Chapter 21
They Touched a Fuse.
Asher
The glass in my hand sweats cold against my palm as I stare out over the city, Manhattan spread beneath me in clean lines and glittering lights that pretend order exists. Normally, this is when I’d have her pulled up on one of the monitors. Normally, I’d be watching.
Tonight, I didn’t.
I told myself it was restraint. That after showing up at her apartment—after crossing that line—I needed to pull back. That watching her today would turn into justification, into control dressed up as concern. I don’t like not knowing where she is. I like it even less knowing I chose not to look.
The ice rattles as I pour more whiskey, the sound sharp in the quiet. I lift the glass, just as the door opens behind me.
Maverick doesn’t announce himself. He never does. He leans against the frame instead, arms folded, and expression already set like he knows exactly how this is about to go wrong.
“Don’t,” he says.
I don’t turn. “Don’t what.”
He finally looks at me. “Check the feeds.”
That gets my attention. I look at him then, really look—and see it. The tension. The tightness around his eyes. The way he hasn’t taken his phone out yet, like he knows once he does, something detonates.
My jaw tightens. “Why.”
Mav exhales through his nose. “Because if you see it before I finish saying it, you’re going to lose your temper.”
I don’t smile. I don’t blink. “Try me.”
He hesitates just long enough to confirm my suspicion. “NYPD picked her up this morning.”
The room tilts.
The words land wrong, like they don’t belong together. “Picked who up.”
“Violet.” His voice stays level, professional, like he’s briefing a hostile op. “Questioning. Precinct in Manhattan. She was there for two hours.”
For a beat, everything goes very still.
Then my grip tightens.
The glass fractures in my hand with a sharp crack, whiskey spills across the floor, and blood follows, but the pain barely registers beneath the surge of fury that rips through me.
“They did what?” My voice is calm in the way it gets right before people die.
Maverick’s jaw flexes. “They questioned her about the Moore girl. Brought her into a Manhattan precinct like she doesn’t exist under our fucking shadow.”
My grip tightens around the broken glass until blood drips onto the carpet.
“This is my territory,” I say quietly. “They know the rules. They know what lines not to cross.”
“They thought you’d stay quiet,” Mav says. “Media pressure. Public optics. Dead socialite. They figured they could poke and see what bled.”
I drop the glass. It shatters against the floor, sharp and loud.
“They should have known better,” I snarl.
Two hours. Two fucking hours of her sitting under fluorescent lights while men who don’t understand the game tried to make her crack. The image comes unbidden—Violet, scared, her hands clenched in her lap the way she does when she’s bracing for impact.
I rake a hand through my hair, pacing now. “Did they touch her.”
“No.”
“Did they threaten her.”
“No.”
“Did they imply—”
“They asked about her alibi,” Maverick cuts in. “They floated the idea that she was the last person to speak to Alessandra Moore.”
The room goes very still.
“She didn’t fold,” he adds. “Didn’t give them anything. They let her go.”
Let her go. Like that makes it acceptable.
I move toward the monitors before I realize I’m doing it, then stop short. I didn’t watch today.
I could have. Every instinct in me wanted to. Instead, I remembered her apartment—the way she flinched when she realized how much I knew. The way she looked at me like I’d rearranged her reality just by standing there.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t be that man. That watching her every move would turn concern into a cage. So I didn’t look.
And while I wasn’t watching, the city decided it could touch her.
“This is because of me,” I say finally.
Maverick doesn’t argue. He never does when it’s the truth.
“This mess put her on their radar,” he says. “Zephyra. The party. The death. They’re fishing, Asher—but fishing still cuts skin.”
I stop pacing. “Rinaldi knew this would happen.”
“Yeah,” Mav agrees. “That’s the point. They wanted heat. They wanted eyes. And they wanted it aimed at you.”
“They used her.”
“They tried to,” Maverick corrects. “Didn’t work.”
I let out a slow breath, the kind that steadies a gun instead of calming a man. I step back toward the desk and pull up the precinct feed anyway. The footage loads, grainy but clear enough.
There she is.
Violet sits rigid in a metal chair, shoulders drawn tight, and hands knotted together in her lap. Her voice isn’t shaking—not much—but her eyes are wide, tracking every movement like she’s waiting for the floor to drop out from under her.
That fear isn’t guilt.
It’s the moment someone realizes the world isn’t safe.
My chest tightens.
I’ve spent days watching her. Memorizing the small things. The way she hums when she cooks. The way she checks on Ella twice before bed, like she needs to see her breathing to sleep. The way she carries everything alone because she thinks she has to.
She shouldn’t be here.
“This isn’t just business,” Maverick says carefully. “And you know it.”
“No,” I admit. “It isn’t.”
He watches me for a long moment. “You can’t burn the city down over a woman.”
I turn to face him, my voice dropping low enough to be dangerous. “She’s not just a woman.”
Silence stretches between us.
“She’s mine,” I finish.
Maverick exhales, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Then we do this smart. Quiet. No trails. No headlines.”
I nod once. “Start cleaning.”
He pulls out his phone without another word, because he knows this is already decided. As he turns to leave, he gestures to my bleeding hand. “You planning on leaving that all over the carpet, or should I call someone to mop up your dramatic bullshit?”
I grab a cloth and wrap it tight, eyes never leaving the screen.
Violet is home now. Back in her apartment. She looks shaken. Smaller than she should. Like she’s still waiting for something to go wrong.
She thinks she’s alone.
She isn’t.
No one touches what’s mine.
And anyone who tried?
They just signed their death warrant.