Page 4 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

She paused. Just a second. A flicker of nerves crossing her face before she spoke again, softer now, almost tentative. Like the next words might damn her or save her, and she had no way of knowing which.

“What do you think I’ve done that requires The Enforcer to deal with it?”

“You stole from the Dantes.”

“No way,” she breathed. “I wouldn’t dare hack into your system. I haven’t touched your network. I wouldn’t be that reckless. I... I know better than to do something that foolish.”

Zane’s face didn’t move, but his eyes, those sharp, ice-cold eyes, narrowed with lethal precision.

“Blackthorn Holdings.”

Zane didn’t move. He didn’t need to. The words were enough, cold, precise, final. He let them hang there, allowed the silence to stretch as Lily processed what he’d said.

His position remained immobile, almost casual. But there was nothing relaxed about it. It was the kind of stillness that came before a storm. The kind that warned you not to move, not to breathe wrong.

And she didn’t. Not at first. Her expression didn’t change right away. Then, slowly, her mouth parted, just slightly. Confusion flickered. Then dread.

He saw it land.

She shook her head, a breath catching in her throat. “That’s... that’s a shell company.”

“My shell company.”

The blood drained from her face.

She went very still. And in that stillness, he saw it, recognition, horror, and the unmistakable certainty of death settling into her eyes. The realization that she hadn’t just made a mistake. She had crossed a line no one crossed. Not and lived.

She didn’t say anything else. Didn’t try to defend herself. Her breathing turned shallow, ragged, as she stared up at him, crumbling in slow motion beneath what she’d done.

And Zane watched every second of it.

“No,” she whispered. “No, that wasn’t in the—” She cut herself off, blinking fast. “I wouldn’t have touched it if I’d known. I swear to God. I didn’t know it was Dante property... Your property.”

“You do now.”

He fell silent, allowing it to stretch, suffocate.

““Please... If I’d realized,” she whispered again, her voice cracking now, thinner than before. Not from strategy or defiance, but from the raw, sinking certainty that she couldn’t talk her way out of this. Not this time.

“You think intent matters to me?” he asked softly. “People don’t walk away from this kind of mistake, Lily. Not ever.”

She shook her head and Zane saw the realization happening, the moment her brain tried to scramble for a solution and found nothing but dead ends. She looked up at him, horrified. “I didn’t know. Zane, I swear I didn’t know.”

His gaze searched hers, unreadable. “You’re in my world now, sweetheart. That alone makes you dangerous.”

She flinched, just barely, but he saw it. Saw her attempting to process how badly she’d fucked up. She’d crossed into territory she didn’t understand, and now the consequences were sitting right in front of her, staring her down.

Zane’s face didn’t change, but the cold fury in his eyes sharpened.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, the fight visibly draining from her limbs. A beat passed, just long enough for the truth to settle, to rot. Her knees remained attached to the floor, and her voice, when it came again, was quieter than before.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s not good enough, but it’s the truth.”

It wasn’t an excuse. Just quiet, tired honesty.

Zane stared at her a moment longer, then finally let go, his hand falling away from her skin with a reluctant drag, as if testing whether she’d collapse without it.

She didn’t. Not right away. Her knees wobbled, breath catching, but she pulled herself up with visible effort.

The absence of his touch left her unmoored, as if the threat itself had been the only thing holding her steady.

And now that it was gone, she was reeling in silence, one breath, one blink at a time.

“You’re right. It’s not good enough.” He rose slowly to his full height and stepped back, giving her room.

“Nor does that change the fact that you’re the one responsible for my loss.

You stepped into something you don’t understand.

So the question is, what the hell am I supposed to do with you now? ”

“I guess that depends on what you want from me,” she said, but even as the words left her mouth, she felt the hollowness in them. Her voice wavered, thinner than before, like she already knew the answer wouldn’t be something she could survive.

She didn’t back away, but she didn’t move forward either. Just stood there, caught between defiance and despair, waiting for him to decide whether she was worth keeping alive.

If she’d been anyone else, anyone but Jazz’s sister, Titus’s sister-in-law, she’d already be dead. Zane knew it. So did she.

He didn’t answer right away. Just studied her for a long, quiet moment.

“I want you to fix it,” he said finally.

Her breath caught. Zane saw it, the way her pupils dilated, the way her lips parted just slightly, like she couldn’t quite breathe. She looked stunned. Staggered.

