Page 38 of The Final Contract (The Black Ledger Billionaires #5)

I ’m tearing through Manhattan like the devil is on my bumper, one hand locked around the wheel, the other hitting redial again and again.

No answer.

Her number just rings.

Yesterday’s memory won’t let go—the blackout, her penthouse swallowed in darkness, my heart dropping into my stomach. Feels like that was a warning. A shadow cast ahead of tonight.

Now it’s happening for real.

“Pick up,” I growl, flooring it through another red light. Horns blare, brakes screech, but I don’t stop. Can’t. I’m closer to the Ledger than her place, but my gut’s already twisting, screaming I’m behind. That I’m too goddamn late.

The phone in my hand vibrates, then shrieks.

A sound I never wanted to hear.

The Ledger app.

Its alert cuts through me like a siren, sharp and merciless. It only screams like that for one reason.

Code Black.

A Companion is dead.

My chest locks, vision tunneling for a second before rage burns the haze away.

No. Not her. Not Seraphina.

I slam my foot down harder, weaving through traffic like the city belongs to me. Every instinct I have screams blood. If Cormac laid a hand on her—if he so much as breathed her air—then I’ll carve my way through New York until his heart stops beating.

I’m calling everyone.

Lucian. Straight to voicemail.

Finn. Nothing.

Her. Again. Still nothing.

Every second of silence tightens around my throat until I’m choking on it.

The app goes off again, louder this time, blaring like an air raid siren. My eyes flick to the screen on the dash.

CODE BLACK: All Companions report to a checkpoint. All Contracts are cancelled effective immediately.

The words blur as my pulse spikes. Cancelled contracts. Companions recalled. That only happens when blood’s been spilled.

When someone’s dead.

“No,” I grind out, shoving the phone back to my ear. I call her again. Listen to the empty rings, to the void on the other side, until the sound almost suffocates me.

I can’t breathe. Can’t think.

I try Jaxon. This time, the line clicks open.

“Jesus Christ, finally,” I snarl, but the moment he speaks, I know. His tone isn’t clipped and efficient like it should be. It’s low. Shaken.

“Killian…”

My stomach drops. “Don’t waste time. Who was it?”

“They just… they just found the body.”

My hands clamp around the wheel, knuckles bone white. “Where? At the Ledger?”

“Yes.”

The word is a nail driven straight through my chest. I cut the wheel hard, tires screaming as I whip a U-turn into oncoming traffic. Horns explode, lights flash, but I don’t stop.

“Is it her?” My voice rips out of me, raw. “Seraphina. Is it her?”

Silence.

“Jaxon!” I roar it so loud the phone nearly cracks in my hand. “Fucking tell me!”

On the other end, his breath stutters. “I—” His voice breaks. “Yes. Sienna found her.”

The world tilts. The city smears past in a blur I can’t see.

“I’m so sorry, Killian.”

The words gut me. I feel the ground fall out from under me, my chest collapsing in on itself. Terror floods every vein, cold and merciless.

I can’t lose her.

Not like this.

Not to him.

I make it there in minutes, the car screaming up onto the curb, tires spitting rubber. I don’t even cut the engine. I tear across the sidewalk, through the Ledger’s revolving door like a missile with one target.

The lobby is chaos. Eve and Elena are crouched around Sienna. She’s sobbing, face blotched and red, clutching at Elena like she’s trying not to break in half. When her eyes land on me, she almost does.

The bottom drops out of my stomach.

“Where is she?” My voice is a roar, raw, already shattering.

Sienna shakes her head, tears streaming. “Killian—don’t go out there.”

“Where the fuck is she, Sienna!?” I boom, the sound echoing off marble and glass.

Eve’s voice cracks. “Parking deck. Lucian is there.” She’s crying too, and my heart is about to detonate in my chest.

I run. Through the building, past security, slamming my palms against the bar of the heavy steel door that leads into the Ledger’s private garage.

“Killian!” Jaxon shouts from behind me, but I don’t stop.

