Chapter 7 - Unraveling the Web
By 4:00 a.m., the smoke had cleared, and the east wing was locked down tighter than a federal penitentiary. Two of the mercenaries were dead; the third was currently tied to a steel chair in the lower-level interrogation room, screaming under Gabriel’s enthusiastic brand of persuasion.
I sat on the edge of a leather sofa in Damian’s study, clutching a cup of hot chamomile tea that my shaking hands could barely hold. My clothes were covered in soot, and my palms were scraped raw from the debris, but I was alive.
The heavy door swung open, and Damian walked in. He looked like an angel of death wrapped in combat gear, his expression thunderous. He pulled up a chair directly in front of me, sitting down and taking the teacup gently out of my hands to set it aside.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his dark eyes scanning every inch of me for hidden injuries.
“I’m fine,” I whispered. “Really. Just... shaken.”
Damian let out a long, ragged breath, running a hand through his dark hair. “That bronze paperweight you threw... you saved my life, Harper.”
“I learned a few things about survival back in Milwaukee,” I murmured, a faint, humorless smile touching my lips. “Besides, you saved mine first. We’re even now.”
Damian’s expression softened, an intense, burning warmth flaring in his dark eyes. He reached out, his calloused fingertips gently tracing the line of my jaw, tilting my face up so I had no choice but to look into his eyes.
“We are never going to be even, Harper,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, husky register that made my pulse race. “Because from the moment I saw you working in this house, I knew my life was never going to be the same.”
Before I could process the words, the door opened again, and Gabriel stepped inside, holding a shattered tablet computer.
“We got everything out of the survivor,” Gabriel announced, ignoring the romantic tension thick enough to cut with a knife. “And Victor spilled his guts before we even had to ask twice. The hit squad wasn't sent by a rival Chicago syndicate.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed into lethal slits. “Then who?”
Gabriel hesitated, glancing at me before answering. “It was ordered by a man named Tyler Bennett. He tracked your digital footprint across state lines, Harper. He found out you were working here, and he paid a fortune to orchestrate the whole thing to get you back—or destroy you if he couldn't have you.”
The tea cup slipped from my fingers, shattering against the floor.
My breath stopped. Tyler. He had found me. Even across states, his toxic shadow had followed me, turning a Chicago mafia warzone into a personal vendetta against my life.
Damian stood up slowly. The air in the room grew suffocatingly heavy, charged with a primal, terrifying rage.
May you like
“Gabriel,” Damian’s voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried the weight of an executioner’s axe.
“Already on it,” Gabriel replied grimly, tapping his tactical comms unit. “A strike team is airborne to Milwaukee right now. By sunrise, Tyler Bennett won't even have a name left to use.”
