---
The first thing Ava noticed when she stepped into the dining hall wasn't the view, the marble floors, or the sleek black chandelier dripping like obsidian icicles from the ceiling.
It was the table.
Twelve chairs, arranged like a jury. An obsidian surface stretched unnaturally long across the room—cold, deliberate. This wasn't a place meant for meals.
This was a place for war councils.
And Eitan Berger was already seated at the head of it, as still and silent as a loaded gun.
He didn't rise when she entered.
"You're late," he said.
Ava glanced at her watch. "It's six fifty-eight."
"Two minutes is a lifetime," he replied, "when precision matters."
She raised an eyebrow. "Planning to time my heartbeat next?"
"I already have."
The words were dry. Not a joke. Not flirtation. A statement of fact.
She let the silence settle, determined not to let him get under her skin. But the room felt like it was shrinking around her. She wasn't afraid—she didn't do fear anymore—but her nerves prickled, alert. Eitan was the kind of man who drew blood with words, and dissected people without ever raising his voice.
He gestured to the chair beside him—not across. Beside.
Power play.
Ava moved toward it anyway, calm and cool on the outside. A trembling bomb on the inside.
"Am I being briefed or interrogated?" she asked.
He said nothing. Just slid a sleek black tablet across the table to her.
On screen: a document stamped with an insignia she hadn't seen in years. The emblem of a defunct intelligence agency she'd worked with during her Ghost years. One she'd helped dismantle from the inside.
Her mouth went dry.
Where the hell had he gotten this?
"You worked for them in Prague," Eitan said. "Then vanished. Changed your name. Erased your records. Very thorough."
She didn't speak. Didn't breathe.
"But not thorough enough," he continued. "There's always someone watching. And I found you because I was already looking."
She met his eyes, heat rising in her chest. "Why?"
He didn't blink. "Because you don't belong here. Not in the city. Not in this world. And I don't believe in coincidences."
She swallowed the lump in her throat. "If you've read my file, then you know who I was running from."
"I do," he said. Then he reached under the table and pulled out a red-sealed folder.
He slid it to her slowly. Like a gift.
Her name was stamped across the top in dark ink, stylized and unmistakable.
Ava D. Creed.
Inside, she saw the unmistakable structure of a hit order—target profile, last known aliases, photos, surveillance summaries. All marked by one signature:
GHOST.
"No," she whispered. "They don't do paper trails. They don't sign things."
"They did this time."
She stared at the stamp, at the crimson letters screaming off the page. She felt her limbs freeze. Felt her years of hard-fought control start to crack.
"You think you can protect me from them?" she said, her voice raw.
"No," Eitan said quietly. "I think you can help me destroy them."
Ava sat back, stunned.
She was a fugitive from the most dangerous covert group in the world—and here was a billionaire offering her the chance to fight back.
Or maybe use her as bait.
She narrowed her eyes. "What's in this for you?"
Eitan leaned forward. "Ghost tried to take something from me once. I don't forgive."
"Then you and I have something in common."
He pushed a thumb drive toward her across the table.
"Take this. It has locations. Names. Their tech. Their laundering fronts. Everything my people have traced. I need verification from someone who lived it."
"You want me to confirm the bones in their closet?"
"I want you to help me crack it wide open."
Ava stared down at the thumb drive. Just a chip of metal and plastic—but it felt heavy. Weighted with her past.
"Give me a reason," she murmured.
"I already did." Eitan stood, his shadow falling over her. "They want you dead. I want you alive."
---
That night, Ava couldn't sleep.
She stood by the window of her suite, clutching the hit order to her chest as rain tapped softly against the glass.
The city glittered below, unaware that monsters walked in suits above them.
Ghost had found her.
Or maybe they'd never stopped watching.
And Eitan? Eitan knew too much. Knew things that weren't in files. Things that weren't recorded. His accuracy unnerved her—and his presence?
His presence compelled her.
She didn't like it. Didn't want to feel anything but suspicion. But the way he looked at her—like she was a puzzle he'd already solved—it made something old and hidden inside her want to rise. To breathe again.
She was still at the window when the door opened behind her.
She didn't turn. She already knew it was him.
"You didn't knock," she said.
"I don't knock," he replied. "Not for you."
She glanced over her shoulder.
He wasn't dressed like a CEO now—black shirt, sleeves rolled, hair slightly mussed. He looked more like a hunter than a king.
"I've seen what they did to you," he said softly.
"Then you've seen too much."
"I watched. Years ago. Before I knew your name. Before I knew why I couldn't stop thinking about you."
Ava stiffened. "You had me watched?"
"I had to know who you were. What made you burn."
She turned to face him. "That's not attraction. That's obsession."
Eitan stepped forward, eyes dark.
"I don't separate the two."
He stopped a foot from her. She could feel his breath now, feel the sharpness of him cutting into her air.
"You want to know why I chose you?" he whispered. "Because you never begged to be seen. But you made yourself unforgettable."
She didn't answer. Couldn't.
Because something in her—deep, primal—was listening.
"You don't belong to Ghost anymore, Ava," he said.
"I don't belong to you either."
"But you will."
He reached up—just once—and brushed a fingertip over her jaw.
It was a touch so gentle it made her shake.
Then he turned and walked out, leaving her in silence, fire and thunder tangled in her ribs.