Chapter 5
Rome drove back to the safe house with the taste of Sofia still on his tongue and the weight of her father’s orders sitting heavy in his pocket. The encrypted texts were clear.
He had fucked her against the glass, watched her squirt, and walked out with more leverage than he had walked in with. Still, nothing about the night felt clean.
Demario was in the study when Rome arrived, sleeves rolled up, a half-empty glass of cognac on the desk. Rico sat on the couch near the window, quiet, watching. Keisha was nowhere in sight, but the tension in the room said she was close enough to hear every word if she wanted to.
Rome laid it out without preamble. Sofia was compromised, at least for now. She had let him see the messages. She had cum on his dick while he threatened her. She was leaning. Not fully turned, but leaning.
Demario listened in silence, jaw tight. When Rome finished, he only said, “Keep her close. Push harder.”
Rico shifted on the couch. “You sure that’s smart? Russo’s daughter isn’t some corner bitch you can scare into line.”
Demario’s eyes cut to him. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
The anger was there, simmering under the surface.
Demario had spent years running the streets on his own terms. Now he was stuck in a safe house, bleeding territory, questioning the woman in his bed, and relying on his baby brother to play lawyer in enemy territory.
The restriction chafed. Every quiet hour made it worse.
Keisha appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, arms crossed, face carefully blank. Demario didn’t look at her right away. When he did, the look was cold enough to freeze the air.
“Still sticking to the story?” he asked.
“I didn’t give anyone locations,” she said. The words came out steady, but her hands betrayed her. They twisted the hem of her shirt, restless. Guilt sat in the set of her shoulders even while her mouth kept denying. “I don’t know who that guard was talking to, but it wasn’t me.”
Rico glanced between them and stayed quiet. Demario stared at her for a long moment, then looked away.
“You’re not leaving this house,” he said. “Not while Russo’s people are hunting. I won’t put you on the street just to make a point. That doesn’t mean I trust you.”
The words landed like a door slamming. Keisha’s eyes shone, but she didn’t argue. She turned and left the room. The guilt stayed behind her like a shadow.
Rome waited until she was gone before speaking again.
“There’s something else. I’ve been digging through the money trails Sofia opened up for me.
The Russo side is cleaner than it should be.
Someone on our end is still feeding them real-time information.
The guard we thought was dead? I’m not sure he is.
The body they pulled out of the river after the warehouse hit didn’t match the dental records I pulled this morning.
They killed the wrong man. Malik is still breathing. ”
The room went still.
Demario’s hand tightened around the glass. “Find him.”
“I’m working on it,” Rome said. “But the Russos are starting to look at me sideways. Nothing solid yet. They don’t know who I am, but they’re curious. Sofia is the only reason I still have access. She’s… invested.”
Rico’s mouth twitched. “Invested how?”
Rome didn’t answer.
Later that night Sofia called. Her voice was warm and impatient. She wanted him again. Same penthouse. Same couch. She described exactly what she planned to do to him the second he walked through the door. Rome listened, then told her no.
The silence on the other end of the line stretched.
“You’re turning me down?” she said, soft and dangerous. “After last night?”
“I have work.”
“Then make time.” Her tone sharpened. “Or I’ll find someone who will.”
She hung up. Rome stared at the phone for a long time. She was leaning toward him, yes. But the lean was fragile, and her pride was not. He had just put a crack in it.
He spent the next two hours going deeper into the files she had given him access to.
That was when he found it. A series of wire transfers buried under layers of shell companies.
Payments dating back three years. Money moving from Russo accounts into a private fund that had once belonged to Demario’s old lieutenant, the one who had flipped and testified to get him locked up in the first place.
The same fund was still active. Still receiving money.
And the signature authority on the account belonged to someone Rome recognized from the old neighborhood.
Someone still breathing. Someone still close.
Rome sat back in the chair, the implications settling over him like cold water. This was bigger than a leak. This was a long game. And he was standing in the middle of it with a target already forming on his back.
He drove to the safe house again just before dawn and laid the papers in front of Demario.
