The Price of Hope (18+)

I was a daddy’s girl before I knew what that really meant.

Before I knew men feared my father. Before I understood why rooms shifted when Ezra Black walked into them, or why grown men lowered their eyes when he spoke. To me, he was just Dad. The one who let me climb into his lap during meetings like I belonged there. The one who never told me no when I wanted to follow him everywhere. The one who bought me whatever I looked at twice and acted like the sun rose strictly because I asked it to.

And maybe that was guilt.

Maybe part of him never got over leaving once. Maybe he looked at me and saw all the years he almost missed. All the nights Mama had to hold me while I asked questions she couldn’t answer. Maybe that’s why he spoiled me so hard when I was little—because he knew absence leaves a bruise no amount of money can cover.

All I knew was this:

if I wanted to sit beside him, I sat beside him.

If I wanted to ride with him, I rode.

If I wanted a knife because Dante had one, he got me a prettier one with a better grip.

He adored me in that quiet, dangerous way only Ezra Black could.

And because he adored me, he was merciless about making sure no one else could ever break me.

He taught me early that being loved didn’t mean being soft.

I still remember being fourteen and furious because some boy at school wouldn’t stop staring at me in a way that made my skin crawl. Dad had looked up from the kitchen table, coffee in one hand, and said, calm as anything, “If he touches you wrong, you have my permission to make sure he regrets it.”

Mama had smacked his shoulder so hard his coffee sloshed.

“Ezra.”

“What?” he’d said, completely unbothered. “I’m teaching our daughter not to freeze.”

I didn’t freeze.

A year later, I broke a boy’s arm.

He touched me where he shouldn’t have in the hallway between classes—smug, laughing, thinking he was bigger than me and therefore safe. I remember the heat that flooded my body. The way every lesson Dad ever drilled into me rose up without permission. I twisted, planted, and heard the crack before I fully realized what I’d done.

Dante—thirteen then and already too loyal for his own good—launched himself into the fight before anyone could pull me off. By the time the teachers got there, the boy was on the ground with a broken arm and a shattered nose, Dante breathing hard beside me like he’d gladly do it again.

The school didn’t see righteous fury.

They saw violence.

We got suspended.

Mama cried.

Dad didn’t.

He sat across from me at the dining table that night, looking almost proud in a way he tried to hide, and said, “Next time, don’t do it where cameras can catch the angle.”

Mama threw a napkin at his head.

That was around the same time homeschooling stopped being a backup plan and became real life.

By then we were already halfway into another world anyway.

Italy.

Cassian.

The estate.

The sea.

I was still young when we moved into Cassian’s house, young enough that it felt enormous and half-mythical, old enough to understand that children only get moved across oceans when the adults around them are trying to survive something bigger than they can explain.

Cassian wasn’t blood, not really.

He was something harder to define and stronger because of it.

He was the man who took my father in when he was still more fist than future. The man who gave Ezra and Cruz somewhere to stand when life had already chewed them up young. Dad had fought in underground rings back then and done work for Cassian—hard work, dangerous work, but never the kind that stained a soul the way Elijah Nicolas eventually would. Cassian warned him when Elijah came flashing bigger money and dirtier promises. Dad didn’t listen. Cassian was right.

He usually was.

By the time I knew him, Cassian wasn’t just a powerful man with a long memory and expensive taste. He was family in the way that matters more than blood. The kind who didn’t need a title to be obeyed. Or loved.

His house became home in that strange, dangerous way only our family could manage—stone walls, private gates, men with guns downstairs, Nana arguing in the kitchen, Mama trying to make every room warmer than it had any right to be.

And me?

I stayed wherever Dad was.

I followed him through halls and onto patios and into gyms and offices, wanting to be included in everything. He acted annoyed about it. Everyone knew he loved it. If I leaned against his shoulder during meetings, he didn’t move me. If I fell asleep waiting for him, he carried me upstairs himself. If I wanted to learn what the men were learning, he taught me.

He never really told me no.

Not because he didn’t have boundaries. Ezra Black was nothing but boundaries.

But with me, there was always that extra second. That softening. That look in his eyes that said he knew exactly how much of my childhood had already been shaped by things I didn’t ask for.

So he gave me what control he could.

How to fight.

How to read people.

How to survive.

And somewhere in all of that, I became his twin in ways Mama liked to joke about and everyone else found vaguely terrifying.

