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A deadly click echoes in the air.

He’s disengaged the safety.

Ethan throws himself across the floor in front of me, his hands and legs still bound. “Lexy, go!” he mumbles through his gag.

My eyes burn. He’s still trying to save me.

He spent a decade waiting for me, a decade loving me when he could’ve moved on.

I won’t abandon him now.

Slowly, I raise my hands in the air. “Trey, we can talk through this.”

“I wish you didn’t wake up,” Trey mutters, hurling a hateful glare at me. “Ethan was investigating—I knew that, I was part of it, but he wasn’t desperate like a man possessed until he found the link to Dayton. And you know why?”

At my silence, he continues, “Heneededto protect you. The Andersons don’t care about the millions they’ve lost. It’s loose change to them. Butyou,” he spits out the word in disdain, “you’re precious to him. Irreplaceable. At the thought of you being in danger, Ethan pulled all the stops, even enlisting the help oftheElias Kent. And who the hell wants Elias’s wrath?”

Trey barks out a deranged laugh and shakes his head. “Even The Association is wary of Elias. The man holds too many secrets. Time’s running out. There are only so many ways someone can embezzle from a company. Elias has already started poking around in the HR files. It’s only a matter of time before this useless prick,” he jabs his thumb at Dayton, “will crack and give me up.”

“Butwhy?”

Buy us time. A few more minutes. Rescue is coming.

I try to convey those thoughts to Ethan with my gaze, but the man I love shakes his head vehemently, his eyes darting to the door, pleading at me to leave.

Trey’s hand trembles, the barrel of his gun wavering. My breathing is thready as my attention rivets on the weapon that may very well end our lives tonight.

“The Association has invited The Andersons and your family to join them for years.Years. But you all resisted. Your grandmother, Charles, and the great Linus Anderson and his impeccable children have too much honor and pride to join the ranks of other powerful businessmen and politicians in the plan to reshape the world as we know it.No onedefies The Association.”

He leans down and pistol whips Ethan’s jaw and I shriek, watching the blood oozing from his lips.

“They got to me when I stole the first ten thousand to shut my ex up during our divorce. She was threatening to air out some dirty secrets I had.” Trey shakes his head.

“I was supposed to help them with one transfer, but I was too naïve. Like the idiot over there who unfortunately caughtmy attention with his up and coming mutual fund, promising returns that were unheard of. Too damn good to be true.” Trey glares at Dayton. “I dug around and found his connection to you and Charles. I told The Association I could get them in the door with your family—that I’d do them a favor in exchange for them destroying the evidence they had on me.”

Trey snarls. “But there’s no such thing as one favor for The Association. Once you’re in, you can’t get out…unless you’re in a body bag. Ever since then, I was at their mercy—moving funds, doing whatever they asked me to do. A pathetic lackey.”

Ethan grunts in the background, and I know he’s trying to escape. I step in front of him, blocking Trey’s view.

Trey adjusts his grip on the gun, his face mottled as he reflects on the past. I can’t believe this is the same guy we all joked with in the office. The guy who took my dinner order in Ethan’s office.

“For the last ten years, I was instructed to dirty Fleur up for them. Infiltrate. Destroy it from within. If I said no, all the evidence of the embezzlement—among other illegal things—would be aired out. It’d be life behind bars. But you know what? If I couldn’t escape, I might as well get rich doing bad shit, right? The end goal is to leave Fleur—and your family’s bank—with no choice but to join us.”

He towers over me, his eyes maniacal. “Do you know those funds we siphoned off Fleur’s accounts were used to traffic women? All in the name of the precious Vaughn’s Bank of Columbia Equitable Investment Fund? There’s a paper trail miles long implicating Fleur and BoC in this shit?”

Ethan stills behind me, and despite his disadvantaged position on the ground, I feel the wrath wafting off him. Without a doubt, if he were unbound, he’d kill Trey.

Trey tsks. “Ethan, I wish things ended differently. I enjoyed working with you. But you stuck your nose where you didn’t belong. And it appears,” he glances at me, “the woman you love has the same problem as you.”

He cocks his head to the side and steps closer to me. “Why didn’t you die the first time?”

“T-The first time?”

“Still don’t get it? Your little party in the Hudson ten years ago… Who did you think gave you that send-off? Knowing you couldn’t swim?”

My mind swirls, trying to process his words. My car plummeting into the Hudson wasn’t an accident, that much I already figured out, but then his comment about me not being able to swim.

I whip my head toward Dayton, who hangs his head, not looking at me.