Page 28 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

Zane followed the thread of unease to the living room, gun drawn now, gripped low but steady as his eyes swept the space with practiced precision.

Corners. Windows. Doors. Any sign of forced entry.

Any shift in air pressure. His instincts were loud now, clawing at the back of his skull, demanding action.

He cleared the space like a man expecting a fight, each breath shallow, sharp.

But there was nothing, no broken glass, no displaced shadows, no threat waiting to be met with steel.

Just her, buried in a chair in the living room.

Only then did he lower the weapon, but not without one final sweep of the room. No threats. No blood. No visible reason for the tension clawing at his spine. And yet it was there, in her posture, in the silence, in the way her eyes wouldn’t lift to meet his.

His thumb brushed the safety with muscle memory, slow and reluctant, before he holstered the gun again. Not because he no longer needed it. But because he hoped he didn’t.

Lily sat curled in one of the oversized chairs, her knees drawn up beneath her like she was trying to make herself smaller, more protected.

One of Zane’s hoodies swallowed her frame, sleeves pulled over her hands, as if she couldn’t bear to feel her own skin.

Her blonde hair was mussed and half-fallen over one cheek, hiding part of her face.

The rest was visible, and it was hollow.

Her hazel eyes, usually so sharp and vivid when locked on a screen, were blank.

Flat and still. Silent. The kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful, but broken.

He exhaled slowly, but his pulse was still racing.

She hadn’t moved. Not really. Not the way she usually did when he walked in.

Her body language was all wrong, tucked in on itself like she’d been punched in the ribs and hadn’t caught her breath yet.

The kind of stillness that screamed. He crossed the last few feet with measured steps, lowering his voice as he spoke.

“Hey,” he said softly, crouching a little to meet her eyes. “You okay, baby? What happened?”

She blinked, turning slowly to face him. Her mouth opened. Closed.

He leaned in. Reached out and brushed her hair back from her cheek, easing the hoodie from her head so he could see her face more clearly.

That’s when he noticed the tension, not just in her posture, but in the way her breath barely moved, like her body was afraid to make a sound.

And her skin… it was cold. Not just from sitting still, but the kind of chill that came from deep inside.

Trauma chill. The kind born from fear too sharp to process.

Her eyes didn’t meet his. Her lips were tight, as if holding something back.

She looked like she’d cracked wide open but hadn’t figured out how to fall apart yet, and Zane’s gut twisted at the sight of it.

His eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

She hesitated.

Too long.

Something ugly twisted in Zane’s chest. She always told him things. Even when it was messy. Even when she wasn’t ready. That was their unspoken pact: truth, even when it burned.

And right now? She looked like she was holding onto something that was burning, so hot it might reduce her to ash if she let it out.

“Lily.” His voice was lower now. Rougher.

She looked up. Her eyes met his for half a breath, haunted, raw, full of something that looked like shame and something that felt like pleading.

But it vanished just as fast. She dropped her gaze like it burned, as if she couldn’t stand to see the way he might be looking at her now.

Like she already knew what he was starting to think.

“I got a message.”

He froze. A dozen thoughts collided in his head, none of them good. His body went motionless, but his mind sharpened to a blade’s edge.

He’d seen her scared before. Had seen her angry, reckless, blood-soaked, and brilliant. But this? This wasn’t any of those things.

This was quiet. Hollow. As if whatever had happened had stolen something out of her, and left a woman who didn’t know if she could speak it aloud.

And the silence between them started to shift. Turned heavy. Suspicious.

Zane didn’t want to doubt her.

But this feeling in his gut, dark, thick, rising like smoke, it whispered a different truth.

“Show me,” he said. Voice like steel. Like he didn’t want her to hesitate again.

She nodded slowly. Then, with stiff movements, she peeled herself out of the chair, uncurled like something fragile unfolding in the wake of too much tension.

The hoodie slipped lower on one shoulder, and she tugged it back up, clinging to the fabric like armor. Her hands gripped the edges as she pulled the hood up over her head again, as if it could shield her from the look she hadn’t seen on Zane’s face yet, but feared was already there.

Her steps weren’t steady. They had the slow drag of someone walking into a courtroom, or a battlefield.

She didn’t say anything as she led him to her office.

