Page 37 of The Final Contract (The Black Ledger Billionaires #5)

T he penthouse feels too big without Killian.

I keep trying to distract myself, folding laundry that doesn’t need folding, rinsing lettuce leaves that taste like ash when I chew them. My stomach’s a knot, and every tick of the clock just makes it tighter.

Lucian hasn’t stopped. He’s been on the phone for hours, pacing the living room like a storm in a suit, his voice all steel and clipped orders.

I’ve told him twenty times it’s fine for him to leave, that I’m safe here with Finn and the others, but he won’t hear it. Not after what happened at the Ledger.

The break-in cracked something in all of us. The impenetrable fortress wasn’t so impenetrable after all.

Another call comes through. This time, he doesn’t put it on speaker. He just lifts the phone to his ear, his posture shifting subtly as he listens.

I only catch pieces—Damien Wolfe’s name, Manhattan tycoon, Lucian’s old friend.

My mind scrambles to keep up. Damien developed the Ledger skyscraper.

Lucian had pulled him in, along with the two architects who designed the building—Dante and Grant.

He didn’t just want blueprints. He wanted everything.

The wiring. The ventilation. Every hidden artery that kept the tower breathing.

And right now, they’re at the Ledger, leading the search, directing teams, making sure not a single corner is left unchecked. Jaxon is there too, buried in tech, digging into what caused the blackout—what gave Caleb Ward his opening to slip inside and vandalize the atrium.

Then Lucian’s voice changes.

Lower. Darker.

My head snaps up. His eyes cut to me, sharp and steady, and in that moment I feel it in my bones: something is very wrong.

He lifts one finger to his mouth. Don’t talk.

My throat tightens.

“Understood,” he says into the phone, his tone so even it feels rehearsed. Then his gaze flicks to Finn, lounging in an armchair with a newspaper. Lucian snaps his fingers twice.

Finn is on his feet instantly, the paper sliding to the floor, his expression stone.

Lucian checks his watch. “Fifteen,” he says, like it’s code.

The call ends.

He motions with his hand—pen. Paper.

I scramble to the kitchen, pulling open drawers with shaking fingers until I find both and thrust them at him.

His hand moves fast, writing with a force that nearly tears the page:

– Penthouse is bugged

– Don’t say anything

– Going to Ledger

He lays the pen down. That’s all we get.

Finn nods once like it’s enough. Like it explains everything.

But my mind is spinning, a million questions colliding all at once. How long? Where? Who’s listening right now?

Lucian doesn’t give me a second glance. He slips the note into his pocket, smooth as folding a handkerchief, and walks straight to the door. Quiet. Controlled. A man who leaves nothing behind but silence.

The door shuts, and I’m still standing in the kitchen with my heart in my throat when Finn clears his throat. His brogue is bright, cheery, almost jarring.

“How about some tea, lass?”

As if nothing is wrong at all.

“Yeah,” I manage, my voice catching. “Tea.”

My hands feel clumsy as I grab the kettle, fill it under the tap. The gush of water is too loud, too bright against the silence, but it gives Finn cover. He leans down, whispers something quick into the ear of one of the other guards. The man nods once and slips out as quietly as Lucian had left.

I want to reach for my phone, to text Killian, to tell him something is wrong. My fingers itch for it, but Finn is there, shaking his head before I can type a word. No. Wordless but clear. Anything electronic could be under watch too.

The kettle fills, and I set it on the stove, twisting the burner on. The blue flame sputters to life, but my insides are still ice.

I sit at the table, nails picking against each other until they ache. My eyes drift, unfocused, until they land on Killian’s jacket still slung over the back of a chair. Black leather, worn and heavy.

I want to put it on.

I want to bury myself in the smell of him, in the heat of it, pretend it’s his arms wrapping around me instead of the empty silence pressing against the windows.

I didn’t even realize I’d taken it until I was lifting it to my nose and breathing it in. Closing my eyes, I use it to cover my shoulders, tucking my arms inside and playing with the jacket’s edge. The dread coils tighter inside me with every second that passes.

Like something is already on its way.

My fingers toy with a hard speck, like a small button in an odd location.

A thought gnaws at me.

Flowers.

Where are the flowers?

They’d been there all along—every note, every shadowed reminder. If it wasn’t a rose pressed into my hand, it was one embossed on the corner of an envelope. A petal drawn in ink at the edge of a letter.

But these last few days…

Barrett Hall’s vandalized car. The hair dumped onto silver platters. The atrium at the Ledger desecrated with spray paint and filth.

No flowers.

Not one.

I can’t shake it. But the speck on Killian’s jacket comes off. It could have been a crumb of some kind, but as I stare at it on the tip of my finger, my pulse thunders.

“Hey, Finn?” I call, turning in my chair. “What’s?—”

The door bursts open.

Gunfire cracks, deafening.

The bullet tears into the stove behind me. Gas meets spark.

The explosion is just enough to rip me off my feet. The blast throws me hard to the ground. My ears scream with a high-pitched ringing that swallows every other sound.

I blink through the haze, through the smoke, and Finn is there, on the ground beside me.

A knife juts from the center of his chest. His eyes are wide, glassy, his mouth open as if to speak. His chest still moves— but not for long. My nurse’s mind doesn’t need a stethoscope to know he won’t survive this.

My stomach flips, bile rising, but before I can crawl to him, hands seize me.

I’m rolled onto my back, the ceiling swimming above me. The light blocked out by a man.

He looks like Killian. Same sharp angles, same eyes. But these aren’t Killian’s eyes. They’re colder. Hateful.

He smiles down at me, and it’s not kindness—it’s knives and promises of pain.

The ringing in my ears fades into static, and I can just make out his voice, distorted, heavy, like I’m hearing him underwater.

“Name’s Cormac.” His smile widens, cruel. “You’ve been keeping my brother quite distracted, haven’t you?”