Being Ezra Black’s daughter meant I never got to just exist—I was always becoming something.

A weapon.

A shield.

A lesson.

Most people hear my last name and think of money first. The hotels, the offshore accounts, the businesses that somehow always stayed one step out of reach. They picture marble floors and black cars and security at every door.

They don’t picture my father standing barefoot on the training mat at six in the morning, arms crossed, telling his little girl to get up and try again.

“Hands higher, Hope.”

His voice in my memory is steady, unbothered. “You drop your guard, you give somebody a free shot. You don’t ever hand a man that kind of gift.”

“I’m tired,” ten-year-old me had grumbled, cheeks flushed, hair sticking to my neck. “My arms hurt.”

“So does life.” He’d lifted his chin toward me. “Again.”

I hated him for it back then.

I understand now.

Because where other girls were learning to contour and take the right kind of selfies, I was learning how to disarm a man twice my size, how to read a room before I stepped into it, how to tell the difference between fear and instinct.

And under all of that, quietly, constantly, I was learning one thing:

Ezra Black never wanted his daughter to need saving.

Mama balanced it out. Of course she did. Carmen Black, with her soft hands and fiercer heart. She would sneak me iced coffee when Dad insisted I was “too young,” let me cry into her shoulder when training bruises bloomed purple on my skin. She’d stroke my hair and whisper things like:

“You don’t have to be strong all the time, baby.”

Dad never contradicted her.

But he never stopped the training either.

Leo, my much-older brother, used to look at me like I was something beautiful and terrifying. He’d come back from meetings and late-night drives, loosen his tie, rough up Dante’s hair, and then find me in the gym.

“You’re gonna be the death of somebody one day,” he’d say, watching me throw combinations at the bag.

“Just one?” I’d ask, breathless.

His mouth would twitch. “Let’s hope it’s the right one.”

And then there was Dante.

My baby brother by blood. My partner by choice.

Dante wasn’t raised to be like me. Mama tried hard to keep the darker parts of our life away from him. She wanted him to have hobbies that didn’t involve knives or intel. Art. Books. Music. A life with soft edges.

But that Black blood runs stubborn.

He grew up watching me and Dad train, watching Leo disappear for hours with Cassian’s men, watching the way the room changed when certain names were spoken.

By the time he was sixteen, he was on the mat beside me.

By eighteen, he was good. Too good, Dad said. But there was pride in his eyes when he said it.

And through it all, like a line drawn from my childhood straight into my adulthood, there was Silas Ricci.

Silas came into our lives when I was thirteen, quiet and sharp-eyed, already carrying too much grief in his shoulders for someone in their early twenties. Cassian’s nephew. The one everyone respected without quite knowing why.

He wasn’t like my father’s men.

He didn’t flirt, didn’t brag, didn’t drink until he slurred.

He watched. He listened. He learned.

When I turned fifteen, Dad started letting him help train me.

“If anyone ever corners you,” Silas said the first day he pinned my wrist and twisted, slow enough for me to feel the lock. “Don’t fight strength with strength. Use what they give you.” He shifted his grip, guiding my arm in a smooth circle. “Their momentum is your escape route. Got it?”

I’d nodded, annoyed that my pulse skipped when his fingers brushed the inside of my wrist.

“You’re thinking too much,” he’d murmured then. “You do that when you want to impress someone.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I’d shot back.

He’d just smiled—small, barely there. “I was talking about your father.”

He made me better.

Ezra built the weapon.

Silas refined it.

And somewhere between learning to move around his frame and learning to read his silences… I started seeing him differently.

At first it was subtle. A linger of his gaze when I laughed. The way his jaw clenched when someone else complimented my dress. The way he stepped closer when strange men looked too long.

Then it wasn’t subtle at all.

There was a moment—one I still don’t let myself pick apart too long—where his hand stayed on my waist a second too long. Where my head tipped back to look at him and the world went very still.

We didn’t kiss then.

We should have.

Or maybe we shouldn’t have. I still don’t know.

All I know is that by the time I turned twenty, “Uncle Silas” had become “Silas,” and the space between us felt like something alive.

Which brings us to tonight.

The warehouse’s air was thick with dust and old metal, the kind of place that smelled like forgotten deals and bad intentions. We moved in formation without needing to speak, the way families do after years of dancing around danger together.

