Page 79 of Malice

I end the call.

The silence that follows is absolute. Not the comfortable quiet of the cabin or the charged stillness of a room before violence—this is something heavier. The particular gravity of a man who’s just been reminded, in the clearest possible terms, of exactly what’s at stake.

I lower the phone. Set it on the table beside Caldwell’s whiskey glass. Look at him.

His grin is gone. Whatever bravado was propping it up has crumbled, replaced by the dawning recognition that the man standing over him is no longer operating on rage alone.

Rage is hot. Rage burns out. What’s moving through me now is colder, more focused, more dangerous, the crystalline fury of a man who’s just confirmed, in the voice of the woman he loves, that someone dared to use him as bait to hurt her again.

“You texted her,” I say. My voice is flat. Dead. The voice of a man who’s already made a decision. “You took a burner phone, and you texted my woman, and you told her you had me.”

Caldwell’s throat works beneath my grip. His lips move, but nothing comes out. My hand is too tight, the pressure too precise.

I loosen my grip. Just enough.

“It wasn’t—” he croaks. “It wasn’t me. It was one of my men, he⁠—”

“I don’t care.” Three words. Absolute. Final. “I don’t care which one of your men sent it. I don’t care if it was you or your dog or your fucking barber. The contract came from you. The text came from your operation. The attempt to lure my woman out of a safe house and into an ambush, that’s on you.”

I lean down. Close enough that he can see the gold flecks in my eyes, close enough that he can smell the blood on my skin.

“You put a price on her head,” I say, each word precise. “You sent men to grab her in an alley. You paid a broker to find someone willing to kill her. And tonight you tried to use me to draw her out.” My grip tightens again, and I watch his eyes bulge. “You keep coming for her, Caldwell. You keep reaching for what’s mine, and I’ll be here every time to break your fingers.”

Behind me, I hear Greyson shift, the subtle sound of a man preparing to intervene if necessary. But he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. He’s giving me this moment, the same way he gave me the clubhouse, the same way he’s trusted me to walk the line between what needs to be done and what can’t be undone.

I release Caldwell’s throat. He collapses forward, gasping, his hands clutching at his neck where the bruise is already forming, dark, finger-shaped, a brand that says this man touched something he shouldn’t have.

“Get him up,” I say to Matthew. “We’re taking him back to the clubhouse.”

Matthew moves without hesitation, hauling Caldwell out of the chair by the collar of his shirt. The man stumbles, his legs unsteady, his face still that awful shade of mottled red and purple. He looks smaller now, diminished, the authority and arrogance bled out of him.

But his eyes are still sharp. Still calculating. Still the eyes of a man who’s survived worse than this and learned from it.

“This isn’t over,” Caldwell rasps, his voice wrecked, barely above a whisper. “You think you’ve won? You think grabbing me ends it? The contract doesn’t die with me, Kingston. The money’s already in circulation. Someone else will pick it up. You can’t kill every broker in the state.”

I step toward him. Close enough that he flinches in a full-body recoil, the instinctive response of prey that’s been caught once and remembers what the predator’s hands feel like.

“I’ll kill every broker in the state,” I say. “Then I’ll kill every broker in the country. And I’ll find the man who paid you, and I’ll kill him too.” I tilt my head, studying him as I do opponents in the cage, searching for tells, weaknesses, points where pressure hurts most. “You think this is about ending the contract, Caldwell? This is about making an example, sending a message so loud and clear that nobody ever looks at Beatrice Reyes again and thinks they can touch her.”

I can see the moment he realizes there is no way for him to get out of this.

Chapter 20

Carter

Matthew secures Caldwell’s hands behind his back with zip ties, efficient, professional, the practiced movements of a man who’s done this more times than he’d care to count.

Caldwell stumbles as Matthew shoves him toward the door, his expensive shoes catching on the blood-slicked floor. I watch him go, this diminished, broken version of the man who walked into this room assuming he was in control—and something in me changes. Not softens. Not relents. But clarifies, the way a lens sharpens when you twist it to the right focal point.

The contract doesn’t die with him.

His words linger in my mind, cold and clear, and I know he’s right. Taking out the leader won’t stop the machine. The cash flows, the brokers are ready, and the network runs on its own. As long as it’s active, someone, a desperate, shady character with a phone and a reputation, will grab the job. They’ll see Trixie’s name flash on a screen, do the math, and decide the cash is worth the gamble.

I can’t let that happen.

I catch Matthew’s eye. A single look, the kind that passes between men who’ve operated in the same dark spaces and understand the language of unspoken decisions. He reads it. His jaw tightens, and something moves through his expression, not approval, not judgment, but the grim acknowledgment of a man who’s about to stand watch while something necessary and terrible happens.

“Greyson,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. “I need the back room.”