ALEXANDER'S POV
(Two nights earlier.)
The car is silent, a tomb rolling through the neon-soaked veins of Las Vegas. The only sound is the low purr of the engine and the ghost of that wet, choking sound still echoing in my skull.
I flex my right hand, the knuckles stiff. The coppery scent of blood is a phantom in my nostrils, a perfume I know better than my own.
'It was clean. It was efficient. Right up until it wasn't.'
Lawrence is driving, his grip tight on the wheel. I can feel the question burning a hole in the silence. He's been my lieutenant for a decade. He knows the rules. No witnesses. Ever.
Finally, he cracks. "Boss," he starts, his voice careful, too careful. "The woman in the alley. Why did you let her go?"
I stare out the window at the passing blur of light and sin. I don't have an answer. Not one that makes sense. My mood, a dark and unpredictable beast, has saved a life tonight. A first.
'I could have killed her. One step, one quick, silencing motion. It would have been the smart move. The only move. Her blood could have mingled with the Port-Sarphire dog's on the asphalt. So why is she still breathing?'
I shrug, a lazy, dismissive gesture that feels like a lie. "She was no one," I say, the words tasting hollow.
But she wasn't. That's the problem.
Her face superimposes itself over the cityscape. Not the initial shock, not the wide-eyed terror. That's common. It was the second look.
The one that came after the fear, when our eyes had been locked for a solid, silent eternity. A spark of something… fierce. A defiant, blazing blue that refused to be completely extinguished.
She should have been a sobbing mess, a statue of pure panic.
But she wasn't.
'She looked at me like she was memorizing me. Not like a victim, but like an equal. A dangerous, fucking fascinating equal. Who the hell looks at a murderer like that?'
There was something off about her. The cut of her dress, simple but screaming money. The way she carried herself, even in her drunken stumble—like she owned the ground beneath her heels. She wasn't some random club girl. She was a queen who'd wandered into the wrong kingdom.
"Lawrence," I say, my voice cutting through the thick air.
"Yeah, Boss?"
"I want you to do a thorough investigation on that woman. I want to know who she is. Where she lives. What she eats for breakfast. Everything."
He glances at me, his confusion palpable. "If you knew you wanted intel on her, why let her go in the first place? We could have just brought her with us. Made it easy."
A flash of irritation, hot and sharp, licks up my spine. He's not wrong. It would have been easier. But the thought of her in a cold, concrete cell, that fire in her eyes snuffed out by fear… it feels like a waste. A profound and disappointing waste.
'I don't want a broken bird. I want to see that fire again. I want to be the one who decides whether to fan it or smother it.'
I turn my head slowly, letting him see the ice in my gaze. The patience I don't have. "I'm not asking for your opinion on my methods," I say, each word a shard of glass. "I'm giving you an order. Find her."
He flinches, just slightly, and looks back at the road. "Understood, Boss."
I settle back into the leather seat, the ghost of her blue eyes still burning in my mind.
'Run, little princess. Run back to your gilded tower. It won't matter. I've seen you now. And anything I see, I eventually take.'
– – –
The penthouse of The Onyx Tower is silent, a monument to my own power, and right now it feels like a prison.
The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view of the Strip, a sprawling kingdom of sin I control, and all I can see is the ghost of a face illuminated by a flickering alley light.
'Her. It's always her. Those fucking eyes. Wide, scared, but blazing with a fire that should have been extinguished the second she saw me. It's stuck in my head, a splinter I can't dig out. This is fucking suffocating.'
I pace the length of the black marble floor, the only sound the soft click of my dress shoes. Restlessness is a live wire under my skin. I've replayed the encounter a hundred times.
The way she didn't scream. The way she held my gaze, a silent challenge in the face of certain death. It was… intoxicating. A rare, unexpected vintage I need to taste again.
'Who is she? A socialite? A runaway heiress? A ghost? She can't be a ghost. Ghosts don't have eyes that look right through you, seeing the monster and not looking away.'
It's been twenty-four hours. A full fucking day. In my world, that's an eternity. I can find a man, his family, and his mistress in six. But her? Nothing.
The door to my office opens and Lawrence steps in, his posture rigid. I stop pacing and just look at him. I don't need to ask. The emptiness in his hands, the tension around his mouth—it tells me everything.
"Well?" My voice is dangerously quiet.
He clears his throat. "Nothing concrete yet, Boss. The area's CCTV is a mess. We're running facial recognition on the crowds from the club exits, but it's a slow process. It's like she vanished."
Vanished.
The word is a spark on a gas trail. The restless energy in me ignites into a cold, sharp fury.
"Nothing?" I repeat, the word a lash. "You have fucking nothing for me?"
Internal Monologue: This is unacceptable. She is a loose end. A variable. A beautiful, intriguing variable, but a threat nonetheless. And I don't let threats wander my city unnamed.
Lawrence shifts his weight. "We're working every angle, Alexander. She—"
I turn my back on him, cutting him off. I can't look at his useless face for another second. I stride to the bar, a sleek monolith of obsidian and glass.
I grab a crystal tumbler and a bottle of Macallan M that costs more than most cars. I don't pour it. I sling a heavy shot into the glass, the amber liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
Then I lift it and chug it.
The whiskey burns a hot, punishing path down my throat. It doesn't calm me. It fuels the fire. It's the only heat I can feel besides the one her memory stirs in my gut.
I immediately pour another and down that one, too, letting the second burn chase the first.
'Burn. Let it all burn. The impatience. The frustration. This goddamn, unfamiliar wanting. I need a name. I need a location. I need to see if that fire in her eyes will still burn when I'm the one holding the match.'
I set the empty glass down with a definitive thud that echoes in the vast, silent room. I finally turn back to Lawrence, the alcohol a dull roar in my veins, doing nothing to quell the storm.
"I don't pay you for 'working angles'," I snarl, my voice low and venomous. "I pay you for results. I don't care if you have to tear this city apart brick by fucking brick. Find her."
He gives a tight, quick nod, his face pale. "Yes, Boss."
He turns and leaves, the door clicking shut, leaving me alone again with the ghost in my head and the suffocating, intoxicating need to possess her.