Page 50

Chapter 49

Seanna

“Well don’t just stand in the doorway,” Javier Reyes drawls, voice rich with casual menace, like a king hosting a dinner party in the middle of a war zone. “Come inside.”

His tone is smooth—cultured even—but there’s something underneath it. Something sharp and coiled. Like a serpent. He’s older than the last surveillance image we had, but age hasn't softened him. His suit was tailored to perfection, all charcoal silk and crisp white lines, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back from a face carved from control and charm.

I step forward automatically, tension crawling down my spine. Bodhi’s still in front of me, Matteo a half-step behind. I feel the press of his hand against my lower back—subtle, anchoring—but it doesn’t stop the flare of fury beginning to ignite behind my eyes.

My gaze cuts to the man beside Javier.

Marcus Vega.

The same man we ID'd from the surveillance footage. Javier’s favorite little lapdog. Errand boy.

Fucking perfect.

Javier wanders further into the open living area like he owns the place. His fingers trail idly across the edge of the kitchen counter as he takes a sip of his whiskey, eyes sweeping the space like he’s judging the decor. Or maybe measuring how much blood it’ll take to stain the floors.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for days,” he says idly, not even looking at us. “Imagine my surprise when I had to search for you. And what do I find? A little house. Tucked away like a secret.”

He pauses as he hears Matteo’s breath catch behind me.

Javier’s dark eyes slide to him.

"You look… familiar." He studies Matteo for a beat, eyes narrowing slightly. “Have we met?”

Matteo doesn’t respond.

But it doesn’t matter. Because Javier’s already bored. Already moving on.

His attention lands on me.

And just like that, the entire room shifts.

He draws his gun.

There’s no dramatic wind-up, no threat shouted in advance. Just the cold press of metal against the side of my head before I even finish a breath.

“Now you I recognize,” he says, almost gently. “And I have to admit—I’m a little concerned. Why would my son be playing house with a DEA agent?”

His voice softens into a mockery of surprise. “Unless… he didn’t know.”

He cocks the gun. I don’t flinch.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you.”

I open my mouth, venom already curled on my tongue—but Bodhi beats me to it.

“She might be pregnant with my heir.”

The words slice through the tension like a fucking guillotine. The gun doesn’t move, but Javier’s gaze flicks toward his son. Bodhi doesn’t blink. Doesn’t back down. He might as well have carved those words in blood.

I freeze.

What the actual fuck— my gaze dart to Bodhi, sharp enough to draw blood, but he looks dead serious. Like he’s sure .

Like it’s true .

My stomach twists. I know it’s not possible— I have an IUD, you absolute lunatic . But then Matteo shifts closer behind me, his body brushing mine.

He knows something.

“Sorry, little storm. We removed the IUD,” he murmurs, barely a breath and only loud enough for my ears.

And now I want to strangle both of them.

The fucking assholes. No, I’m going to kill them. I’m going to stab them in very creative ways.

I grind my teeth so hard my jaw aches.

Looking back to the snake in the room, I see the shift in his focus. The calculation. The possibility.

Legacy .

Fucking hell.

I could see it in his face—the moment the scales tipped. The moment I became less of a threat and more of a pawn.

Javier chuckles, low and dangerous, but he doesn’t lower the gun. “Now that ... changes things.”

He steps back, smiling as if we’re all just sitting down to brunch, but his gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it sharpened.

“If that’s the case,” he murmured, almost indulgent now. “Maybe I won’t shoot you in the face today. Maybe keeping you close is exactly what I need.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“To keep my son in line.”

Bodhi steps forward. “You’re not taking her.”

Javier doesn’t even glance at him. Just moves.

The back of the pistol cracks against Bodhi’s cheekbone so fast it sounds like a firecracker.

The sound echoes—sharp, brutal, final.

Bodhi staggers back a step, blood blooming where the metal splits his skin, and for half a breath I see red. I move .

But I don’t make it far.