And Zane didn’t miss the way her eyes went distant, like she was racing backward through every step she’d taken, combing for an opening, a loose thread, a way to unwind the damage. She was already calculating, already searching access points, data paths, files she’d torched.

She found nothing. He saw it the second her shoulders dropped, the slight shake of her head. She’d done her job too well. Covered her tracks like a ghost.

And now it was going to get her killed.

It was as though the floor dropped out from under her, the walls of the room tilting just enough to knock her off center. She looked at him, eyes wide, then blinked like maybe she’d misheard, like maybe he hadn’t just asked the impossible.

“No,” she said, her voice cracking. “No, I can’t, I didn’t even know what I touched. I don’t have access anymore. I burned it. It’s gone.”

Panic surged through her like a wave, visible in the way her hands trembled, in the way her gaze darted as if searching for some other answer, some escape.

Zane watched it all. Not with pity. With cold detachment. Because now he knew. She wasn’t stalling. She wasn’t stashing some trump card or spinning a lie. She was spiraling.

And it wasn’t enough.

“You’re not hearing me,” he said quietly, each word deliberate. “You made a mess. My mess. Which means fixing it isn’t a request. It’s survival.”

“I can’t,” she whispered again. “There’s nothing left to pull from. I covered my tracks. I did exactly what I was supposed to do.”

“That’s the problem,” Zane said. “You erased your way out of it, and now I’ve got an eight-figure hole where a key asset used to be.”

Her eyes widened, panic carving deeper into her expression. “Wait, someone was using that shell for an op?”

“You think I keep those companies for decoration?”

She pressed both hands to her head, shaking it slowly. “Jesus... I thought it was dormant. Inactive. There was no trace of movement. I swear—”

He took a step toward her, and she stumbled back, hitting the wall. Her breath hitched again.

“I believe you,” he said, voice like ice. “Doesn’t mean I care.”

Frustration radiated off him as he looked at her, not with any particular emotion, but with the same ruthless detachment he used when signing off on executions. His hands flexed once at his sides, a reminder, to her, maybe to himself, that his restraint still held.

For now.

He didn’t say anything else.

Just turned.

One sharp glance over his shoulder was all the command she got, and she followed, silent and shaky, trailing him down the hallway like a prisoner on her way to sentencing.

Her boots barely made a sound against the tile, but he could hear the ragged edge of her breathing.

Good. She finally understood exactly where she stood.

He opened the door and stepped outside, not waiting to see if she kept up.

The moment they hit the edge of the drive, movement flared at the perimeter. Four men. His. Waiting. Trained not to speak unless spoken to, but every single one of them flicked a look her way the moment she emerged.

Zane jerked his chin toward the house behind them. “Pack everything up and bring it.”

The men nodded, already peeling off to carry out the order.

Lily’s lips parted, a protest half-formed on her tongue. “Wait—” she started.

Zane turned, just enough to look at her. Not with fury, worse. With judgment. With warning. As if daring her to finish the sentence.

She went silent. Just like that. Her breath caught, and whatever she’d meant to say vanished.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.

He pivoted and stalked toward the waiting SUV, each heavy step crunching gravel with deliberate, aggressive force. The weight of his boots echoed like a countdown, leaving no doubt, he expected her to follow.

She did.

Silently. Pale and tight-lipped, each step two beats behind his.

She slid into the passenger seat without being told. He got behind the wheel.

“Buckle up,” he ordered.

She hesitated for a half-second, just enough to test whether he meant it, then reached for the seatbelt. The click of it locking into place came just before the engine growled to life.

Zane didn’t ease onto the road. He roared onto it, tires screeching, the SUV tearing down the gravel drive like the devil himself was in the rearview.

Lily gripped the door. “Where are we going?”

“To my place.”

She blinked. “Not to Titus?”

Zane snorted. “Titus isn’t happy with you. He left this mess in my hands.”

That shut her up.

Dallas blurred past the windows, bright lights, sprawling freeways, traffic and city buzz all flying by in a smear of glass and metal.

Zane took the turns hard, aggressive but precise, never missing a beat.

She didn’t ask anything else. Just sat there, stiff and silent, the tension rolling off her like smoke.

He cut across lanes, weaving toward the high-rise district. Finally, a towering black-glass skyscraper rose ahead of them, cutting into the sky like a blade.