“I want out,” Rome said. The words came quieter than he expected. “This is deeper than we thought. They’re not just coming for you. They’ve been inside for years. I didn’t sign up for this.”
Demario looked at the pages, then at his brother. The anger was still there, but underneath it was something harder.
“No,” he said. “You’re in. You stay in until we finish it. You’re the only clean piece I have left.”
Rome held his gaze. For a moment neither of them spoke. Outside, the first light of morning touched the trees. Inside, the walls of the safe house felt smaller than they had the night before.
Somewhere across the city, Malik opened his eyes in a rented room and checked the loaded pistol on the nightstand. The Italians had paid him well to stay dead. They had paid him even better to stay useful.
And Keisha, alone in the upstairs bedroom, stared at her phone as an unknown number lit up the screen with a single message.
It’s Malik. I need to see you.
Come alone. You know the place.
Her hands went cold. She stared at the screen until the words blurred. Everyone said he was dead. Demario believed it. Rome believed it. She had believed it too, or tried to. The body in the river had been enough to let her sleep at night. Now the ghost was texting her like nothing had changed.
She slipped out of the safe house while the others slept. Rome’s car was the quietest. She took it and drove to the old apartment on the south side, the one Malik used to keep for nights when Demario was locked up and she needed something familiar. The key still worked.
He opened the door before she could knock.
Malik looked thinner, harder around the eyes, but the same mouth that used to make her weak still curved when he saw her. He pulled her inside, locked the door, and for a long second neither of them spoke.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“That was the point.” His voice was low. “They killed a lookalike and paid me to stay gone. I’ve been watching everything. Including you.”
Keisha’s pulse hammered. “Malik,”
He kissed her.
It started soft. Slow. The kind of kiss that remembered every secret night they had stolen while Demario sat in a cell.
His hands framed her face like she was still his.
She melted into it before she could stop herself, mouth opening under his, tongue meeting his with the same hungry familiarity that had never really died.
He walked her backward to the bed without breaking the kiss.
Clothes came off in pieces. Her shirt. His.
Her jeans shoved down her thighs. When he laid her on the mattress he took his time, mouth trailing down her throat, over her collarbone, lingering on the soft underside of her breasts before sucking a nipple between his lips.
Soft. Sensual. Worshipful. Keisha’s back arched, fingers sliding into his hair as he moved lower, kissing the soft skin of her stomach, then lower still until his tongue parted her folds and licked her open like he had all night.
She was already wet for him. She always had been.
Malik ate her slow at first, long strokes of his tongue that made her hips roll and soft moans spill from her throat.
Then he got greedier, sucking her clit between his lips, two fingers sliding deep and curling until she was gasping his name.
The wet sounds filled the quiet apartment.
She came the first time with her thighs clamped around his head, juices coating his mouth, body trembling.
He rose over her, eyes dark, and pushed inside in one long, deep stroke.
The stretch made her cry out. He filled her the way he always had, thick and familiar, and for a moment it was only heat and memory.
He moved slow, rolling his hips, kissing her while he fucked her deep and steady.
Soft. Sensual. The kind of sex that felt like coming home and sinning at the same time.
Then something shifted.
Malik’s hands tightened on her thighs. He pushed her knees higher, almost to her chest, and started slamming into her. Hard. Rough. The bed frame knocked the wall. Her tits bounced with every thrust. The wet slap of skin on skin turned filthy and loud.
“You kept giving me this pussy the whole time he was locked up,” he growled against her ear, pounding deeper. “Even after he stole you. Even after he put a ring on it in his head. You never stopped coming back to me.”
Keisha moaned, nails digging into his back. “I-fuck-Malik,”
“The night he walked in on you and Rico?” He laughed, low and bitter, still thrusting hard. “That was you trying to make me jealous. You thought I was watching. You thought he was still sitting in that cell. You never expected the real king to come home early.”
She came again under the rough rhythm, walls clamping down around him, a broken cry leaving her throat. Malik fucked her through it, relentless, until her legs shook and her pussy was cream and squirt all over his dick and the sheets.
Only then did he slow, staying buried deep, breathing hard against her neck.