Marcus is already there, stepping in smoothly, the cold steel of his own gun now pressed against the base of my throat. His eyes are dead calm, glacier-blue and unforgiving, like he’s not looking at a person—just a problem to be neutralized.

“Don’t,” he says simply.

Javier turns back toward me, smug now. “Good girl,” he purrs. “Let’s go.”

I don’t have a choice. Marcus forces me forward, the gun never leaving my skin, his grip a vice around my arm. I stumble across the cold tiles and out through the open front door, still half-expecting Bodhi or Matteo to charge after me. But they don’t.

I don’t hear anything. Not a word. Not a single step.

The betrayal festers like rot.

Outside, the afternoon air slaps my skin. Two black SUVs near the treeline, the other men climbing in the lead car.

Marcus shoves me into the back of the second one.

The layout catches me off guard. There are three rear facing seats facing the three forward facing. I’m dumped into the rear-facing row, no restraints, but that doesn’t matter.

Javier slides in after me, cool and unhurried, taking one of the forward-facing seats across from me. Marcus drops into another forward seat, gun in hand, barrel resting casually against his thigh but aimed squarely at my chest.

Another man climbs into the front seat, wordless, engine rumbling to life. The other SUV pulls out ahead of us, taking point.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t bang on the fucking glass.

There’s no point.

The trees peel past, and every inch of my body vibrates with rage. I can’t see Bodhi or Matteo. They’re not following. They’re not fucking coming .

“You know,” Javier says, voice low and conversational, “I always imagined my son would disappoint me, but this? Hiding in the woods. Bedding a fed. Playing house with the enemy.” He clucks his tongue. “You’re a very pretty mistake, Seanna. I’ll give him that.”

My glare could strip paint.

“I wonder—” his eyes cut back to me “—did you seduce him before or after he forgot who he belonged to?”

I let the fury burn, deep and quiet. I don't rise to it.

He exhales slowly, as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. “I should’ve known something was wrong when Kingston stopped answering my calls. He’s always been difficult. But this?” His eyes narrow, voice dropping to a razor’s edge. “This is a betrayal.”

A pause.

“I can forgive betrayal from an outsider. A woman with pretty eyes and a badge tucked under her bed. What I don’t understand…” He leans forward slightly, voice almost gentle. “Is why he didn’t put a bullet in your head the moment he found out who you really were.”

I don’t blink. I don’t breathe.

“I have to assume he knows,” Javier murmurs. “Which means he chose this. Chose you .” His head tilts just slightly. “You must be very special.”

Then the corner of his mouth twitches—not a smile. Something uglier. “Or maybe you’re just very good at lying with your legs open.”

The gun aimed at me stays steady.

But my hands curl into fists.

Then— pop .

A sharp sound. Clean. Precise.

The SUV lurches violently left. Tires screech as the vehicle bucks, nose jerking toward the ditch.

“What the fuck—” the driver shouts as I hear the front tire shred, rubber flailing like black ribbons.

Everything spins.

Javier’s hand slaps against the ceiling to brace himself, the world tilts. We’re heading straight for a thick pine trunk. The world tilts as the car jerks to a stop.

And then— bang .

Gunfire. Inside the car.

The sting at my neck comes fast, white-hot, and I flinch, thinking— he shot me . My body braces for collapse.

But I’m still breathing.

I twist, heart hammering, just in time to see Marcus lower the barrel—smoke curling from the muzzle. The driver slumps forward against the wheel, blood spraying across the dash.

He shot past me.

Distant gunshots crack through the trees, echoing wild and sharp like the woods just caught fire with bullets.

Javier curses in Spanish and reaches for the door handle. It flies open, and wind rushes in as he stumbles out.

I lunge.

Fury snaps through me like lightning, and I move, leaping out of the car after him.

My fist collides with his face just as he twists around.

There’s a satisfying crunch. Javier reels back, stunned, blood spraying from his split lip—but he recovers fast. Too fast. He’s raising his gun again—

But Marcus is already between us, blocking my path, his weapon shifting—but not toward me.

