Chapter 14
Jeremiah’s gaze sharpened like a blade finding its edge. “I killed the man who ordered that first shipment. He was my cousin. I buried him myself.”
I blinked. “You’re proud of that?”
“No. I just don’t lose sleep over justice.”
He finished loading the last magazine and stood, taller than I remembered from the first meeting, broader now in the dim warehouse light. There was something unreadable in his eyes… not attraction, not pity… but recognition. The kind that sees the ruin in someone else and doesn‘ flinch.
“I’ve worked with ghosts before, Aria,” he said. “But you… you walk like you’re still on fire.”
I didn’t look away. “That’s because I am.”
We both stared each other down like we were waiting to see who’d flinch first, who’d surrende who’d fall back. But no one did.
And somehow, that was the closest thing to trust we’d ever get.
He turned toward the exit, grabbing the key for the armored vehicle. ‘Let’s go,” he said. “If we’re lucky, we end this shipment tonight.”
‘And if we’re not?” I asked.
He didn’t stop walking. “Then we bury another piece of their empire.”
followed him out without hesitation. Because for the first time in a long, long time… I wasn’t walking behind a man.
was walking beside one.
After
my mission with Jeremiah, I barely had time to breathe before the world punched me in the Jut again.
was drying blood off my boots when Peter walked in, phone in hand, a strange expression on nis face. His mouth was tight, but his eyes were already rolling.
‘Don’t kill me,” he said flatly, “but you need to see this.”
He tossed the phone toward me and walked out like he wanted no part of it.
tapped the screen.
And there it was.
Elodie. In white lace again. Her favorite shade of pity–washed purity. Flanked by cameras and microphones, with Harvick right beside her. Or rather Jeremiah, as he still insisted.
She was crying. Of course she was.
And right there, in front of every goddamn screen on the continent, she clutched her stomach and whispered like it was the second coming.
“I’m pregnant.”
4:49 pm
My chest didn’t rise. It didn’t fall. It just stopped.
I couldn’t look away even as my vision blurred.
Then she smiled sweetly, wiped a fake tear, and continued, “Doctors thought I wouldn’t make it but my husband… he found someone. A specialist. We’re fighting this together. This child… this child gave me hope again.”
She turned to him, clutched his hand like she owned it, and added, “We’re going to have a future now. A family. Just like we dreamed.”
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.
He leaned in and kissed her temple.
I let the phone slide from my hand onto the table.
And I laughed.
Laughed so bitterly it cut my throat on the way out.
Peter stepped back in with two glasses of whiskey. He placed one in front of me and said, “Tc the greatest performance since Danica’s death.”
Jeremiah came in behind him, shirt slightly open and scarred knuckles still healing from the fight earlier.
He took one look at the paused video on the screen and snorted.
‘I’ve seen cartel wives fake miscarriages for property,” he muttered. “This? This is next level.”
‘She’s good,” I said quietly, gripping the glass. “I’ll give her that.”
‘No,” Jeremiah said, walking over, “she’s desperate. And that’s different. Desperate women li louder.”
Peter raised his glass and said, “To miracles.”
I clinked my glass with his but didn’t drink. Just stared at the frozen image on screen. Harvick’s hand on her waist. Her smile like a loaded gun.
‘She’s going to milk this for everything,” I said. “The sympathy. The headlines. The Ferrante money. And he’ll let her.”
‘He already is,” Jeremiah said. “He picked his prison. Now he’s decorating the walls.”
I turned to him. “You think she’s really pregnant?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman swapped test kits and paid off an OB–GYN.”
Peter leaned forward, voice low. “It doesn’t matter. Truth or lie, she’s got her claws sunk in now And Harvick’s neck is already bleeding.”
I said nothing.
Because they were right.
I poured the rest of my whiskey down my throat and slammed the glass on the table.
Let the world call it a miracle. Let them swoon over their second–chance romance.
Because behind the cameras and lace and trembling hands…
Was rot.
Charter 14
4:49 pm D
And I was done mourning what died.
I was going to burn what lived.
I stayed at the rooftop that night when the wind cut through my skin like it knew what I’d done- what I’d survived.
The sky over Nerona was heavy, dark, and quiet. Just the way I liked it. No cameras. No fake pregnancies. No Harvick pretending to be his own brother while wrapping himself around the same woman who’d helped destroy me. Just silence. And the weight of everything I hadn’t said. I didn’t hear him at first, not until I saw the flicker of a lighter behind me.
Jeremiah stepped beside me, lit a cigarette, and looked out over the city like it owed him blood.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he muttered.
I didn’t look at him. “You always smoke after killing people?”
He exhaled slow. “No. This one’s for what I haven’t killed yet.”
I scoffed and said nothing.
The silence between us stretched. Tense. Familiar. Two wolves circling each other, waiting fo
who’d strike first.
Then, finally, he broke it.
‘If
you want him dead,” he said, voice flat, “I’ll do it.”
turned to him slowly.
Jeremiah stared straight ahead, calm like he wasn’t talking about executing his own blood.
‘I’m not his brother anymore. Haven’t been since our father tried to pit us against each other like
abid dogs,” he said. “Harvick chose the family name. I chose freedom.”
tilted my head, the words curling bitter inside my throat. “I don’t want him dead, Cassian.”
He looked at me then. Really looked.
stepped closer and said, voice low and steady, “I want him empty. Like he left me.”
Jeremiah’s eyes darkened.
