Page 39 of The Final Contract (The Black Ledger Billionaires #5)

T he last thing I remember is the sting in my arm, the burn of a needle sliding under my skin before I could fight it off. The heaviness came fast—too fast. Not the haze of alcohol, not the slow drift of sleep. This was chemical. Precise.

Midazolam, probably.

I’ve given it enough times to know the sensation—the sharp drop, the way the world folds in on itself in seconds. A sedative, quick and dirty. The kind you use when you want someone compliant but not gone too long.

Someone took me. I blink and shake my head, trying to pull the memories forward.

Cormac.

The name slams into me, and suddenly the fog in my head feels heavier. My mouth is dry, my tongue thick. I try to shift, only to realize I can’t.

My wrists are bound in front of me, rope biting deep, the coarse fibers grinding my skin raw when I test them.

A gag stretches tight across my mouth, pressing hard into the corners of my lips, damp with saliva.

A second rope winds around my torso, cinching me back against a chair so tight it forces my ribs to ache with every breath.

A quick look at my thumbnail makes my heart lurch. They knew I wore a tracking device there, must have scanned me to find it. It’s been filed away.

Killian and Lucian won’t have a way to find me, just like before. The irony of this being so similar to the situation that caused this war in the first place.

I draw in air, but it stinks. Ash. Damp stone. Something old, burned, and left to rot.

When my eyes finally focus, I see the ruins around me.

It’s a cathedral—or it used to be. The skeleton of one, really.

Charred stone walls loom jagged and broken, sections collapsed into heaps of rubble.

The wall to my right has crumbled away entirely, daylight streaming in through the open wound, while another section has fallen behind the altar, leaving only a cracked crucifix still hanging against the blackened stone.

Most of the roof is gone. Only a section behind me remains, sagging timbers blackened by fire. This place looks as though it should have been condemned years ago. The fact that it still stands feels like some cruel trick of fate.

I twist harder, trying to work my wrists free, ignoring the sting as the rope scrapes deeper into my skin. Nothing gives. My shoulders tremble with the effort until I collapse back against the chair, breath ragged behind the gag.

And then I hear laughter. Voices.

Low, rough, echoing off the stone and getting closer.

I turn my head just as he enters, cigarette glowing in the shadows, a plume of smoke curling out as he exhales slow and deliberate, like he’s savoring every second.

He looks enough like Killian that my chest wrenches, but his eyes are wrong. Harder. Colder. Empty in a way Killian’s could never be.

“Well, well, well.” Cormac drags on the cigarette again, letting the smoke spill from his mouth like he’s drawing out the suspense. “Seraphina.”

He says my name slowly, rolling each letter, as though he’s testing it on his tongue.

“Glad you woke up in time.” His voice carries a faint Irish lilt, heavier than Killian’s but not so thick it masks the cruelty behind it. “Thought you were going to miss the big show.”

His smile grows, and it’s nothing but knives.

My throat works around the gag, desperate to form words, but all that comes out is a muffled sound. Still, he understands. He tilts his head, smoke curling from his lips.

“You’re wondering about your guard, aren’t you?” His tone is flat, almost bored. “Poor Finn. Loyal old dog. To some at least. Not his family, though.”

He taps ash onto the stone floor, eyes never leaving mine. “Probably in a body bag by now, I would say.”

The words hit harder than any fist. My eyes squeeze shut, a tear breaking free and sliding down my cheek.

He crouches in front of me, the shift of his weight making the chair creak beneath me. His face is so close now I can smell the smoke on his breath, the tang of nicotine and something darker.

“But you shouldn’t worry about anyone but yourself… Seraphina.”

This time, he spits my name like it tastes foul, like it’s poison in his mouth.

His hand shoots up, fingers clamping down on my cheeks, squeezing until my jaw aches. He forces my face up, forces me to look into those cold, empty eyes that feel like they’re burrowing into my skull.

The cigarette glows bright in his other hand as he brings it closer. Slowly. Too slowly. The burning tip aimed at my face.

“I have something special in mind for you.”

My heart pounds against the ropes holding me. I try to stay still, try to keep my body from jerking back, but tiny whimpers still slip past the gag. The heat radiates off the cigarette as he hovers it closer and closer to my eye.

And I know—God, I know—he would do it. He’d blind me and smile while I screamed.

I force myself still, chest heaving, my lashes wet as another tear tracks down.

Then, just as suddenly as he started, he jerks the cigarette back. As though he’s lost interest in the game. He sticks it between his lips again, inhales deep, and exhales like nothing happened.

His dozen men chuckle from their various positions around me.

The click of his lighter echoes as he checks his watch with a casual glance. Smoke curls into the ruined air.

“Mmm… three minutes.” His voice is almost sing-song. “Just enough time to let our little angel in on the festivities for the night.”

I don’t have time to wonder what that means before he moves again.

No warning as to what he does next.

The cigarette comes down hard against my thigh, searing through fabric, biting into skin.

The pain rips through me, white-hot, and I scream against the gag, thrashing in the ropes as the smell of my own burning flesh fills the air.

He presses it in, grinding it deeper.

The heat lingers even after he pulls the cigarette away, a molten ache burrowed deep into my thigh.

My body shakes, breath tearing out of me too fast, too heavy.

