My hand finds the door behind me without looking. I twist the handle hard, but it doesn’t budge.
Of course it doesn’t.
For the first time, my act cracks and I slam my shoulder against the door.
Nothing.
I yank the handle harder this time, nails biting into the metal.
It won’t move.
I smash my shoulder against it, even harder, but it doesn’t give in. Solid wood. A faint click follows—a lock sliding into place. That sound lands in the pit of my stomach like a dead weight.
Someone locked it. Which means….
I’m trapped.
I whip around, scanning the room—a concrete box built for their amusement. The poker table sits at the center, surrounded by men who watch me. They look relaxed, but I know the only reason their posture is easy is because they own everything in this room.
A lump rises in my throat, but I push it down, forcing my stance to stay steady. I won’t let them see my fear.
Then I remember that I have my phone with me.
My fingers reach for it before I can think and stop to weigh my options. But as soon as I switch it on the screen turns black and a hand shoots out snatching the phone from my grasp.
I freeze.
A man is staring at me steadily as he turns the phone over in his hand, before slipping it into his pocket.
Carter’s voice slams back into my mind, his lie unraveling with every passing second.
But that was a lie.
A careful deception dressed in false reassurance, a promise designed to make me walk straight into their game.
Now, it’s too late.
A rush of heat floods through the palms of my hands.
I know these types of men.
Dangerous, unpredictable and ruthless.
My breath sharpens, my chest tightening against the weight of realisation.
I shouldn’t be here.
I turn to face the room, pressing my palms against the door, the wood solid beneath my touch, but it may as well be a wall closing in on me.
This was a mistake.
“You really thought a phone call was gonna bail you out?” The man chuckles. “Sweetheart, this ain’t a game you just walk away from. You’re in. That means you play by our rules.”
I cock my head, giving him a slow, unimpressed once-over. “Wow. Did you practice that speech in front of the mirror? Because you really nailed the creepy mobster vibe.”
His smirk falters for a second.
He steps forward, crowding my personal space. “Do you understand?”
I raise a brow. “Oh, I totally get it—you’re overcompensating for something. But you don’t have to convince me, I already know your type.”
His jaw tightens. “You’re not in control—you never were. Thought you could run with the big boys? Cute. But you’re way outta your league.”
I snort. “Big boys? Please. Carter set me up, and now I’m stuck dealing with a bunch of glorified thugs who think growling makes them scary.”
His nostrils flare, but I keep my expression cool, my tone sharper now. I won’t give them my fear. That’s what they want. And I never give anyone what they want.
The one man I thought I could trust put me here for money, control and whatever dark game he’s playing. He knew exactly what these men were capable of, and he still set me up.
I stand taller and try to act as if I’m still in control, but it’s slipping through my fingers like sand.
My eyes scan the room for an escape route or anything that can help me. Nothing.
No windows, doors or hatches. I’m trapped.
There’s nowhere to run… no way out and nobody to help me.
I try to swallow the dry lump in my throat, but it’s too big. “You can’t do this,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “I don’t want trouble. I just—I need the money. For my dad—”
The man’s laugh cuts through my words like a razor.
“Money?” He spits the word, eyes gleaming. My hard act is being stripped away just by his sheer presence. “Sweetheart, you’re already in the deep end. No backing out—not without paying for it.”
I let out a measured and steady breath. He expects fear. He’s rooting for it and I won’t give it to him.
Instead, I let my lips curve a fraction. “A price? Cute. Is this the part where you try to make me beg?”
He tilts his head. “You tell me. Would you beg?”
I force my smirk to widen. “Not in the way you want.”
He leans forward just enough for me to catch the scent of tobacco and leather.
“Confidence is a funny thing,” he grins. “It makes people reckless. Makes them blind.”
I refuse to flinch, but he sees something in me fracture.
His lips barely part when he breathes out his next words, slow and dangerous. “And I like watching the moment it snaps.”
I swallow—too late. He sees it. He knows and that makes him chuckle.
“Cute. Real cute. You think the sarcasm helps you, don’t you?”
I hold his gaze. “I think it annoys you. Which means I’m doing something right.”
His lips curl—not into a smirk. Something worse.
He snaps his fingers.
The sound slices through the thick air. A command.
Behind him, men shift. Bored amusement flickers into something heavier. Interest. Appetite.
He laughs. Dark. Low.
“You’re one against forty-seven, sweetheart. Play your cards wrong, and you won’t like what happens next.”
Something cold slithers through my ribs, but I hold onto my smirk for dear life. Don’t flinch.
“Threats again. Jesus, do any of you have original material?”
