He picked up the file, flipped it open, eyes skimming the contents as if they bored him. “You’re smart, Killian. Smarter than this. So unless you’re ready to die on a hill no one remembers, I’d think twice about where you plant your flag.”
Then, he set the file down, gave me a look as if we were two old friends at a crossroads. “Be careful, son. Some doors, once opened, can’t be closed.”
I let the silence stretch between us for a beat longer than was comfortable. Then, I nodded, slow, like maybe—just maybe—he’d managed to rattle something loose.
“You think I haven’t been careful? You think I haven’t already paid for every door I opened?”
I turned the file back toward me, flipping a page as though I needed the words to give me courage, as though I was wavering.
“It worries me,” I said, quieter now, eyes still on the page. “That Marcus Kessler is named in here, too.” Lassiter flinched. “That’s not a name that just shows up by accident. So, how much is this worth to me? And I don’t mean petty shit like blackmail; I want a real percentage of the money you’re pulling in.”
Lassiter’s eyes flickered, a momentary crack in the mask. Did he see me as the same kind of bad guy as him? If he did, then I needed a freaking Oscar for my acting efforts when all I wanted to do was call 911 right now. Strain tightened his jaw before he forced a smile.
“You want money? I can get you money,” he said, voice low, oily. “I know who you are under the suits, Killian. Street rat. Prostitute. But I can make you more than that. I can make you powerful. Protected. Paid.”
He leaned back again, the offer laid out like poison wrapped in gold.
I stared at him for a long moment, then pulled out the chair and sat across from him.
“Now we’re talking.”
But inside, my stomach turned. I hated the way the words tasted coming out of my mouth, hated how natural it felt to slip into the role he expected of me. The kid from the streets who’d do anything for money. The fixer who knew when to take a deal instead of making noise.
Let him think I was cracking. Let him believe I could be bought. That was the point because if I wanted him to confess, to lower his guard, I had to play this right. Let him think I’d crawl into his pocket.
I wasn’t here for power. I was here for justice. For Robbie. For the ones no one remembered. And if I had to play the Devil’s game to get it, so be it. This wasn’t only business, it was personal. Robbie’s fear haunted me—the photos I’d seen of him when he’d first arrived at Redcars, bloodied, terrified, small beneath the weight of what they’d done to him.
Redcars wasn’t just a garage. It was a line in the sand. A place where survivors became something more than victims. It was the only thing standing between men like Robbie and monsters like Lassiter. And if I let Lassiter walk, if I let him keep poisoningeverything he touched, then what the hell had any of us bled for?
Robbie believed in me. Rio did. Enzo, Caleb, all of them. And I’d drag Lassiter into the light kicking and screaming if I had to. Because Redcars was built to fight men like him, and I was done playing the good cop.
He wanted a fixer. Then he’d get one.
But I’d be the last one he ever tried to buy.
SEVENTEEN
Jamie
After that dayin the office, I’d stayed away from Killian for two days.
Two days since I’d heard his anger and the command in his voice, the weight of the control he took from me. The fire hadn’t quietened the noise in my head this time. It licked at the edges but didn’t touch the core, and I was spiraling because he’d helped me.
He’d called me Pretty.
That word shouldn’t have wrecked me, but it did. It made me ache in ways I didn’t have language for. It wasn’t about the sex. It never really was. It was about surrender. About someone strong enough to take what I gave and not flinch. I needed the brutal steadiness of his presence, the way hestripped me bare and left nothing but truth. I needed the collar back around my throat, the burn of punishment and the grace of being seen. I needed to be kept, and fuck, I hated that almost as much as I craved it.
And, Iwascraving it.
Every fucking hour.
The silence was worse than anything. There were no messages or visits, and I didn’t go back to his office. It was absence, stretching longer and sharper with each morning I woke up in my place, pretending I didn’t care about what I’d done, or what he’d done for me.
Not to me.
Forme.
I wasn’t on a killing-everyone lockdown, not exactly, but Rio had made it pretty clear we weren’t taking action on anything or anyone until Killian gave the go-ahead. I was supposed to wait. Stay still. I didn’t want to. But Rio didn’t know about the connection between Killian, his team, and Lassiter.
