Page 3 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Jaxson

The room was quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that brought peace—but the kind that followed catastrophe.

Thick. Stale. Still.

I hadn’t moved from the leather chair in hours. Maybe longer. Time didn’t hold shape anymore. Not since… not since she stopped breathing.

The fire crackled, untouched. A glass of whiskey sat sweating in my hand, forgotten. And spread across the coffee table in front of me—headlines.

“Hundreds of Sinclair-Owned Properties Hit Auction Block in Sudden Liquidation.”

“Corporate Powerhouse Sinclair Holdings Begins Silent Sell-Off.”

“Sinclair Real Estate Empire Begins Unraveling – No Comment from Leadership.”

“Private Bidders Swarm High-Profile Portfolio Dispersal.”

“Sinclair: A Silent Fall.”

All of it. Every word. Every photo. Every carefully placed headline meant to spin chaos from the truth—I had done that.

She’d lied when she said she gave away the money. I knew it was a lie the second the words left her mouth. I heard the bluff buried beneath the bravery, the shake she tried to hide behind conviction.

She wasn’t trying to sell him the truth.

She was trying to sell enough time.

And I played along.

But after her body fell and never rose again—I didn’t wait for signs or miracles.

I didn’t ask for confirmation from Ben or anyone else.

I didn’t need it. I cut it all off.

Every bank. Every asset. Every shell company Bruce had been a part of. I buried them with him. Froze the accounts. Pulled every fucking string I had. I ended it.

The silence that followed… it wasn’t peace.

It was a void.

The world didn’t make sense anymore. The sun rose, but there was no warmth in it. Days bled into nights with no distinction, just a slow unraveling of time where nothing held shape. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept more than an hour.

Couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Or cared.

Food tasted like dust. Voices were background noise.

The only thing I could feel was the weight of her absence.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her.

Not the way she smiled. Not the way she used to look at me like I was worth saving.

No—I saw her as she fell.

I saw the blood that matted her hair, soaking into her skin. I saw the way her body hit the ground. The way her eyes found mine—wild, pleading, full of truth—before they lost their light.

That was the last time I saw her .

And now, that was all I could see.

I ran a hand down my face, gripping the back of my neck like pressure alone could hold me together. But it didn’t. Nothing could.

Not without her.

Because if Savannah Sinclair had to die for this…

Then everything she owned was going with her.

My jaw clenched. I ran a hand down my face again, gripping the back of my neck like I could hold myself together by force.

She was gone.

She was gone .

The woman who unraveled me. Who stood in front of a bullet and smiled like she’d found peace in dying for something real.

I closed my eyes. Saw her face. Blood in her hair. A whisper on her lips.

“I’ll always love you.”

She never heard the words leave my mouth. She was gone before I could say them.

My eyes opened again, stinging.

A fresh headline stared up at me.

Not a newspaper I recognized—foreign, maybe. Different paper. Thinner. Dull ink.

But something caught my eye. Red.

A streak of red ink across the photo of the Sinclair estate. Not printed. Drawn.

I knew this wasn’t over. Where there was one Bruce Starling, there was more.

There—across the bottom of the page, scratched in thick, red marker:

“ You took something from me. Now I’ll take everything from you.

The war has only just begun.”

I tossed back the last of the watered-down whiskey I was holding before slamming the glass into the wall across from me.

It hit with a sound that split the silence wide open—sharp, shattering, violent. Like a gunshot in a church. Fractured glass exploded outward in a fan of glittering debris, catching the low light from the fire like a thousand tiny screams frozen midair.

Amber liquid streaked down the wall in slow, jagged trails, dripping into the grooves of the wood paneling like blood sliding off skin.

Blood .

For a second, I just watched it.

The truth was, I never minded fighting battles that weren’t mine. Hell, most of my life had been built on carrying other people’s burdens.

But this?

This wasn’t a battle.

This was a graveyard.

And the woman I loved was about to have the first tombstone. And then there would be nothing left worth fighting for.

Whoever wrote this had no idea what Bruce stole from me.

In the blink of an eye—before I even understood what was happening, he took my entire world.

And she let him.

She never flinched as the bullet gravitated toward her. Like it was her choice to make. Like she’d already made peace with dying.

She chose my life over hers.

A choice that should’ve been mine.

I stared down at the paper, the words etched in red and tried not to imagine it being her blood they were written in.

You took something from me…

If Bruce was something worth saving to someone, I’d do it all over again.

My phone buzzed, but I ignored it.

It buzzed again.

I reached for it without thinking, answering the call. “What?” I barked into the phone, not caring who was on the other end.

There was a pause.

I looked at the screen of my phone before swiping to answer.

“What is it, Ben?” A little gentler this time. If gentle was what you could call a man that was dripping with anger and heartache.

“She moved,” he said.

My blood went cold. “She what?” I sat up a little straighter, sobering a little more.

“Savannah moved. Her fingers twitched and she tried to talk. Millie said she mouthed something.”

