Page 135 of Mystic's Sunrise

“She always this quiet?” Lopez asked, amusement lacing his words.

Drago smirked. “She knows her place.”

A slow ripple of laughter moved through the men at the table, smug and cruel. My stomach churned, but I didn’t react. I’d learned long ago that showing anything—fear, disgust, even hope—was a mistake.

“She’s beautiful,” Lopez said after a beat, his tone considering. “Foreign?”

Drago’s arm curled around my waist, dragging me closer to his side. “She’s mine,” he said, voice hard.

Lopez nodded, the smirk never leaving his face. He didn’t push it. The conversation slid back to business—money, threats,timelines—all dressed up in polite words and velvet voices. A deadly dance of power.

I stared at my reflection in the polished wood of the table, the lines of my face distorted in the gloss. I forced my breathing to stay even. I didn’t belong here.

Then Lopez’s tone shifted, just slightly. “Word is, your last route was hit. Product lost. Men dead. That wasn’t just a ‘setback,’ Drago.”

Drago’s jaw tensed. “The Devil’s House MC had a hand in it. They seem to think we’re fucking scared of them.”

Lopez raised a brow, unimpressed. “Then you make an example out of them. Fast.”

“We’re already planning something,” Drago snarled, his grip on my leg getting even tighter. “They’ll learn not to touch what’s ours.”

My heart dropped.

The Devil’s House MC.

They were talking about hurting them—him.

I stared harder at the table, willing my face to stay blank. But my mind was spiraling. I could still hear his laugh in the back of my head, the quiet way he said my name when we came together in bed. I was so angry at him for lying. For breaking what little trust I’d scraped together.

But that didn’t mean I wanted him dead.

Even while anger burned in me like a slow fire, the thought of someone putting a bullet in him made my lungs tighten. I still loved him.

I closed my eyes for half a second, just long enough to see Mystic. The way his eyes softened when he looked at me. The gentleness in hands that had known nothing but violence. The quiet way he made me feel safe when I should have been too broken to believe it.

A hollow ache bloomed in my chest. I missed him. But how could I ever trust him again? How could I warn him?

Even now, chained to Drago’s side like a pet, I still wasn’t sure which betrayal cut deeper.

“You’ll keep me informed,” Lopez said to Drago, lifting his glass in a silent toast. But then, just before he took a sip, he turned his head—just slightly—and looked at me again. Not at my face.

At my throat.

His gaze lingered there, cold and clinical, before sliding back up to meet my eyes. He smiled, slow and empty. Like he’d just imagined how easily he could kill me.

I swallowed hard, blood thudding in my ears. That look, it wasn’t lust. It wasn’t curiosity. It was calculation.

Lopez didn’t see me as a woman. He saw me as leverage. Before I could look away, the hush of movement drew my eye.

A side door opened near the far end of the room. A young woman stepped out, flanked by two men in suits. She was delicate in a way that looked out of place here. She was also beautiful. Her eyes stayed down, one hand lightly touching the back of a boy who looked about ten. A girl, maybe eight, clung to the woman’s other side, her fingers curled tightly around her dress. She seemed too young to be their mother.

They crossed the room without a word, ushered toward another door by the suited men. Lopez noticed but no one else at the table even glanced their way, his men seeming to know better.

I didn’t know who they were. But I knew what it felt like to walk quietly, to be guided with a hand on your back that didn’t offer comfort but control. They moved like ghosts. And something told me... they weren’t allowed to leave.

Lopez watched them, his eyes focused on the woman as she crossed the room. A flicker of something passed through hisexpression—possessiveness—strangely a softness out of place at this table—with this man.

Then it was gone. He looked back at Drago and kept talking as if nothing had happened.