Calix turns his head sharply toward the noise. His focus breaks. Annoyance crosses his harsh features.
“Must be the underground generators kicking on,” I lie smoothly.
The subterranean roar of a Ducati engine shakes the ballroom floorboards, and panic erupts. I don’t just walk away. Tapping into the cartel’s security frequency with a burst of screeching feedback to isolate Calix, I bark authoritative orders at the scrambling Costa guards. I command a total lockdown of the East exits and the roof, intentionally sending the heavily armed QRF in the exact opposite direction of Rafe’s tunnel slide and Jude’s West stairwell extraction. Once I orchestrate total tactical confusion, I look across the crowded ballroom one last time, watching the chaos I’ve orchestrated take root. Dominic Costa stands near the open bar, oblivious that his prize is already gone. I turn and walk toward the exit, my heart rate steady even as the world prepares to burn.
The bitter taste of failure sits in my mouth for a fraction of a second. The Broken Halos needed those files. I burned the primary objective.
The disappointment vanishes.
I push through the heavy glass doors, and the cold, sharp night air hits my face like a physical wake-up call. I confirm with the voice in my ear that the perimeter is green.
The tactical reality locks into place.
Dominic sold his sister because she was his most valuable political asset. He used her to buy an army. He used her to secure the western ports. She was the center of his entire strategic plan.
We didn’t get the financial paperwork. The club will have to bleed him dry another way.
But we just stole the Queen.
Checkmate, Dominic.
10
LUCIA
The bathroom door splinters inward.
The boom hits before I process the shape of him in the frame. Not sound—pressure. The specialized, directed flashbang detonates in the isolated kitchen corridor, the thick concrete walls absorbing the bulk of the decibels while the concussion moves strictly through the floor tile, through the bones of my feet. My eardrums compress, but I know the blast won’t carry past the heavy acoustic doors to the main ballroom. The world goes cotton-muffled for two full seconds.
Rafe’s voice cuts through the pressure. His combat knife is already moving—one stroke down the back of the blood-red gown, the blade finding the seam with the precision of a predator. The silk splits like a second skin. He kicks open a baseboard vent, pulling out a pre-positioned go-bag, and shoves heavy tactical gear into my hands. “Change. Now,” he snarls. I strip in the shadows of the hallway, the cold air hitting my bare skin before I slide into the rough, heavy canvas of the tactical leathers. They are too big, the thick material rubbing against my sensitive nipples and the aching heat of my pussy. His goldeneyes are on the door. On the corridor. On everything that is not me, because he is already three moves ahead and the only currency right now is seconds.
The gear smells of baked leather, hot engines, and gun oil. It smells like him.
We move.
The service corridor is narrow and low-lit. Rafe’s hand on my wrist—not gentle, not rough, simply directional, a compass grip that sayshere, this way, now—pulls me left at the junction before I see the junction. Two cartel guards materialize from the shadow on the right. Rafe releases my wrist. He steps into them. No gun—the sound would carry to the ballroom. His fist connects with the first guard’s jaw and the crack is specific and final. The second guard swings; Rafe absorbs it across his shoulder and returns it to the man’s throat. Both guards are on the floor before I have fully registered they were standing.
He takes my wrist again. We run.
The tunnel entrance is a metal door at the base of a concrete stairwell. Cold air hits from below—the deep, specific cold of underground spaces, earth and stone and the absence of circulation. The USB drive bites into my sternum with every stride, the hard metal edge grinding against bone. We reach the end of the tunnel, where the matte-black Ducati Panigale V4 waits like a coiled beast. Rafe throws a leg over the seat, hauling me up behind him before I can even catch my breath. He doesn’t wait; he twists the throttle, and the world becomes a violent smear of black asphalt and yellow concrete. I press my chest into his rigid back, the drive a sharp reminder of the secrets I’m carrying out of the fire.
A blackout helmet shields my face from the biting wind. My rapid, ragged breathing bounces off the dark internal visor.
The hard metal edge presses deeply against my skin beneath the layers of borrowed armor. The constant, sharp pain is a physical reminder of the lethal leverage resting against my heart.
The heavy sportbike swerves sharply off the illuminated highway. Rafe downshifts. We plunge into the deep shadows of an abandoned industrial alley. Thick tires crunch over broken glass and loose gravel.
The engine cuts out.
Sudden silence rings in my ears.
“Phone,” Rafe orders. The rough command sounds muffled through his heavy helmet.
My trembling fingers dig into the deep pocket of the jacket. The cold metal of the device meets his calloused palm. I don’t protest.
His combat boot doesn’t crush it. His thumbs press the side buttons. The screen goes black. He pops the back casing off, removes the tiny internal tracking chip, and snaps the plastic shut. The disabled device vanishes into his tactical pack.
“Dominic tracks everything,” Rafe states flatly. “The GPS signal is dead. The network connection is severed. We are off the grid.”