to be smart about it. I will not let you kill me with a goddamn pen. You know I will kill you if you try.”
I whirl to him, chest heaving, looking between the wrecked body and splattered blood.
Miles stares at me, eyes wide.
“Rico—” Miles chokes out, voice raw, “you… don’t fucking do this.”
Rico shakes his head. “Shut up. I am done taking orders. I’m done with Victor. He was weak, cruel, and unstable. That’s why he’s dead now. But the throne—his empire—it’s mine because I earned it. Miles, you want your people alive, you leave. You take them, and you vanish. Go.”
I stare at him. “The money?” I ask. Every ounce of me wants to snatch back that contract back.
Rico throws a shoulder, and the hammer taps rhythmically against his palm.
“The money is mine. The contracts, the accounts—everything Victor cooked—mine. You signed your father over as collateral or whatever twisted legal lie he used. That changes nothing. I’m not some poet burying lovers in the same grave. I’m not interested in stupid shit.”
Anger sears through me so sharp I can’t tell if I’m shaking from pain or fury. “You’ll keep it all,” I spit. “After what he did—after what you let him do—”
“Let him?” Rico’s voice is flat. He looks at the body and shrugs once, like swatting a fly.
“Victor was a bad leader. He had to go.” He meets my gaze then, and for the first time I see an angle of a man who believes in his own logic.
“I’ll take the money, the men, the business.
I’ll set terms. You’ll take whatever’s left of your life and you’ll disappear.
Out of Pointe. If Miles thinks he can come back and take what’s mine—he dies first, and everyone with him. That is the rule.”
My throat tightens. The warehouse is spinning slow.
The pen feels ridiculous in my fist, a symbol I can’t burn.
I look at Miles—at the way he has to force himself to breathe—and something inside me snaps like a brittle wire.
All the rage, all the betrayal, all the nights I slept thinking my father kept me safe—everything collapses into one hot, clear thing.
The men I called monsters were the only ones willing and ready to die for me. And I’m willing to die for them too.
“Deal,” I say, dropping the pen and stick out my hand.
Rico takes my hand in his, keeping eye contact as he nods in agreement.