Didn’t glance over her shoulder. Didn’t reach for him.

Just kept moving, like her body was following a command her brain hadn’t caught up to yet.

When they reached the doorway, she hesitated. Only for a second. But Zane caught it. The subtle flicker in her spine. The pause that said, please don’t look at me differently after this.

Her laptop was powered down.

He looked at it, then at her. One dark brow arched. “You shut it off?”

“It was... bad.”

She booted one of her computers back up. Navigated to the secure container. Brought up the message.

Zane read it once. Then again. His face didn’t change. But the air around him did.

The air between them snapped into something sharp and breathless.

The kind that reshaped everything between them, quietly, mercilessly.

A subtle shift that made Zane stiffen, his lungs tight and inhalation shallow.

Like the air had lost its charge, like trust had been rewired into suspicion.

It was the kind of moment when you realized something sacred might already be broken, and weren’t sure if you could survive what came next.

Like tempered glass under pressure, clear, sharp, and one breath from shattering.

YOU WERE IN ON IT FROM THE FIRST KEYSTROKE.

THANK YOU, LILY.

BUT WE DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE.

NEXT BULLET’S FOR YOU. THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM.

PREPARE TO BE A WIDOWER, ZANE.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t look at her.

Instead, he opened a new window. Not with Lily’s fluid grace, but with a familiarity born of necessity, and guilt.

He knew exactly where to look, not because he’d learned it from her, but because he’d hidden something there.

Before the wedding, before she became his wife in name and blood.

Back when she was still a variable. A risk.

It had been a failsafe. A tracking protocol buried deep in one of her backup machines, disguised to look like a diagnostic tool. Something only a Dante Enforcer, or a black-hat hacker with something to prove, might notice.

He hadn’t expected to ever use it.

But now?

A few keystrokes brought up the logs. The screen lit.

And there it was.

The IP.

Zane’s hand hovered over the keyboard. Then clenched into a slow, unforgiving fist.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t curse. Didn’t let out the quiet string of disbelief caught at the back of his throat. He just stared. Because what he was looking at wasn’t just a data point, it was a lie come back to life. A ghost of a promise. A breach dressed in her handwriting.

His breath stayed locked in his chest. Then his jaw tightened.

And he turned the screen toward her.

Zane didn’t need her to say a word. The look on her face was enough.

The screen showed an IP address that shouldn’t have existed anymore, an old digital identifier linked to a burner server Lily had used once, early in the breach of Blackthorn Holdings.

Back then, she’d told him it had been a mistake.

A one-time tool she’d burned after realizing it could be traced.

The Dantes had flagged the IP, marked it compromised. Zane had trusted her when she insisted it was gone. Wiped. Destroyed. She’d looked him in the eye and said, It’s gone.

And he’d believed her. Believed her so completely he’d overridden standard protocol. Personally ordered the security team to purge all records of the node. Eliminated every log that might trace back to her, not just because it was smart, but because he thought it was safe.

And now here it was again.

Active. Traced to her machine.

Like a body she swore was buried, and someone had just dug up.

Back from the dead.

It wasn’t just the breach. It was the resurrection.

Someone had dug up her past and wrapped it in a threat, and now it sat between them like a lit fuse. Here I am. Look at me. I’m proof she’s a liar.

Something inside him twisted, tight and brutal.

Not fear.

Not even anger.

It was betrayal.

Just the idea of it. The possibility. The crack in his certainty, sudden and sharp, that widened too fast. He didn’t want to believe she’d do it.

Couldn’t afford to believe she had. But the part of him that had spent his life cleaning up deception and separating truth from bloodstained lies was already moving, already preparing for the fallout.

Because if this was real, if what he was seeing meant what it looked like, then Lily hadn’t just let someone in.

She’d unlocked and opened the door.

“That’s impossible,” she said quietly. “I killed that server. Burned it down and salted the earth behind it. I don’t know how someone found it, or how they’re using it now, but it wasn’t me.”

Zane didn’t move.

His eyes flicked back to the screen, then to her. “Then how the hell is it showing up again? How did it get tied to this?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped, then immediately softened, regret flickering across her face. She shoved back the hoodie and faced him directly. “I don’t know. I don’t have an explanation yet.”

“Not good enough.”