“Left side clear,” Dante murmured into the comms, his voice low and steady.

“Right side clear,” Silas said from my other side.

I swept my gaze across the open floor. “Middle’s mine.”

“Of course it is,” Dante muttered.

I almost smiled.

We weren’t supposed to be here as a full Black-Ricci production. This was meant to be simple: Cassian’s intel had flagged a shipment running through one of his old rival’s properties. Skeleton crew, light surveillance, in and out. A small job they’d normally send lower-level teams on.

But the name attached to the money behind it?

That brought Ezra into the conversation.

And if Dad is in the room, I’m not far behind.

“Focus,” Silas said quietly, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine as we moved along the wall. I could feel the heat of his body through his shirt. It shouldn’t have distracted me. It did.

“I am focused,” I whispered back.

“You’re counting exits,” he said. “You only do that when you’re thinking too much.”

“I grew up with Ezra Black. I always count exits.”

A beat of silence. I didn’t need to look at him to know his mouth had twitched in that half-smirk he tried to hide whenever I brought up Dad like that.

“Point taken,” he murmured.

We reached a stack of crates tagged with fake shipping codes. Dante signaled from his side of the room, two fingers up: two men ahead. Their murmuring voices drifted through the dim space, casual, unaware.

I crouched, pressing my back to the metal edge. Dante moved into position behind a pillar, lanky frame too relaxed for anyone who didn’t know him. Silas stayed slightly behind me, covering angles like it was second nature.

“On my go,” I whispered.

“Hope—” Silas started, that warning note in his voice.

I cut him a look over my shoulder. “Don’t start.”

“Not starting,” he said. “Just reminding you this was recon, not a bloodbath.”

“I’m not planning a bloodbath,” I said. “I’m planning efficiency.”

Dante snorted softly. “That’s Hope for ‘she’s absolutely going to hit someone.’”

“I heard that,” I hissed.

One of the men closest to us shifted, boots scraping concrete. He laughed at something the other said. Their backs were turned.

Easy.

My muscles thrummed with that familiar pre-fight tension—like the moment right before a storm cracks open the sky. This was the part I liked. The stillness. The choice.

I could feel Silas behind me, his presence like a hand between my shoulder blades. Not pushing. Just there.

“Go,” he breathed.

I didn’t hesitate.

I moved.

Two strides, silent and quick. My elbow hooked around the first man’s throat, my weight driving into his back as I wrapped my legs and twisted. He went down hard, surprise cutting off his shout. Before his friend could turn fully, Dante was there, already sliding his arm into a lock and knocking the gun from his hand.

“Nighty night,” Dante said under his breath as he drove the man’s head gently—but not that gently—into the concrete.

Both men lay groaning on the floor, disarmed and dazed. No bullets. No shouting. No alarms.

I panted once, controlled. “See? No bloodbath.”

Silas stepped into view, eyes flicking over the scene. Pride flickered there before he masked it with something cooler.

“You rushed your choke,” he said.

“Compliment me first,” I shot back.

His lips lifted slightly. “You were fast.”

“Thank you.”

“Still rushed your choke.”

This time I smiled outright. “Can’t win with you, Ricci.”

“You already did,” he said quietly.

The words slipped out so softly I almost missed them.

My heartbeat stuttered.

Dante, blessedly oblivious, bent down to zip-tie the men’s wrists. “We good?”

“For now,” Silas said. His gaze lingered on me a second too long, and I knew he felt my pulse racing from across the room.

I looked away first.

Because here’s the thing about being Ezra Black’s daughter:

I was taught to see a threat coming from a mile away.

To read every flicker, every flinch, every shift in weight or tone.

I knew what it looked like when a man wanted something he shouldn’t want.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if I should run from it…

or run straight toward it.

We regrouped near the side entrance, the low hum of distant traffic leaking through the cracked door. The city outside was bright and oblivious; inside, the air felt heavier, thick with dust and unsaid things.

“Cassian’s gonna want a full report,” Dante said, leaning against the wall, wiping a smear of grime from his forearm. “You want me to call it in?”

“I’ll do it,” Silas said. “You two sweep the east side and make sure there aren’t any surprises.”

Dante nodded and jogged off, humming some song under his breath.

That left me and Silas alone in the half-lit silence.