I try to pull it together, to compose myself, to give him nothing—but I can’t stop the tears.

Can’t stop the wet streaks cutting down my cheeks or the sound of my ragged breathing through the gag.

It feels like lava has been poured into me, boring straight through flesh to bone.

He crouches again, watching me tremble. His hand flashes up, fingers striking across my face in a sharp slap—not hard enough to split my lip, not hard enough to make me see sparks, but enough to jolt me. To pull my focus back to him.

“Listen.” His voice is rough, low, threaded with something colder than cruelty. “This is important, burning angel.”

The words dig into me. Burning angel.

My stomach drops as he leans in closer. “You should know… you inspired me. Your name. And of course—our father’s favorite way of settling debts.”

The memory of Killian’s voice crashes into me. He burned down a church with his enemy inside.

My chest seizes as the realization slams into me. This place—the charred stone, the blackened beams sagging above me—it’s not just ruins. It’s history. A grave. The very church their father burned, the walls still standing like broken teeth after swallowing his enemy and innocent children whole.

And before Cormac even says it, I know. This is what he has planned for me.

To let me burn.

His smile is thin, cruel. He grabs my chin again and forces my head to turn, to look past the collapsed wall.

“Before that, though—tell me. Any of those buildings look familiar to you?”

I choke on a gasp as my eyes fix on the skyline. Of course it’s familiar. It’s home. My home. Right there in the center of the horizon, tall and gleaming—the Black Ledger.

He doesn’t need to explain. The vantage point is perfect. My stomach twists into a fist of ice.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says softly, almost reverent. “The perfect place to watch my own method of revenge. A little different than Father’s. But just as permanent.”

He nods to one of the men behind him. “Go ahead and let it go, Johnny. What’s a minute early?”

The man pulls out his phone, taps the screen.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. I’m tied to this chair, helpless, forced to stare through the jagged frame of collapsed stone at the city beyond. My city.

The Ledger’s upper floors detonate with a roar that shakes even the bones of this ruined church, fire punching into the sky as if to burn out the stars themselves. More blasts march down the building, blowing out windows like an elevator of destruction riding straight to the ground.

My scream claws at the gag, strangled, useless—swallowed by the blaze ripping through the horizon.

Cormac exhales smoke like he’s savoring it, his grin split wide, eyes alight with triumph.

“There it is,” he says, voice almost reverent.

“Lucian Vale gutted our empire, so I’ve gutted his.

The infamous Black Ledger, reduced to ash.

Cleansing this rotten city of its whores and dogs by fire. Poetic, isn’t it?”

The building hasn’t collapsed. Through my tears, through the smoke billowing, the structure is there—but God knows if it will remain.

He turns back to me, his smile curdling, cruel.

“And as for Killian…” He crouches close, his breath hot with nicotine.

“My brother spilled family blood. Our cousin’s blood.

Before I take his life, I’ll spill the blood that will carve the heart out of him.

Yours.” His eyes glitter. “He was so emotional when the children burned. I can only imagine how he’ll beg when he learns the woman he loves was burned alive too. All for his sins.”

My stomach lurches, bile clawing up my throat, but I hold his gaze, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

“And he was the one who walked in your penthouse and planted my little device. Pretty ingenious, huh? He never even felt it when the kid stuck it on his jacket.”

Cormac turns and spits. “And you know the tech giant that engineered it—well, reverse-engineered it, at least. Elijah Carter made a few modifications to the tech Lucian has been protecting the Ledger with. And we used it to bring it down.”

There’s a grumble of laughter from the surrounding guards.

“We also used it to shoot my big brother’s falling angel right out of the sky. That tiny little speck you found on his jacket did it all.”

He jerks his head, and one of his men steps forward, a knife flashing as he slices through the rope binding me to the chair. My hands are still tied in front of me, raw and burning, but my torso is free now.

Cormac grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking me to my feet. Pain sears across my scalp, and I claw at his wrist, desperate to ease the pressure, but his grip is iron. I kick, twist, dig my heels into the ground, but I’m outsized and outnumbered. He’s not as big as Killian, but big enough.

They drag me through a doorway into the darker part of the church, where the stone hasn’t burned as badly. The air is damp, colder. The corridor turns sharply before ending in a flight of narrow stone stairs, spiraling down into total black.

Every nerve in me screams no. I know with every shred of my being that if they take me down there, I’ll never see daylight again.

I cling to the only thought that keeps me upright—that somehow, by some miracle, Killian wasn’t in that building when it went up. That he’s alive. That he’ll come for me. That he still knows his brother well enough to guess where he’s brought me, even with my tracker destroyed.

The stairs yawn before me like a throat waiting to swallow me whole.

No.

I dig in, twisting, and slam both feet against the wall with all the strength I can gather. The force rockets me backward, my skull connecting with Cormac’s nose in a sickening crunch.

His roar splits the air as his grip releases, blood spraying down his lips. I hit the ground hard, scrambling, wrists clumsy in their bonds, chest heaving.

But I’m not fast enough.

Before I can rise, his hand fists in my hair again, vicious.

“You little cunt,” he spits, his words thick with blood and hate.

Then he hurls me forward—without care, without pause, without a shred of mercy.

I tumble, body slamming against unyielding stone, the world spinning as I crash down the dark staircase into nothing.