Lucas

The night pressed in heavy, the kind that even whiskey couldn’t burn out of my chest. I sat alone in my office, blinds half drawn, city lights spilling through the gaps like fractured promises. Nia was safe—or as safe as she could be under the kind of protection I’d forced around her. Guards on every floor. Surveillance doubled. No one could reach her.

At least that was the lie I kept whispering to myself.

Every second, my mind ran back to that moment—the blood blooming ...