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

T he door shuts behind me, and for the first time in hours, I can finally take a breath.

Not that it helps. The air is still thick with the echo of her voice. Marriage. A family. The words circle in my head like vultures—pecking, gnawing, refusing to leave me be.

I don’t know why it bothers me. It shouldn’t. Seraphina’s life isn’t mine to shape. My job is simple—keep her safe, eliminate threats, keep my distance. And yet the thought of her in someone else’s house, in someone else’s bed, wearing someone else’s ring?—

My jaw tightens until it aches.

I’ve sat through every contract she’s taken this past year.

Seen the way she smiles, the way she plays the role, the way it’s all just performance.

I know better than anyone it’s a transaction, a mask she slips on and discards when it’s over.

But this? A final contract isn’t a part she can step out of.

A husband isn’t a client. He wouldn’t just hire her—he’d own her. Body. Name. Every fucking breath. And for reasons I refuse to name, the thought makes my blood burn hotter than it should.

I force my focus forward. The hallway outside the Ledger’s boardroom stretches wide, lined with glass and steel. A janitor whistles a tune while mopping the black marble floors, the sound echoing off the ceiling.

I’m halfway to the elevators when footsteps sound behind me. Controlled. Heavy.

Lucian.

“Killian,” he calls. Not a request. A command.

I stop, shoulders stiffening, and wait until he comes alongside me.

“Files are on their way,” he says. “Everything we had the first time. I’ve already looped Jaxon in.” He cuts a glance at the staff cleaning the hall. They hear a lot. See a lot. But we all know some things can’t even be whispered about in the open.

Right on cue, my phone buzzes in my pocket. Lucian doesn’t waste time.

I grunt my acknowledgment. “I’ll find him.”

Lucian studies me as if measuring every ounce of my tension. His stare doesn’t waver. “What do you think about her proposal?”

My teeth grind. “Not my place to think about it.”

“Still,” he presses, “you have thoughts.”

I shrug, making it look easy when it feels anything but. “It complicates things. That’s all. Guarding her during a marriage contract… different logistics, different risks.”

His brow lifts slightly, like he’s waiting for more, but I give him nothing. “If it’s what she wants, it’s her choice. My opinion doesn’t matter.”

Lucian doesn’t buy it—I can see it in the way his mouth twitches, like he’s a second from calling me a liar. But he lets it slide, for now.

“Come up,” he says, jerking his chin toward the elevators.

The ride is silent except for Lucian’s voice filling it, low and sharp as he takes a call. Orders, barked quick and precise. Not Ledger business. The other side. The newer empire he’s been rebuilding piece by piece since the Italians burned themselves down.

I stare at the polished floor, jaw locked, pretending I’m not listening while every word brands itself into my skull.

When we step into his office, he shuts the door with a click.

Through the window, I catch the silhouette of stone rising just above the trees—what’s left of the old cathedral. Most wouldn’t notice it at all. I do. Ghosts of my past are buried there, and maybe we stirred them when Lucian and I spilled Irish blood that day.

I cut straight to anything but Seraphina. “How’s it going? Rebuilding the Italians.”

Lucian drags a hand down his face and lets out a humorless laugh. “It’s a fucking shit show.”

No surprise there.

Seraphina’s abduction had been the spark that lit the whole war and reduced half of Manhattan’s underworld to ash. Lucian against the Italians. His old friend Lorenzo—like a brother to him. That was a long time ago. Before Lucian walked away from that life. Same as me. Different story, same ending.

And when the Irish decided to stick their nose where it didn’t belong, both their heads ended up bleeding out the day we ended that war.

The Irish had a successor. The Italians didn’t.

So Lucian took the throne. Not to play king, but to do it the right way.

Lucian sinks into his chair, shoulders heavy, expression carved in stone. “The Irish aren’t doing so hot either. Blood at the top always rots the roots. You ever check in on the old family?”

I shake my head once. “No.”

He studies me, but he already knows. I cut them off cold. All of them.

Everyone except my mother.

She’d left long before I did—divorced my father when my brother and I were still boys. Walked away from the O’Malley legacy, took her name back, became Shaw again. Everyone called it betrayal. Cowardice.

But I knew better. It was survival.

She couldn’t take us with her. That would’ve been her death sentence, and she wasn’t stupid. So she left us in the lion’s den, and we stayed. Learned to fight, to bleed, to survive under O’Malley fists and rules.

I’d always wished we’d gone with her. Both of us. Me and Cormac.

But when the time came, when I finally broke free, I did exactly what she did. Walked away. Took her name. Left the O’Malleys bleeding behind me and never looked back.

Lucian’s gaze lingers on me, sharp as ever. “You might want to rethink that. The Irish are shaky right now. Some of your old allies could still be in place. Might be useful to pull on a few strings while we hunt this stalker.”

The answer comes out clipped, final. “No.”

His brow ticks.

“Whatever I do,” I add, “I’ll do it without the Irish.”

That’s a wound I won’t reopen.

I shift in my chair, restless, ready to drag us off this subject before he digs deeper. My eyes rake over him, taking in the faint shadows under his eyes, the tight line of his mouth. “You look like shit, Vale. Go take your old lady to bed and stay there a week or two.”

For the first time this morning, an actual chuckle rumbles out of him. He turns toward the espresso machine tucked into the corner, dark roast filling the air a moment later. “You’re not wrong.” He offers me one with a tilt of his chin.

I wave it off. “I’m wired enough.”

Lucian takes the cup for himself, leans against the counter, and exhales. “It’s getting to be too much. I can’t keep my attention where it needs to be. That’s why I’m looking for someone to run the Italians for me.”

My head lifts. “Step down?”

“Not completely.” His eyes glint over the rim of his cup. “They’ll still be under me. Under the Ledger’s shadow. But the day-to-day… someone else can bleed for that throne.”

He shakes his head, almost smiling to himself. “And I think Sienna will sic her dog on me if I don’t pick someone soon.”

The mental image of Sienna’s oversized mutt tearing through Lucian’s marble halls nearly drags a laugh out of me, but I rein it in, rubbing my jaw instead.

“She’s turned your attack dog into nothing but a cuddle monster.”

“Fuck if I don’t know it.” He cocks a brow and tips his cup to me before taking a sip.

But he would tear this world down for her—and that cuddle monster—if it came to it.

And that’s my cue to get the hell out of here. Because the longer I sit in this office listening to Lucian Vale play house, the more I start admitting dangerous things to myself. Like how I’d do the same for one very particular, very challenging Companion.

Only because I’m charged with her safety. That’s all.

Even as the thought forms, I know it’s bullshit.

I push up from the chair, rolling the tension out of my shoulders. “I’ll check in with Jaxon. We’ll have this fucker flushed out soon enough.”