Page 33 of The Final Contract

The ride back blurs. Eve’s voice fills the car, light and quick as she asks about the date, then launches into updates about new prospects waiting in the wings. I give her just enough to keep her satisfied, letting her words wash over me until she finally signs off, her call ending the moment the elevator opens into the hush of my floor.

One of Killian’s new men is stationed at the door, standing straighter when we approach. Finn is off for the night, so I guess this kid drew the short straw.

“Sir,” he says, stepping aside. “Maintenance came by. Left about thirty minutes ago.”

The words stop me for a fraction of a second. I haven’t seen a single alert from my security system—not so much as a buzz on my phone. That’s unusual. Unsettling, but it has happened once or twice when the app was buggy.

I slip inside, heels clicking softly across the polished floors, my pulse already tight in my throat. Past the bedroom, toward the bathroom. And that’s when I hear it—water. The toilet is still running.

My jaw clenches.

I push the door fully open and flick on the light.

And in the same instant, dread crashes through me like a wave breaking over stone. It isn’t the toilet at all. It isn’t anything that simple.

What waits inside turns my blood to ice.

“Sera—wait.”

Her name leaves me sharper than I meant it to, but I’d rather snap at her than let her walk in blind. I prefer to sweep the place myself before she sets foot inside. The man at her door tonight is new—trained, experienced, good on paper—but he hasn’t earned my trust the way Finn has.

She ignores me. Heels clicking, moving down the hall.

Then it happens so quickly.

A sliver of light spills out from her bedroom. A sound follows it—raw, breaking. Terror. My heart nearly stops.

The bang that comes next kicks me into motion.

I’m running, gun already drawn, muscles locked on instinct. I clear the doorway fast—and my eyes take in the scene in a second.

She’s on the floor, water slick under her heels where she’s slipped. Tears stream down her face as her eyes stay glued, unblinking, to the bathroom mirror.

“Don’t look, baby.” I holster the weapon and drop to her side, trying to ground her, to drag her focus back to me. She fumbles, slides toward me, reaching. My arms close around her instantly.

My voice is clipped when I press a finger to my earpiece. “Backup. Now. And call Lucian.”

Her body shakes against mine, and I don’t give her a choice—I gather her up and carry her out of the room, away from that goddamn mirror. She shouldn’t have to see it anymore.

Her name.

Seraphina. Sera.

Scrawled across the glass dozens of times in thick strokes of lipstick. Ledger red. The same shade every companion wears.

It’s not neat. It’s not staged. It’s rage, every letter carved in fury. Tubes of lipstick litter the counter and floor like discarded shells after a firefight.

Two of my men rush in, boots heavy, weapons up. Orders snap out of me in a growl before they can even ask.

“Sweep the apartment. And call Jaxon Kane—have him dig into the system and trace where this bastard came from.”

My jaw clenches hard enough to ache. The only explanation is maintenance—he used the appointment as his cover. That means he was in her home. In her sanctuary.

And I’ll find him for it.

Then I’ll break every bone he has for what he’s doing to her.

Lucian shows up in thirty minutes, and it takes almost that long to get her to stop crying. Even now, she’s still hiccuping, her eyes distant, glassy, like she’s somewhere far away from this room.