I stood. Fast.

The chair tipped backward and hit the floor with a crack.

“She spoke?”

“Not out loud,” Ben said quickly. “She’s still on the vent. But she tried. She opened her eyes. It wasn’t just a reflex. She was there.”

My vision blurred. I wiped my face, moisture coating my fingers. “Is she awake now?”

“No. Not fully. But it’s something. And the nurse is calling the doctor.”

I turned in a slow circle, my hand shaking. My gaze landed on the broken glass again—on the streaks down the wall. “I thought she was gone.”

Ben’s voice dropped. “So did I.”

I dragged a hand through my hair, staring at the mess around me. “Where are you?”

“Her room. I’m by the window.”

“You need to step out,” I said quietly. “Millie can’t hear this.”

There was a pause. Then rustling—fabric shifting, maybe his coat. A soft, muffled voice in the background.

“I’ll be right back,” Ben murmured, too low to be meant for me.

Another pause. A quiet click as the door shut. Then wind.

When he spoke again, his voice was tighter. Sharper.

“I’m in the hallway.”

I exhaled. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to hide anything else from her. She’s watching everything. Listening to every shift in tone.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I hesitated, eyes dropping back to the paper in front of me, the red ink bleeding across Savannah’s estate like a wound that wouldn’t close.

“There’s something you need to know.”

“What?”

“Someone left a newspaper here. Foreign. Thinner print, different texture. I don’t recognize the outlet, but it was delivered to me directly. No return address. No tracking.”

Ben didn’t interrupt.

“It had one of the headlines about Sinclair’s real estate falling apart, liquidation underway. But across the bottom… someone had written in red ink. Not printed. Written. ”

“What did it say?”

My hand curled into a fist. My jaw clenched as I recited it from memory. Because it was already burned into me.

“You took something from me. Now I’ll take everything from you. The war has only just begun.”

Ben exhaled slowly, but said nothing.

“It’s not just some lunatic,” I said. “It was deliberate. Direct. This was sent to me, Ben. They know where I am. And they know what I did.”

“We always knew Bruce wasn’t working alone.”

“Yeah. But now they’re circling.”

Another silence stretched between us.

“You need to be careful,” Ben finally said. “This doesn’t stop with her waking up.”

“No,” I muttered. “This is where it starts.”

I was already moving. Phone still pressed to my ear, I headed toward the bedroom, grabbing clean clothes from the dresser and tossing them on the bed.

“I’m not asking if I can come,” I said. “I’m telling you, I’ll be there.”

Ben sighed. “They might not let you in. They’re still pissed.”

“I don’t care. I’m sober. I’m clear. And if she’s waking up, I’m not wasting another second sitting here waiting for someone to tell me it’s okay.”

“You said that last time.”

“I mean it this time.”

I shoved my legs into a pair of jeans and grabbed a fresh shirt, yanking it over my head. The mirror beside me caught a glimpse of my face—drawn, tired, haunted. But my eyes? They were different now. Focused. Alive.

I grabbed the small box on the dresser and stuffed it into my pocket. A silent prayer I’d need it.

“She’s fighting to live,” I said quietly. “I’m not letting her wake up alone.”

Ben didn’t respond right away. Just the sound of wind on the line. Then finally— “Then get here.”

I ran towards the front door and grabbed my keys off the counter, ignoring the room I passed that held scattered headlines and the smear of whiskey that still stained the floor like a crime scene. I paused at the door, saying a little prayer to whatever god was listening.

“Hold on for me, Vannah,” I whispered to the silence. “I’m coming.”

I slid into the driver’s seat and didn’t even wait to start the engine before thumbing through my contacts.

Nic.

I hit call.

She answered on the second ring. “Tell me you’re not calling to ask for a favor right now.”

“She moved,” I said, skipping past the greeting. “Eyes opened. Tried to talk. They think she’s coming back.”

Silence. Then a sharp exhale. “Holy shit.”

“But listen—” I started the car with one hand, shifting into gear. “Someone left a newspaper at the house. No return address. Foreign. With a message written in red ink.”

“Handwritten?” she asked, voice sharpening.

“Yeah. It said: You took something from me. Now I’ll take everything from you. The war has only just begun .”

“Jesus.” She was already typing. I could hear the clicks in the background. “Where is it now?”

“My place. On the coffee table in my office. I need you to go now. Grab anything that might have prints or fibers.”

“You think they got inside?”

“Not sure. Doesn’t matter. It was delivered. That’s close enough. Check the cameras, too.”

“Understood,” she clipped out. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“I’ll be at the hospital. Savannah might wake up, and I’m not letting her do it alone.”

“You want updates?”

“Text first. Millie’s there. I don’t want to risk her overhearing anything yet.”

“Copy. Go. I’ve got it from here.”

I ended the call and tossed the phone in the cupholder as I pulled into the street. The tires gripped hard as I took the corner faster than I should have. But for the first time in days, I wasn’t running from anything.

I was running to my everything.