Jasper Maddox
The drive to the edge of the city was too damn quiet. The kind of silence that never came without a cost. It buzzed in my ears like a warning—like someone was listening. Watching.
I killed the headlights two blocks early, slipped out of the car behind a rusted-out warehouse, and made the rest of the trek on foot. Glass cracked beneath my boots, gravel shifted like brittle bones. This part of the city had been rotting for years—just like the men I was about to meet.
Aria had no idea what she'd handed me. She thought she was using me to stay ahead, to protect herself. But the intel she passed on was a loaded gun: shell companies, untraceable accounts, Monarch Syndicate ties that ran deeper than blood. The kind of knowledge people died for.
I reached the meet spot—a steel door hidden under a decaying overpass. One knock sharp. Two slow. One more.
It creaked open, and a shadow peeled itself out of the dark.
"About time," the man muttered.
I stepped inside. The air reeked of mold and old secrets. Flickering lights cast long, twitching shadows over the cracked concrete. Three men. One against the wall, arms crossed. Two at the table, surrounded by open folders, weapons, exposed wires like a makeshift operating table.
The man at the head looked up—silver hair, hands like withered parchment, eyes like razors.
"Mr. Vale's daughter is getting bold," he said.
I didn't flinch. "She's getting close. Too close. We may need to pull the plug."
"She still thinks she's in control?"
"For now," I said. "But she's on the edge of something. If she uncovers what Wolfe buried… if she finds out what Monarch really is"
"She won't." He cut me off. Voice like ice. "You'll make sure of that."
Silence dropped between us. Heavy. Absolute.
I walked forward and set the file down in front of him. "This is what she found. Movement logs. Names. Offshore transfers tied to Wolfe Enterprises. This is more than vengeance for her. She's chasing ghosts. Ones that should've stayed buried."
He looked at me for a long moment. "And Wolfe?"
I paused. Just for a second. "He's breaking. Watching her. Protecting her, even when he doesn't know what from. If she brings Monarch to him, it might be enough to shatter him."
The man smiled. Cold. "Good. Let him bleed."
He stood, motioned to one of the others. "Get this to Sector 3. As for Aria—keep her close. If she wanders too far…"
He didn't have to finish the sentence. I felt it like a knife against my ribs.
"Make it clean."
I gave a sharp nod and turned to leave. Every step felt heavier than the last.
Outside, the night swallowed me whole.
But I didn't move like a shadow this time.
I moved like a man with a war coming for him
and every reason to let it burn.
---
Damian didn't look up when I stepped into the room. He rarely did anymore—not with me. Maybe he was beginning to sense the shift, the way trust had thinned between us like ice over black water. Or maybe he was just too lost in his latest obsession—a new schematic, maybe, sprawled across his desk like a battlefield he was trying to win with ink and steel.
"Updates?" he asked, his voice low, clipped.
"Cleaned up the mess on the west front," I said evenly. "Elena Ward's silence has been bought—temporarily."
Lie.
She was already talking. Whispering things that could crack the entire facade if Aria pushed hard enough. And Aria—God help us—she was already digging through the bones of Monarch like she meant to raise the dead.
I moved closer, setting the folder down in front of him—sanitized, redacted, polished. A version of the truth that wouldn't get me killed. "Nothing traceable."
He nodded, flipping through the pages without a flicker of suspicion. Or maybe he didn't want to see it. Denial was a luxury, and Damian Wolfe wore it like armor when it came to her.
I wondered, just for a second, what he'd do if he found out the truth.
That the files she'd handed me—the ones I was supposed to destroy—I'd given to someone else. Someone who wanted them both ruined, buried beneath the same lie that had killed Aria's father.
Would he see it in my eyes first?
The betrayal? The years of pretending to be the loyal second, when all along, I was playing my own game?
Or would it be her heartbreak that destroyed him first?
He didn't look at me, not really. Not the way Aria did, with suspicion coiled behind every glance. Damian still thought I was his. Trusted me with his empire, his secrets, his war.
He didn't know I was the blade pressed to his back.
And when the moment came—when the choice between her and the empire had to be made—I'd be the one forcing his hand.
Because loyalty is a beautiful lie.
And I was done lying to myself.
---
Damian Wolfe
Something was off.
It wasn't just the silence—it was the kind that followed detonations. The stillness after impact, before the dust settles and you realize what you've lost.
Aria hadn't returned my messages in over a day. Not ignored, silenced, intentional, calculated.
And when she did speak, her voice had that sharpened edge again—the same tone she used the first time she walked into my office and acted like she wasn't afraid of me. Like she had already stripped me bare in her mind and found me lacking.
I stood in the penthouse, the city sprawled beneath me like a lie. A kingdom I was supposed to own, and yet the walls were closing in with every second she kept me in the dark.
Jasper moved like a ghost now. Polite. Efficient. Unreadable.
That's how I knew he was lying.
He used to challenge me. Press, push. He wasn't afraid to tell me when I was about to set fire to my own empire. But now? He nodded too easily. Left rooms too quickly. Covered his tracks too cleanly.
It was the calm before something catastrophic.
And I could feel it. The shift.
Either Aria was about to confront me... or she was about to burn me to the ground.
I should've been angry. Furious. But all I felt was this sickening coil in my chest.
Because I didn't know which outcome terrified me more.
That she'd walk through my door with vengeance in her eyes…
Or that she wouldn't walk through it at all.