Page 4 of Stormhold

Everything was neat, expensive, and carefully curated.

A cave fit for the man who sat with his back to me.

I unsheathed the lock from the ropes and took measured steps toward him. There was a wall of computers with state-of-the-art technology, and an expansive U-shaped desk with complex machinery. He sat there on his high stool, prodding a microchip with a precision probe.

If he felt or knew I was here, he didn’t show.

I took another step forward, then another, until I was only a few feet away from him. He was tall, unnaturally tall, as he loomed over the desk, his back concealed by a loose black shirt that faintly caught the slopes of his muscular back as he worked.

“There’s a floor trigger to your right.” My steps faltered on the spot as his powerful voice echoed through the room. “A crossbow pointed at your back. Men outside the door who will put a bullet between your eyes. My dog that will have you by your throat with a flick of my finger…”

“And a gun pointed at my left eye, more specifically an S44 Sniper with .338 caliber that will kill me instantly.” I finished the sentence for him. “I know. I’m not stupid, Stormhold.”

My words barely made him pause. If I hadn’t been looking, I hardly would’ve caught it. It lasted for a mere fraction of a second before he continued with his task.

“Bellerose Esteal.” My name on his lips made my heart constrict momentarily. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“If you know my name, then you know what I’m here for,” I said softly as I rounded the corner, making sure not to step on the active weak spots on the floor. I traced my finger along the computer screen, trying to catch a glimpse of the man the city feared.

“I make it my business to know everyone who stirs trouble in my city,” he replied nonchalantly. “Especially ones who don’t try to hide it.”

“Punishing evil isn’t a crime.”

I still couldn’t see his face, but for some reason, I could feel him raise a brow at my statement. “You wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t agree with it.”

“Glad we agree then,” I said flatly, cutting straight to the point. “The reason I’m here tonight is because there’s a man who claims to know what happened on September thirteenth.”

That made him still. The entire city knew what happened that day four months ago.

It was considered the greatest misstep in centuries for the Stormholds. The head family was gunned down on the steps of the St. Salvatore Cathedral on the Uppers after Mass. Everyone in the city knew the family was there every Sunday, but no one had ever dared to set foot in their own territory, open fire, and walk away without a scratch until now. The incident left Victor Stormhold, the former head of the family, paralyzed from the waist down, and his wife in a coma.

It shook the city to its core. The family had been on high alert since; the city was in a lockdown with no outsiders in or out, but even then, they couldn’t figure out who risked everything to commit a direct crime against the family.

“How sure are you?” he asked without turning.

“I’m not, but it might as well have been his dying words, so it may hold some truth. I’ll leave it to you to discern whether he lies or not. You have tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll be over to collect him. I expect him to have life on his body because it’s mine to take.”

Ever so slowly, he finally dropped the probe. Even that moment was deliberate, like he had all the time in the world, like he was in no hurry to meet the assassin who knew how to kill a man in one hundred and thirty-three ways, if not more.

Storm-gray eyes met mine, and suddenly, my heart thundered alive, like it had been in a deep slumber for the past thirteen years.

His eyes bore into the depths of my soul before he gave me a stiff nod.

The grays in his eyes weren’t dead and ashen—they were raging like a ring of thunderstorm and lightning. A piece of his raven hair fell over his left eye—the angles of his defined face were carved to perfection from his high cheekbones, pointed cupid’s bow above his pink lips, and his sharp jawline. Everything about him was perfection. His distinct feature, the one the city whispered about, was the jagged scar that ran over his right jugular, all the way over his jawline to the edge of his lip. As if someone carved it with a blunt blade, not caring about the consequences.

But in my eyes, it only made him more beautiful.

One look at him and I knew, like a calm recognition.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’d been adamant. Adamant that one day I would meet a man who would own my heart forever. Even at twenty-nine, I was so sure there was a man like that for me.

It was more of a deep knowing than adamancy.

But never in a million years did I think that man would be Arkane Stormhold, the eldest son of Victor Stormhold. The man who ruled over the Stormhold legacy.

The man whose name was whispered on the streets as more of a warning.

The man who never left his prey alive.