4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Thank the Lord, Sundays in late January were quieter at Xyst. Rich men with bad marriages and expensive habits would still fill the main floor and underground casino once we opened, but the lighter crowd made the building easier to control while we met upstairs.
Staff moved across the main floor below us, stocking the long bar, checking tables, and preparing for the evening.
Whenever Nik brought Lacey inside Xyst or Lucian brought Scarlett, security tightened without anyone making a show of it.
Once the doors opened, patrons would see dancing, drinking, and privacy.
We saw exits, weapons, threats, and every face that didn’t belong.
Slade had doubled the door team and posted two men near the private elevator. Rory had DarkMatter tied into the club’s security feeds, monitoring every angle. That gave me one less thing to worry about before I brought Lucian up to speed and ruined his and Scarlett’s night.
I’d dreaded the conversation, but had put it off as long as I could.
Xyst’s upstairs office sat beyond the reception desk and down a short hall, hidden from most patrons and overlooking the main floor through one-way glass.
Lucian’s desk stood near the far wall, polished and orderly because my brother had always valued control.
I’d never minded a little clutter. A little chaos kept a man awake, and trouble rarely arrived neatly stacked.
The conference table occupied the center of the room.
Nik sat at the head of it with a tablet in front of him and Lacey beside him.
Henri Delacroix, her French DarkMatter shadow, stood behind her chair with his attention fixed on every movement near the door.
Rory Lynch, Nik’s consigliere and former SAS soldier, leaned back with the relaxed posture of a man who could turn lethal before most people got both feet beneath them.
Gabriel Rossi was sprawled in his chair, restless and ready for something to do, while Julian Lombardi watched from the far end, his expression blank and his eyes always scanning the room.
I remained near the window, watching the staff below because sitting was too confining for my mood.
Isabella Delgado had spent the week lodged in my thoughts.
At Xyst, she’d been polished and smug, shoving legal threats into my hands and carrying herself as though she could make a man like me kneel.
In her office, she’d become the woman I’d dropped onto her desk, her mouth swollen from my kiss and her eyes filled with the fear of someone who had no safe way out.
I’d gone there to threaten her, scare her off, and make certain she understood Xyst wasn’t a club she could use as a stepping-stone for whatever game Ciro Delgado was playing.
Somehow, I’d walked out thinking about a new identity, a safe house, and helping her disappear.
I still couldn’t make the two versions of her fit together.
Nik glanced up from his tablet. “Lucian’s going to want to know why no one called him.”
“Aye. And he’s going to be pissed.”
Gabriel glanced toward the monitor showing the reception area. “You planning to take the blame?”
“He’s my brother. He’ll blame me whether I take it or not.”
Rory’s mouth twitched. “Irish brothers have a delicate way of handling conflict.”
“Lucian and I have been knocking sense into each other since we were lads. I wasn’t interrupting his honeymoon over cartel bullshit. If he takes a swing later, I’ll survive.”
“How touching,” Gabriel said. “Brotherly rage.”
A smile lit up Lacey’s face. “This is why I enjoy sitting in on meetings.”
Nik rested a hand on the back of her chair. “For the operational clarity?”
“For the pre-fight entertainment. Watching grown men pretend this is a normal way to communicate is fascinating.” Her smile faded as she glanced toward the door. “But Lucian is going to be furious.”
“He should be,” I said. “Xyst was his vision a decade ago, and he’s worked his ass off ensuring its success. But I wasn’t dragging him out of his wife’s bed unless the building was on fire.”
Gabriel’s grin flashed. “And even then, it would depend on how big the fire was.”
“Where are Lucian and Scarlett?” Lacey asked.
“On their way up,” I said, having just seen them walk in below.
Which meant the peace we’d given them was almost over.
They’d earned the week. Lucian had dragged Scarlett out of her father’s clutches, shot the bastard, carried her through Madrid, gotten himself arrested, and somehow talked God into letting him marry her in the same church where he’d first tried to abduct her.
For the last seven days, none of us had knocked on their door.
That didn’t mean we’d sat still.
DarkMatter had followed Isabella Delgado through courthouses and salons, to her Water Street apartment near the Seaport, and onto Ciro Delgado’s estate without giving her or his men anything to notice. Everything we’d gathered during the week was loaded onto Nik’s tablet, waiting for Lucian.
A soft chime sounded from the security panel on the wall. On the monitor, the private elevator opened, and Lucian and Scarlett stepped out.