“Mátala!” Javier bellows, voice ragged, rage slashing through every syllable. “Kill her!”

Marcus… looks at him.

Then looks at the tree line.

Bodhi and Matteo are emerging slowly from the woods like phantoms, both armed, both calm in that lethal, final way that makes the air go still.

Bodhi’s face is carved from ice. Cold rage.

Javier snarls, blood on his teeth, and snaps his arm up toward me. His finger pulls the trigger with deadly intent.

Click.

Nothing.

The empty, hollow sound rings louder than any gunshot.

His expression fractures.

He looks at the gun. Then at Marcus.

And in that moment, I see it.

Betrayal .

Pure. Guttural. Soul-deep.

He stares at Marcus like the world just cracked open beneath him, disbelief etched in every furious line of his face. As if all his power has just been ripped from his hands—and handed to someone else.

“You—” he chokes, voice strangled.

Marcus doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. He just holds Javier’s gaze with that same dead calm as before.

Bodhi steps forward, slow and deliberate, barrel still trained steady on the man who made him.

Marcus’ head dips toward Bodhi and he says: “Long live the king.”

Javier freezes.

I don’t breathe. My pulse hammers like a war drum.

“You said you wanted him in the ground,” I snap, turning toward them, my fury like a blade between my ribs. “So are you going to shoot him ? Or was that just another fucking lie?!”

Bodhi doesn’t blink. “I do want him dead,” he says, voice low and razor-sharp. “But that honor was never going to be mine.”

Matteo steps up beside him, eyes never leaving Javier. “It was always going to be yours, Seanna.”

My gaze snaps to him. I blink. The words hit harder than I expect.

“What?” I rasp, the fury choking a little on something else—something deeper.

“Our gift to you,” Matteo says.

Bodhi nods, slow and solemn. “He dies by your hand, Seanna. That was always the plan.”

My breath catches, caught somewhere between disbelief and something sharp and aching.

I look at them—both of them. My stalkers. My captors. My monsters.

My kings.

And I realize I fucking love those assholes too.

I reach behind me slowly, fingers curling around the hilt of the blade Matteo strapped there earlier.

The moment my hand closes around it, something in me shifts .

I draw the knife free with one smooth, practiced motion.

Javier watches me, panting, blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes widen—not with fear, no, he’s too much of a narcissist for that—but with dawning comprehension.

He knows. He sees it now. The inevitability.

He’s staring at his executioner.

I take one step forward.

He raises his chin like a king refusing to kneel. But his lip is bleeding, his gun is empty, and his legacy is slipping through his fingers like dust.

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” he sneers.

I smile, slow and vicious. “Yeah. You really fucking should have.”

He snarls and lunges, but he’s too slow, too off-balance.

And I don’t hesitate.

I slam the knife into him, just under the ribcage—angled upward, clean and brutal. His breath catches. His eyes go wide.

I don’t stop, jerking it out before thrusting it back in.

Then I twist. Just like my parents always taught me.

He chokes on blood, tries to reach for me, but I shove him back. He stumbles, crashing to his knees, one hand clutching the wound. The other reaching blindly—for help, for power, for a name that used to mean something.

Bodhi and Matteo don’t move.

Marcus doesn’t move.

This is mine .

I kick him in the face.

Hard.

Bone cracks under the heel of my boot—his nose or his cheek or both, I don’t fucking care. His head snaps backward, blood spraying like crushed cherries.

He crumples further, mouth slack, eyes dazed.

I stand over him, chest heaving, the knife still warm in my hand.

The silence that follows is thick . Holy. Heavy in the way all endings are.

Then Matteo steps closer, slow and steady. He doesn’t say a word—just reaches out and brushes a smear of blood from my cheek with the pad of his thumb. His touch is soft. Reverent.

Bodhi exhales like he’s been holding his breath for years. “Fucking finally.”

I look down at Javier Reyes—the king who built empires on blood and fear.

And I don’t feel guilt.

I feel free .