Brandon poured himself two fingers of Dalmore 18, watching the amber liquid swirl in the glass. He stood before the wide living-room windows of his penthouse, the city glittering beneath him like a field of jewels. His reflection in the glass smirked back, a far cry from the dishevelled, crazed maniac of the past few days. ow he was unbothered, composed, victorious.
A necessary ss, but a clean one that ant he could now breathe and go back to more fulfilling tasks such as destroying Levi and winning Lyse’s affection back.
Luca Thorn was gone.
Danny was long gone.
The rest was noise, and Brandon knew exactly how to silence noise.
He raised the glass to his lips, savoring the smooth fire spreading down his throat. Finally, he thought, one less rat gnawing at my ankles.
His phone buzzed.
He sighed, set down the glass, and answered. "What?"
The voice on the other end was gravelly, strained. His enforcer. "We... might have a situation, boss."
Brandon’s jaw tightened. "A situation?"
"We combed the warehouse. All of it." A pause. "There’s... there’s no body."
Silence thickened, stretching long and razor-sharp.
Then Brandon chuckled—cold, humorless. "Don’t be stupid. we left him bleeding out on the floor, there is no way that he could have gotten away."
"I’m telling you, boss. He’s not there."
"Check again."
"We did."
Brandon’s amusent vanished instantly. "So what, he crawled away? In that condition?"
"We followed the trail. It led to the parking lot. He must have gotten into a car."
Brandon’s lips pressed into a thin line. "A car? He could barely stand."
"Still... he’s gone."
A long breath hissed between Brandon’s teeth. He turned away from the window, pacing slowly, letting his anger simr. Just as he thought he was trough with this Luca business. "Then find him. I don’t care how long it takes. Check hospitals, morgues, his apartnt, his workplace, every sewer he crawls through. And if he’s alive..."
He paused.
"You finish it properly."
A tense, affirmative grunt ca through the line. "Understood."
The call ended.
Brandon stood very still. His fingers flexed around the phone. One heartbeat passed. Then two. His rage eased up. Not because he wasn’t furious, but because he refused to let anyone or anything disturb his composure.
If Luca is alive, he mused, then perhaps he learned sothing useful tonight.
n like Luca were cowards in the end. They bled once and never ca back for more.
"He won’t try again," Brandon murmured to himself, irritation fading into a smug calm. "Not after what happened."
He believed it. Why wouldn’t he? In his mind, the world always fell back into place exactly where he needed it. After all, had his path not been filled with obstacles that he had removed himself?
Brandon returned to the window, retrieving his whiskey. He sipped slowly, savoring victory once more.
Luca Thorn was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost now.
Which ant Brandon was free, finally to turn his attention to sothing far more interesting.
Lyse.
A slow grin curled his lips, eyes gleaming with a dangerous softness. "Now, my dear," he whispered into the empty room, "we can continue where we left off."
He lifted the glass in a silent toast, to loose ends tucked away, to future sches, to the woman he intended to claim no matter the cost.
Behind him, lightning lit the skyline in a jagged flash.
Brandon didn’t look back.
He didn’t see the shadow of his own undoing drawing nearer.
And he had no idea that Luca Thorn was still alive.Rain drumd against the warehouse roof, a relentless hiss over Luca’s shallow breaths. The edges of his vision shuddered, dimming, but sothing stubborn dragged him back from the brink.
Not yet.
Not here.
Not like Danny.
He rolled onto his side, a strangled groan ripping from his lungs as pain flared across his ribs. His fingers brushed sothing warm, blood, pooling beneath him. Not fatal, he told himself. Not yet. Brandon’s brute hadn’t aid to finish him, only to break him.
A ssage.
A warning.
A promise of what would co next.
Luca pressed a trembling palm to the wall and forced himself upright. The warehouse tilted wildly, shadows doubling, blinking in and out. His legs buckled, but he used the wall to prop himself up, dragging his bruised body toward the exit one breath at a ti.
Outside, the cold rain slapped him, soaking the blood on his clothes, mixing with it, diluting it. He stumbled across the cracked asphalt, collapsing against his car door. He fumbled for his keys, fingers slick and numb.
The engine coughed to life.
His ex-girlfriend’s address was only ten minutes away. He just prayed he had ten minutes left in him.
By the ti he reached her building, every nerve in his body scread. The stairwell swayed beneath him. He clutched the railing, climbed, slipped, climbed again, tasting blood with every breath.
He knocked with the last of his strength.
The door swung open.
"Luca?" Mia’s voice was small at first, then shattered into panic. "Oh my God! What... what happened?!"
Her hands flew to her mouth as she stared at him: soaked in rain, shirt torn, one eye nearly swollen shut, blood streaking down the side of his face.
He tried to smile, but it hurt too much. "Hey," he rasped. "I, uh... need a favor."
She grabbed him by the shoulders, steadying his collapsing fra. "You need a hospital! You... Luca, you’re bleeding everywhere—"
"No hospital," he croaked.
Her eyes widened, horrified. "Luca, are you insane? You could have internal..."
"No hospital." He insisted and clutched her wrist with surprising strength. His voice cracked. "Please. They’ll find there."
"Who? Who did this?"
"Brandon..." His breath hitched, and his knees buckled. "It was... Brandon Marlowe..."
Mia’s face drained of all color. She pulled him inside, shutting the door with her foot. "Okay, okay, co on, sit, sit down. God, Luca—"
"No hospital," he whispered again, eyes already fluttering. "Promise ."
She cupped his face, her voice breaking. "Luca, please stay with . Look at —stay awake."
But the world tilted violently, swallowing the light around him. His fingers slipped from her wrist as his body sagged into her arms.
"Luca!"
His eyes rolled back.
The last thing he heard before the darkness took him was Mia’s trembling voice:
"I’m here. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you."
And then the world went black.
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