Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Beauty in the beast’s house.
Beauty demanding answers.
Beauty with no idea the house has teeth.
Maybe she should be afraid of me. Maybe that would save her.
But it’s too late for maybe.
Nathaniel lifts his glass again. “What exactly do you intend to do?”
I think of Delaney standing in her apartment.
I think of the old tale everyone gets wrong. The beast is never dangerous because he’s ugly. He’s dangerous because he’s starving. Because once he loves something, he wants it inside the walls where nothing can take it.
Mine is not a noble instinct. It is ancient. Male. Brutal.
I want her away from this. I want her out of reach. I want her where no one can touch her.
I want, and want is a bad place for a man like me.
I step past my brother and toward the door but then stop and look back.
His green eyes are fixed on me.
“Call her my weakness again,” I say, my voice low, “and I’ll show you exactly how strong I am.”
16
DELANEY
I don’t sleep.
I lie in my bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, replaying everything.
The apartment.
The drawers.
The blanket.
The way the air felt wrong before I even knew why.
And then—
Him.
Samson Vexley.
His voice. His body. The heat of him closing in, taking up space.
My heart races just thinking about it.
I roll onto my side and press my face into the pillow.
He was here for minutes. Maybe less. But he left something behind.
I push myself up, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and check the time.
4:12 a.m.
Too early to call anyone. Too early to pretend this is a normal day.
But perfect for working.
I grab my laptop from the nightstand and fire it up. But working in bed feels all wrong. I rise, walk to the kitchen, bypassing my desk where I usually work, and set the computer on the kitchen table.
I open my notes on the contractor. High-end security installations. Private clients. Money moving through channels that look clean. Licensing boards. Public filings. Corporate registrations.
At first, it looks like nothing.
Then it starts to look like something.
Names repeat.
Not the same names—it’s never that obvious—but similar structures. Same registered agent. Same formation patterns. Same quiet dissolutions followed by new entities that pick up exactly where the last one left off.
A network that’s not big enough to attract attention, but not small enough to be accidental. I pull up a spreadsheet and map it out, linking entities, dates, directors.
And then I see it.
A project tied to one of the entities, buried in a line item most people would skip.
Marina redevelopment.
My breath stills.
The year matches.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the screen as the pieces start to slide into place.
Halstead died at the marina.
That’s not new.
What is new is that these companies don’t just build things. They show up where things need to be managed.
And they were there.
At the marina.
The same year Halstead was.
I press my fingers to my temple.
Halstead wasn’t a random man in the wrong place. He was an investigator. He followed problems.
Which means…
My stomach churns.
He didn’t just end up there. He was looking at something. Something tied to this. Something tied to them.
I stare back at the screen.
If he was close enough to land inside their system, close enough to show up where they operate…
Then this wasn’t a fight that went too far.
It was a man who got too close.
And someone made sure he didn’t walk away.
I go back to the spreadsheet and widen the scope. Legal filings. Permits. Insurance. Who handled liability. Who cleaned it up.
That’s where mistakes happen. In the aftermath.
I lose track of time.
The sky outside my window shifts from black to gray to the pale blue of early morning, and I’m still at the table, still clicking, still pulling threads that lead somewhere I can’t quite see yet.
But I’m closer.
And then—
I stop.
Not because I hit a wall but because something clicks into place.
The same registered agent tied to two of the shell companies shows up in a completely different context.
Legal representation.
I open the file and scan the names.
And there—
Not Vexley.
Not directly.
But close enough to feel it.
A firm that handles quiet problems. A firm that specializes in things going away without ever being called what they are.
My pulse picks up again.
This is bigger than I thought.
Not just one night.
Not just one death.
I sit back and let that settle.
This is where a normal person would stop.
Where a normal person would look at this and think it’s not worth it. This was fifteen years ago, and it’s too big, too dangerous.
I think about my apartment being searched.
I think about Samson standing in my space like he owned it.
Like he owned me.
If anything, that pushes me forward.
Because whoever came into my home didn’t take anything. They didn’t need to. They wanted me to feel it. To understand that I’m being watched.
Fine.
Then I’ll make sure they don’t like what they see.