Page 123 of Shadow Waltz
He activated the encrypted line with movements that spoke to years of crisis management, but I could see the way his hands trembled slightly with rage barely contained. This wasn't just business anymore—it was personal, vindictive, the kind of hunt that ended with bodies scattered across multiple crime scenes.
“Carina,” he said when the connection stabilized, voice carrying authority that made the concrete walls seem to vibrate with contained violence. “Status report.”
Her voice crackled through the speakers with professional calm that couldn't quite hide the exhaustion underneath. “Seventeen confirmed survivors from the masquerade, scattered across twelve different safe houses. Federal task forces are coordinating with multiple criminal organizations to hunt down anyone who escaped.”
“What about the Auction?” Luka asked, and something in his tone made my blood run cold. “Is the theater secure?”
The silence that followed stretched like a wire pulled too tight, and I could feel something terrible building in the space between question and answer. When Carina finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of catastrophe barely contained.
“The theater is gone,” she said quietly. “Burned to the ground three hours after the masquerade attack. Federal agents are calling it an electrical fire, but satellite imagery shows accelerant patterns consistent with professional arson.”
I watched Luka's face cycle through emotions too complex for easy categorization—rage, grief, something that might have been relief mixed with devastating loss. The Auction had been more than just business; it had been his kingdom, his masterpiece, the foundation of everything he'd built from blood and shadow.
“Everything?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“Everything. The building, the equipment, the records—all of it reduced to ash and federal evidence bags.” Carina paused, and I could hear her choosing words carefully. “But the personnel survived. Everyone who matters made it out before the fire spread.”
“And the merchandise?”
The question hit me like ice water in my veins, because it reminded me that other people had been trapped in that building when it burned, people who'd been reduced to inventory numbers and market valuations, people whose liveshad been deemed expendable by federal agents who probably considered their deaths acceptable casualties.
“Unknown,” Carina replied, and the clinical way she said it made my stomach clench with nausea. “The basement levels were completely destroyed. If there were any lots in holding, they didn't survive.”
I found myself thinking about Miguel, about all the others who'd passed through that system, about how their stories had ended not with rescue or escape but with fire and smoke in a basement that most people would never know existed. The weight of that knowledge settled in my chest like lead, because I'd survived when they hadn't, had escaped the same fate through luck and Luka's obsession.
“Sir,” Carina continued, “there's more. The federal teams aren't just targeting our organization—they're systematically dismantling every major criminal operation on the East Coast. This is coordinated law enforcement on a scale we've never seen before.”
“How coordinated?” Luka asked, though I could see he was already calculating implications that made my head spin with their complexity.
“FBI, DEA, ATF, plus international cooperation from agencies in twelve different countries. They're calling it Operation Shadowfall, designed to eliminate organized crime as a functional entity in North America.”
The scope of what she was describing hit like a sledgehammer to the chest, because it meant this wasn't just about us or our relationship or even the disruption we'd caused to established hierarchies. This was war on a scale that would reshape the criminal landscape permanently.
“Who's leading the task force?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew the answer.
“Detective Reddick has been promoted to Special Agent in Charge,” Carina confirmed. “Full federal authority, unlimited resources, and a mandate to use any means necessary to eliminate what they're calling 'the criminal aristocracy.'”
I laughed, the sound bitter and sharp in the concrete bunker, because the irony was perfect. Our fairy tale ball had triggered a federal response that would destroy not just us but everyone who'd ever profited from the shadows we'd learned to navigate. Reddick had used our love as the spark to ignite a conflagration that would consume everything.
“How long do we have?” Luka asked, pragmatic even in the face of systematic annihilation.
“Unknown. But satellite surveillance suggests they're coordinating a city-wide sweep within the next forty-eight hours. Anyone who survived the masquerade is being hunted by teams that include both federal agents and criminal organizations working as informants.”
The revelation that our enemies had turned some of our own people sent something dark and poisonous unfurling in my chest. This wasn't just war—it was betrayal on a scale that made personal treachery look like playground politics.
After Luka ended the communication, the silence in our underground sanctuary felt heavy enough to crush concrete. We sat there processing the scope of what we faced, the understanding that we weren't just fighting for our relationship anymore but for the right to exist at all.
“They're not just trying to kill us,” I said finally, voicing what we'd both realized. “They're trying to erase us. Make it like we never existed, like what we built together never mattered.”
“Then we remind them why that's impossible,” Luka replied, moving toward me with predatory intent that made my pulse quicken despite the circumstances. “We show them that some things can't be destroyed by fire or bullets or federal task forces.”
When he kissed me, it was with the desperate hunger of someone who might not get another chance, all teeth and possession and the taste of violence barely contained. I kissed him back with equal desperation, because if we were going to die in the next forty-eight hours, I wanted him to be the last thing I tasted, the last pleasure I experienced before whatever came next.
His hands found the torn fabric of my formal wear, ripping away what remained of our fairy tale costumes to reveal skin that carried evidence of our survival—cuts and bruises and the fading marks from our last intimate encounter. But underneath the damage, I could feel the familiar fire building between us, the electric connection that had made us dangerous to everyone who profited from keeping people like us broken and alone.
He dropped to his knees in front of me, mouth greedy against my stomach, teeth scraping, tongue soothing over bruises and dried blood. His hands were rough, impatient, sliding up the inside of my thighs until I was shaking and straining against the wall, every nerve ending raw and exposed. He didn’t bother being gentle—there was no time for gentle, no need for it. We’d passed that point days ago, burned it to ash in ballroom fire and gunfire.
“Here?” I gasped against his mouth, because fucking in an underground bunker while federal agents coordinated our systematic destruction felt like the most perverse kind of defiance.