He watched Dante go, then turned back to me. “You okay?”

I huffed. “We just took down two guys and nobody shot at us. That’s as ‘okay’ as it gets.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I tensed.

He stepped closer, just enough that I had to tilt my chin up to meet his eyes. His cologne was faint: cedar and something warm. Familiar. Dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with guns.

“Hope,” he said softly. “You’ve been… different lately.”

“Define ‘different,’” I said, even though I knew exactly what he meant.

“Quieter after missions. Sharper during them. More reckless in little ways.” His eyes searched my face, like he was reading a language he’d helped write. “You look at me like you’re waiting for me to do something. And I don’t know what you’re expecting.”

My breath caught in my throat.

There it was.

The thing neither of us had named yet, laid bare in the middle of a dusty warehouse like it was nothing.

I swallowed. “Maybe I’m just growing up.”

He didn’t look away. “You grew up a long time ago.”

The way he said it made my chest ache.

For a moment, it felt like there was no warehouse, no mission, no family name hanging over our heads. Just me and him and the charged space between us.

I opened my mouth, then shut it again.

I wanted to say:

I notice the way you watch my hands.

I notice the way you step closer when I’m laughing with somebody else.

I notice that you never raise your voice at me, even when you’re furious.

Instead, I shrugged. “Don’t overthink it. Maybe I’m just bored.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You don’t get bored. You get dangerous.”

I smiled, slow and a little mean. “Then maybe you should keep a closer eye on me.”

His eyes darkened, something in them flickering hot and fast.

“I already do,” he said.

And just like that, my carefully built walls rattled.

Before I could answer, Dante’s voice crackled through the comm again, oblivious to the moment he’d just saved or ruined.

“Found something you might want to see,” he said. “Office in the back. Looks like someone’s been using this place more recently than Cassian thought.”

Silas took a slow breath, stepping back. “We’ll be right there.”

His gaze held mine a second longer, a silent to be continued hanging between us.

Then he turned and started toward the darkened hallway.

I followed a few steps behind, my heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with danger.

Because missions I understood.

Violence, I could predict.

Bullet paths, chokeholds, exits—I knew them all.

But wanting Silas Ricci?

That was a kind of danger my father never trained me for.

Silas turned and started toward the darkened hallway.

I followed a few steps behind, my pulse finally starting to come down—until we stepped into the back corridor and I saw the light.

A thin strip of it spilled out from a half-closed door at the end of the hall.

“Office,” Dante called quietly. “Door was shut but not locked. Figured I’d wait for the grown-ups.”

“I’m older than you by three years,” I muttered.

“Emotionally? Questionable,” he said.

I flipped him off. Silas didn’t comment, but I didn’t miss the way his mouth twitched.

He pushed the door open with two fingers and stepped in first, gun angled low. I moved in on his right, Dante on his left. The room smelled like stale coffee and cologne, too fresh to belong to an empty building.

“Somebody’s been here recently,” Silas said.

Recently wasn’t the right word.

More like: still.

The office was small but organized. Metal desk. Old filing cabinets. A corkboard with shipping routes pinned and crossed out in red marker. Two glasses on the desk—one empty, one with amber liquid still clinging to the bottom.

The chair behind the desk was turned slightly, like someone had stood up in a hurry and never fixed it.

Dante moved to the file cabinet, fingers trailing over faint scratches on the handle. “This one’s been opened a lot.”

“Check it,” Silas said. “Hope, with me.”

He nodded toward the desk, and I stepped around it, eyes scanning everything with the same hunger Dad drilled into me.

Don’t just see the room. Read it.

The laptop on the desk was closed but warm under my palm. I opened it. Password protected.

“Encrypted,” I said.

Silas leaned over my shoulder, his hand braced on the desk near my arm. Close. Too close. Focus, Hope.

“We’ll get this to Cassian’s guy,” he said. “He’ll crack it.”

On the edge of the desk sat a manila folder, half-tucked under a ledger book. I slid it out and flipped it open.

A list of names. Some in red, some in black. Beside each: numbers. Large ones.

“Accounts,” I murmured. “Or contracts.”

Silas’s gaze sharpened. “Let me see.”

I handed it to him and flipped open the ledger. Neat handwriting filled each line, dates and transfers. Offshore accounts. Shell companies. My eyes skimmed a familiar pattern: money moved in circles so fast it blurred.