The room fell silent.
A few seconds later, they entered the office laughing and still looking at each other as they crossed the threshold.
Scarlett wore a cream sweater, her red hair loose around her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed. Lucian’s hand rested around her waist. They looked newly married, well-rested, and completely lost in each other.
I liked seeing my brother happy. He’d spent too many years without it.
When we’d first moved to the city, Lucian had been twenty years old, brilliant and wide-eyed, in love with everything Manhattan had to offer before it had time to hurt him. Then Ciara happened, and my brother locked parts of himself away so tightly I wasn’t sure anyone would ever reach them again.
Then Lucian noticed our faces, and his smile vanished before the office door closed behind them.
“What happened?” he barked.
Gabriel lifted a hand. “Welcome back, lovebirds.”
Scarlett’s gaze moved from Gabriel to me. “That bad?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” Lucian looked at Nik, then back at me, and the happy husband disappeared behind the managing partner of Xyst. “Tell me.”
I moved from the window to just behind Nik’s shoulder.
Nik tapped the tablet, and the main screen filled with the files Isabella had brought into Xyst after the wedding.
Lucian guided Scarlett into the chair beside Lacey, then picked up the second tablet Nik had left on the table. He remained behind her with one hand resting on her shoulder while he studied the documents.
“While you two were wrapped up in wedding bliss,” Gabriel said, “a city attorney tried to gut us.”
Lucian’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “What city attorney?”
“Isabella Delgado,” I said. “New York City Law Department, special enforcement. She came in after the reception with two Sixth Precinct uniforms, a liquor-license suspension, a City enforcement action, and a private civil suit tied to an alleged sexual assault.”
Lucian turned his head slowly.
The look he gave me would’ve worried a smarter man.
His jaw hardened. “Who sent her?”
“Andrew Hayes and Ciro Delgado are behind the hit,” Nik said. “The civil plaintiff, Sarah Farris, works under an escort alias connected to Whitaker’s Leon Brands network.”
Scarlett’s face blanched at her father’s name, but her eyes stayed on Nik. Her fingers curled against the edge of the table.
“Of course my father is involved.”
Lucian’s grip tightened on her shoulder. “Scar.”
“No.” She drew a breath and released it slowly. “It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“I know.” Her voice stayed calm, which made it worse.
“But pretending Andrew won’t keep using every institution he can to come after us doesn’t make him disappear.
He survived. He’s angry. And now he has a bullet wound he can show voters while he tells them men like you are the reason this city needs saving. ”
Lucian looked ready to find Hayes and finish what he’d started.
I didn’t blame him.
Scarlett’s gaze returned to me. “Whitaker’s involvement means this is part of what we found in Madrid, right?”
“Same trafficking network,” I agreed. “But a different access point.”
Lucian looked from the screen to Nik. “What have you learned about Isabella Delgado?”
“Her credentials are real,” he said. “University of Texas, law review, a summer at Harrington Shaw & Pierce. She had a lucrative corporate-law career waiting for her. The problem is the left turn her career took—now in a city job exactly where Hayes and Delgado needed her.”
“According to her, she was born Isabella Reyes,” I said. “Ciro was a client at the firm where she interned. He decided her name and credentials could be useful, forced her to take Delgado as her surname, and turned her into a clean legal face whenever he needed pressure put on an enemy.”
Lucian’s mouth tightened. “And she just told you all this?”
“Not at first. I cornered her hard enough that the story came out. She says Ciro gave her a choice that wasn’t a choice: take his name, do his legal work, and be paid for it—or find out what refusing cost.”
Gabriel snorted.
“I couldn’t prove the fear was real,” I continued. “But I couldn’t ignore it either. I offered to get her out.”
Lucian’s gaze snapped to me. “You offered to extract the woman who came after Xyst?”
“Aye.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Not completely.”
“Then why make the offer?”
“If even half of it is true, Ciro has a woman trapped inside his machine. I wasn’t going to walk away without finding out.”
Lucian held my gaze but said nothing.
“When I followed up, she took me up on the offer,” I continued. “I’ve met with her twice since—short meetings out of sight of the men watching her. She says she wants out.”
“Where does that leave her now?”
“Still working for the City. Still being watched by Ciro’s men and pretending nothing has changed.”
Lacey sat forward. “Does she understand what disappearing will cost her?”
“New name. New documents. No family contact. No legal career. No San Antonio. No going back.”