The amusement in his eyes dims.
“Not a threat,” he murmurs. “A warning—drop the act before someone decides you don’t need it anymore.”
A pause.
A stretch of silence so thick I feel it pressing against my already tight chest.
I force a chuckle—a poor imitation of his own. “See, that? That was slightly more creative. Almost creepy. You’re learning.”
The pressure between us changes.
The men behind him lean in, watching, waiting. The space shrinks and the air warps.
His smile is slow, like he’s indulging me. He already knows how this will end.
“You think you’re untouchable.”
I tilt my head. “I think I don’t scare easy.”
His smile splits wider.
“I wasn’t talking about fear.”
His smile doesn’t falter. If anything, it deepens—cold and knowing.
“Enough.”
The word slithers between us, quiet, absolute.
I exhale slowly, keeping my expression steady.
He sighs, almost disappointed. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”
Two fingers. That’s all it takes.
He lifts his hand, barely touching the edge of my cheek. It’s enough for me to feel the warmth of his skin, his thumb lingering at the corner of my mouth.
He’s watching. Waiting.
The breath I planned to release stays lodged in my throat.
The men behind him shift—forty-seven men moving into place, standing a foot behind him silently waiting.
“Drop the act,” he growls. “Before I let them have you.” What he’s giving me is the truth.
It’s quiet. None of the men raise their voice.
My pulse stutters.
His fingers don’t move, but his gaze does. It drops to my lips and stays there. Then his focus moves back to my eyes, searching and pulling the real me out from the hidden depths of my fake persona.
“You were fearless a second ago. Where’d that go?”
My jaw tightens. Don’t let him see it. But he does. He sees the real me clearly. The version of me who is too afraid to speak up, the one who stutters everytime someone figures her out, the innocent girl trapped in a dangerous world she doesn’t know how to escape.
He breathes out, savoring the moment before the fall. “Say you’re sorry.”
I clench my teeth, refusing to follow his demand.
His fingers tilt my chin slightly, angling my face toward him like he’s inspecting something fragile and breakable.
“Say it.”
The silence stretches.
Tightens.
The men behind him watch.
I lower my head and then I break. I break because I’m afraid of the outcome, of what these men might do to me if I refuse to comply with their demands, because it’s the only way I know how to survive this.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
I hate the way it sounds and feels when it leaves my mouth. He’s won and he knows he has as his fingers slip away, slow and satisfied.
“There she is,” he breathes. “Now, let’s see if you can stay that way.”
I don’t think I can buy, talk or fight my way out of this.
My eyes sweep across the room, landing on faces I know very well.
The scar along one man’s jaw. I testified against him. He was offered a deal—he refused. I watched as the judge sentenced him to ten years.
So why is he here?
It’s only been one.
Another man leans against a table with black hair and dark eyes. Eight months ago, I saw him in court. Trafficking. He walked free on a technicality. I wrote the memo that nearly buried him.
My throat tightens.
And then there’s him.
Black hair. Ice-blue eyes. Lean muscle draped in the same sapphire suit. The man I’ll never forget.
“Take the money,” he’d demanded, sliding the envelope across the table.
I refused.
I thought I was proving something. That justice mattered more than fear.
Dark eyes got two years.
His gaze snaps to mine and my breath catches.
Recognition.
He smiles—slow and cruel, like the devil watching someone realize they’ve walked straight into hell.
My skin prickles.
I’m prey. Surrounded. Trapped.
This isn’t a poker room.
It’s a den.
And I walked in wearing perfume instead of armor.
Oh God.
I worked on their cases. My name is in their files, and my signature is on their paperwork.
They know who I am, but I barely know them or what they are truly capable of.
My blood runs cold. I try to steady my breathing, but it’s like standing in a dark alley with footsteps echoing behind you, except here, there’s no running. Only walls and eyes.
I feel as if I’m being strangled, my chest so flipping tight I’m suffocating.
The man who ripped my confidence apart clamps his hand around my arm and steers me towards the poker table.
“Come on,” he rasps, yanking a chair out with one hand. The gold legs scrape over the marble floor, sharp and jarring. “Take a fuckin’ seat, yeah?”
I plant my heels for half a second and the man chuckles under his breath, shoving me down into the chair anyway. Then he drops a heavy hand on my shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle hard enough my spine stiffens.
“Here’s how it’s gonna go,” he says, his breath hot against my ear. “You sit still. You listen when you’re spoken to. You don’t run your mouth, you don’t play cute, and you sure as hell don’t try reading this table.” His fingers tighten and I grit my teeth. “We already know who you are.”
