Chapter 3
Friday afternoon, Clara moved through her apartment with mechanical efficiency. She had forty-eight hours before Gabriel realized she wasn’t coming back on Monday. By the time he connected the dots, she needed to be entirely untraceable.
She had a burner phone. Three fake IDs curated over the years for company emergencies. And a stash of hard cash hidden inside a hollowed-out encyclopedia on her bookshelf. Sixty thousand dollars. Enough to disappear, reestablish herself in a mid-sized European city, and never look at a spreadsheet again.
She zipped the duffel bag closed. She looked around the small, sterile apartment. She hadn’t bothered to decorate it over the years. It was just a place to sleep between shifts at the syndicate. There was nothing here to miss.
She grabbed her laptop to do one final sweep of her digital footprint. She needed to transfer a small legitimate severance from her main checking account to an offshore shell — just to cover immediate travel expenses without touching the cash yet.
She logged into her banking portal.
Error. Account suspended. Please contact your branch manager.
Clara stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. She clicked refresh. The red text glared back at her. A cold sweat broke out on her neck. She quickly opened a new tab and logged into her secondary account at a different bank.
Error. Access denied. Fraud alert triggered.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. She checked her credit cards. Frozen. She logged into the airline portal to verify her 9:00 p.m. flight out of O’Hare to Heathrow.
Reservation cancelled.
Clara stared at the screen. The dull ache behind her ribs sharpened into a frantic, pulsing panic. She stood up, knocking the chair backward. It hit the hardwood floor with a loud crack.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew Gabriel had reach. But to coordinate a total financial freeze across four different institutions and an international airline in the span of six hours — that wasn’t just power. That was focused, calculated obsession.
She grabbed her duffel bag. The cash. She still had the cash. She could take a bus, a train — anything that didn’t require digital verification. She slung the heavy strap over her shoulder and moved toward the front door. She reached for the deadbolt.
Before her fingers could touch the brass, she heard the distinct, heavy click of a key turning in the lock from the outside.
Clara froze.
She stepped back as the door swung open.
Gabriel stood in the doorway. He had shed the suit jacket and the tie. He was just wearing the white button-down, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark ink of the syndicate tattoos wrapping around his wrists. He held a small silver key in his hand. Her spare key — the one she kept locked in a secure box at the office for emergencies.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The click of the lock echoing in the quiet apartment sounded like a vault slamming shut.
Gabriel looked at her. He looked at the heavy duffel bag strapped across her chest. He looked at the overturned chair by the desk. He didn’t look angry. He looked profoundly disappointed.
“Where are you going, Clara?” he asked. His voice was soft, reasonable, and terrifying.
“You froze my accounts,” she said, her voice shaking slightly despite her best efforts. “You cancelled my flight.”
“You tried to run,” he corrected gently, walking further into the room. He tossed her spare key onto the kitchen counter. It landed with a sharp clatter. “After I explicitly told you to take the weekend and rest, you decided to pack a bag and book a flight to London under a false name.”
“How did you know?”
“I know everything.” Gabriel said simply. “I know about the sixty grand in the hollowed-out book. I know about the burner phone in your coat pocket. I built the security infrastructure you use to hide things, Clara. Did you really think you could hide from me using my own tools?”
Clara dropped the duffel bag. It hit the floor heavily. “Let me go, Gabriel. You have your merger. You have Isabella. I gave you four years of my life. I gave you everything. We are square.”
Gabriel stopped a few feet away from her. The exhaustion from the morning was gone, replaced by a cold, predatory focus. He reached out and grabbed her chin, his grip firm but not bruising. He tilted her face up to force her to look into his eyes.
“Square,” he repeated, the word dripping with quiet venom. “You think this is a ledger? You think you can balance the books and walk away from me?”
“I don’t belong here anymore,” Clara whispered, hating the way her voice broke. Hating the way her body betrayed her, leaning into his touch even now.
Gabriel’s thumb stroked her cheekbone — a gesture so tender it felt violently out of place. “You don’t get to decide where you belong. Not anymore.”
He stepped closer, his chest brushing against hers, backing her slowly toward the wall. “Isabella is business. A name on a contract to keep the peace. You know this.”
“I don’t care!” Clara fired back, finally finding her anger. “I don’t care if she’s a saint or a business deal. I will not stand in the shadows and clean the blood off your hands while you play house with a mafia princess.”
Gabriel’s eyes darkened. The calm facade cracked, revealing the raw, possessive violence underneath. He pressed her back against the wall, crowding her, making sure she felt the sheer physical difference between them.
“You think I’m letting you walk out that door?” Gabriel’s voice dropped to a rough whisper, his face inches from hers. “You know where the bodies are buried, Clara, because you handed me the shovel. You think I’m going to let you take a flight to London and disappear?”
“Then kill me,” she challenged, staring up at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Because that’s the only way I’m staying.”
Gabriel laughed — a dark, breathless sound that held no humor. He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’m not going to kill you, Clara. And you’re not going to leave.”
May you like
He moved one hand down to rest on the pulse point at her neck, feeling the frantic, terrified rhythm of her heartbeat. “You are mine. The contract never had an expiration date. You’re just going to have to learn how to share the world I’m building. Or I will lock you in a cage so high no one will ever find you.”
He stepped back, adjusting his cuffs with terrifying nonchalance. “Unpack your bag. We have a dinner to attend.”
