Prologue
Freya didn’t know how it escalated so fast.
Thanksgiving dinners used to be simple. Quiet. Usually held at a chic restaurant with Lucas—and occasionally her mother and stepfather. Nothing extravagant. Nothing threatening.
Then one morning, a golden envelope appeared on her office desk.
Its weight was light, but her stomach twisted as if it carried a thousand pounds. The seal was unmistakable—Vadim Kingsman. Alphonse’s father. An invitation to the Kingsman Thanksgiving dinner.
Minutes later, her phone rang. Lucas.
Frantic. Panicking. Furious.
He’d received the same envelope.
She had spent most of that morning calming him down, of all people. Strange—she thought she’d be the one needing support. But somehow, she managed.
Lucas had admired her emerald-green dress when she finally emerged, the silk hugging her curves like a second skin. The plunging neckline made him mutter something about changing into a turtleneck instead.
She laughed, gently fixing the collar of his jacket. “Relax, Lucas. You look stunning too. Just be yourself.”
“Yeah, sure. Myself,” he grumbled. “The guy who gets tongue-tied around people with more money in their wine cellars than I’ll ever make in ten lifetimes.”
But nothing could have prepared them for the Kingsman estate.
It was massive—twice the size of Alphonse’s. Towering archways, two sprawling floors, and an opulent exterior that looked more like a royal embassy than a family home. Staff moved seamlessly across the grounds in tailored uniforms, and Freya wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them lived in the estate.
This wasn’t just family. It was the elite. Business titans. Silent partners. Power brokers in tailored suits and designer watches. She had to navigate a sea of introductions, exchanging smiles and pleasantries while suppressing the jittery thrum beneath her skin.
She kept telling herself:
Play it calm. They’re just people. But she knew better. They’re not.
One moment, she was sipping wine at the long, gilded table, trying not to gawk at a chandelier worth more than her house.
The next—
Gunfire.
Screams.
Chaos.
The windows shattered, bullets slicing through crystal like furious hail, shards spraying inward like glittering shrapnel.
She didn’t even blink before Alphonse was there—his hand clamping around hers, dragging her behind a marble column so wide it felt like hiding behind a cathedral pillar. His body wrapped around hers, a living barricade. She could smell the metal tang in the air—blood, cordite, and his cologne, sharp and grounding.
“What the fuck is happening?!” she gasped, ducking as another burst of bullets chewed through the opposite wall.
“Stay down,” Alphonse growled, his voice low and terrifyingly calm. The kind of calm that knew exactly how many exits there were. The kind that meant someone was going to die.
His arm was braced against the column, the tension in his shoulders like coiled steel. She could feel every inch of him pressing her safely back—yet ready to move, ready to kill.
“Charlie!” he barked.
“On it!” came the reply, followed by the metallic thunk of a pistol skidding across the floor.
“Elric!”
A familiar click answered from the shadows—Elric was armed too.
Then, Lucas’s voice cracked through the tension,“Is that a fucking gun?!”
More bullets tore through the columns—one striking so close the impact sprayed marble dust across her cheek. Freya choked, coughing on the acrid taste of gunpowder.
“What the hell did you do this time?!” roared a voice from behind the bar. Vadim Kingsman. Half-drunk, fully alert. “This was supposed to be a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner!”
Then—
A voice whispered a name. Spoken like a curse, like a memory pulled straight from hell. “Aleksei.”
Freya’s heart stopped.
That voice—she knew it. Too well. Too deeply.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Not him.
She’d only heard it once before in the courtroom when she testified.
When he hissed threats from the defense table with eyes full of fire and rot.
When he stared at her like prey.
Her lungs locked. She couldn’t breathe. She pressed her hands to her ears, as if she could block him out. But it was too late. The voice had already slithered back into her skull, unraveling everything she’d buried.
Across the room, Lucas saw her falter.“Freya?”
She didn’t respond. She slid down the column, legs trembling, body folding in on itself.
“Freya!” Lucas shouted, launching into motion.
“Get down—!” Elric yelled, but Lucas didn’t stop.
Bullets screamed across the room as Lucas dove, shattering glass and silver whizzing past. He reached her, dropped low, and wrapped her into his arms.
“I got you,” he whispered. “Hey. Freya. I got you.”
But she wasn’t there. Not really. Her body was curled and trembling, but her mind was trapped.
Her lips moved, no sound. Her fingers twitched, lost in memory.
And Lucas knew that voice too. He knew why she was unraveling. He pulled her tighter, shielding her, murmuring over and over, “I got you. He can’t touch you.”
Then, through the haze of gunfire and fury, came a voice like silk drawn over a blade:
“You can scrub the blood off the name, Aleksei…”
“…but it still drips.”
“Funny thing about ghosts… they remember what you forget.”
Freya’s body locked. She was shaking. Because she remembered.
Alphonse didn’t flinch. His eyes looked down at Lucas and Freya, and he closed his eyes, breathing in. His Glock was ready.
His voice dropped low—ice over fire:
“Like where to bleed?”
Lucas whispered against Freya’s hair. “He’s with us. You’re safe. Just breathe.”
Freya’s fingers clutched his shirt like a lifeline. She didn’t understand how her life had led here—back into the hands of a nightmare she thought she’d outrun.
And yet she knew the consequences. This wasn’t a coincidence. She looked past Lucas’s shoulder, through the carnage and flickering shadows, and saw Alphonse step into the open—toward him.
Toward the man who’d once threatened her life.
