The mansion smelled of smoke and betrayal.

Blood stained the marble floors, slick under Raven’s boots as she stepped over a body of one of Jaxon’s men, throat slit, eyes still open in shock. The night’s violence wasn’t over, but the silence pressing in on the estate was worse than gunfire.

Jaxon stood in the center of it, shirt torn, knuckles raw, a king on the edge of losing his crown. His men surrounded him, half of them loyal, half of them seething, every gaze snapping like blades ...