The door crashes open and I see them.

Lucian, kneeling. His massive frame bowed in a way I’ve never seen, as if even he’s crushed by the weight of it. A ring of security stands frozen around him, faces pale. And at the center, sprawled on the concrete, is a body covered by a sheet.

A sheet already stained through with blood.

Lucian rises when he sees me, hands outstretched like he means to stop me.

“It’s not Seraphina, Killian.”

I don’t care. I’ll plow through him, tear the world apart if I have to. I need to see.

“Move.” My voice is a growl, feral.

Lucian doesn’t fight me when I shove past him. My knees hit the concrete hard as I grip the edge of the sheet. My hands shake when I pull it back.

The sight beneath rips me apart.

It’s not Seraphina.

It’s Sylvia.

The decoy. The Companion we used to give Sera a night of peace at her niece’s birthday. The blonde hair on those silver platters. The word LIAR sprayed in blood. They’d figured it out. Turned the game back on us.

Her face is nearly unrecognizable. Bruises, cuts, split lips. Her nails torn to the beds, jagged and broken like she clawed across the ground, fighting for her life. Her shirt rides up, showing a stomach carved open by stab after stab after stab.

Too many to count.

Like they kept going long after she was gone.

There’s a blood trail from the back of a car across the concrete. She made it as far as the driver’s side door before she collapsed. Before she couldn’t crawl any farther.

My vision blurs red.

This has Cormac written all over it. His brand. His cruelty. Just like our father—he doesn’t flinch using innocents to wage his wars. Collateral damage isn’t collateral to him. It’s the point.

And I know without a single doubt in my mind—he’s planning on making Seraphina the next body I find.

Sylvia’s hand looks wrong.

I don’t notice it at first, not until I lean closer and see how tightly her fingers are curled, rigid even in death. Something has been forced there, shoved between them. I ease it free, the paper crinkling in my blood-slick gloves as I unroll it.

Two words stare back at me, written in thick black ink.

Time’s up.

The same words that had been painted across the atrium wall yesterday.

The sound of the garage door crashing open behind me makes me whip my head around. Jaxon bursts in, his laptop already open, his face pale with sweat.

“We’ve got two problems,” he announces, voice carrying over the heavy silence of the parking deck.

I push to my feet, the note still clutched in my fist, and shove it at Lucian. “And another message,” I grind out, the words thick with rage.

Lucian takes it, his eyes scanning quickly before his jaw locks hard enough I hear the faint crack of his teeth.

Jaxon doesn’t pause. He strides to the nearest car and slams the laptop down on its hood, the glow of the screen washing his face in cold light. “Seraphina’s apartment has gone dark again. And—” his voice falters, just for a breath, “—there’s already a 911 call about an explosion.”

The air leaves my lungs.

For a heartbeat, all I can see is her on the ground covered in that sheet and it’s enough to rip me in two.

I start moving without thinking. My body turns toward the door, toward the street, toward her. But Jaxon’s voice cuts through, urgent and sharp. He grips my arm, holding me here.

“Killian, wait. We need you here.”

I round on him so fast my vision tunnels. Both hands fly to his chest, and I push him back. “She’s out there, Jax. Don’t you fucking dare try to keep me here when she’s—” My voice cracks, raw and violent, my chest threatening to split in two.

“We have a bigger fucking problem, Kill.”

He spins the laptop toward us.

On the screen is a countdown timer, its numbers bleeding red, each second slipping away like a drop of blood.

Lucian steps closer, his shadow heavy beside me, but it’s Jaxon’s voice I hear. Flat. Grim.

“The whole building is wired to blow.”

The words sink like stones into my chest, heavier with every breath.

I want to run to her. God, I want to tear out of here and find her before it’s too late.

But my legs won’t move, caught between the love that has rooted itself so deep inside me it feels like my soul—and the reality that if I leave this building, the Ledger and everyone in it could be reduced to ash.

And somewhere in the city, my brother is watching. Laughing.