Near the bottom of one page, a name jumped out.

S. Laurent.

The letters were clean but bold, written like whoever scribbled them needed to remind themselves twice.

I frowned. “You know a Laurent?” I asked.

Silas tensed almost imperceptibly. If I hadn’t been looking right at him, I might’ve missed it.

“Lots of Laurents in Europe,” he said too casually. “Could be anyone.”

“But this one moves a lot of money,” I pressed, tapping the ledger. “And Cassian’s guy said this place was tied to an old network. Not some random street runner.”

“Hope.” His tone gentled, but there was steel under it. “Tonight’s job was recon, remember? We grab what we can and go. We’re not solving the whole board in one move.”

I bit back the argument itching at the back of my throat.

He was right. I hated that he was right.

“Found something,” Dante called.

We turned. He stood at the corkboard, one finger pressed to a corner that had been half-ripped off. The paper pinned there had been torn, only the bottom of a printed name left visible.

…NICOLAS.

My skin went cold.

Alexander Nicolas was a name I’d only heard in pieces growing up. Always in the same tone: low, bitter, edged with something like old grief and fresh anger. Mama never said his name unless she had to. Dad said it like a curse.

“You think it’s him?” Dante asked, eyes flicking between us.

Silas stared at the torn scrap for a long second, his jaw tight. “It’s an old name,” he said. “Could be coincidence.”

But his eyes said he didn’t believe that.

“Cassian’s not going to think it’s coincidence,” I said quietly.

“No,” Silas agreed. “He’s not.”

We pulled what we could—folder, ledger, the laptop, photos Dante snapped of the board and the room. No alarms ever sounded. No footsteps came.

Whoever used this place?

They were always gone just before we got there.

It didn’t sit right.

As we filed out of the office, I cast one last look at the scrap of paper with that half-ripped name and the neat, sharp S. Laurent on the ledger.

Whoever they were, they were in deep.

And whether they knew it or not, they’d just brushed against the Black family.

People didn’t usually walk away from that unchanged.

⸻

By the time we got back to the house, the sky over the Italian coastline was starting to blush with early morning light.

Our villa sat on a hill above the water, warm stone and big windows catching the first hints of dawn. It looked peaceful from the outside—like any wealthy family’s secluded home. No one driving by would guess how many guns were hidden inside those walls.

Or how much history.

“Shoes off at the door,” Mama’s voice floated out the moment we stepped inside. “I don’t care how grown you think you are; you’re not tracking dirt all over my floors.”

I smiled despite the tension still knotted in my shoulders.

Carmen Black stood in the doorway of the kitchen, one hand on her hip, the other holding a dish towel. Her dark hair was twisted up in a messy knot, sleep lines still faint on her cheek. She was wearing one of Dad’s shirts and a pair of leggings, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

Silas slipped past me with a soft, “Morning, Carmen.”

She gave him a tired but genuine smile. “Morning, sweetheart. Everyone in one piece?”

“More or less,” Dante said, kicking his boots off and tossing them toward the mat. They missed. “Hey, Nana.”

My grandmother—Mama’s mother, Victoria—sat at the table with a mug of coffee, silver hair loose around her shoulders. She peered over the rim of the cup at us, eyes sharp despite the early hour.

“You look like trouble,” she told Dante.

“I am trouble,” he said proudly, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“And humble too,” she muttered, but the corners of her mouth lifted.

I bent to press a kiss to her other cheek. “We brought back homework for Cassian.”

“Yes, Silas called ahead,” she said. “Sit. Eat. You can talk business with your father after you’ve put something on your stomach besides nerves.”

“Where is Dad?” I asked, even though I already knew.

“Out back,” Mama said. “Pacing a hole into my patio waiting for you three to come home.”

Her tone made it sound like a joke.

Her eyes didn’t.

Guilt pricked at my chest. I hated the idea of him worrying. Hated it more than any bruise.

Leo appeared from the hallway just then, shirtless, hair rumpled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He looked older now—lines at the corners of his eyes, a faint silver threading his dark hair—but he still had the same grounding presence.

Technically, he’s my half-brother. Ezra’s son from a different life, a different marriage.

It never felt like that.

He’s just Leo. Mine as much as Dante.

“You’re loud,” he grumbled. “Some of us are trying to pretend we’re retired.”

“You’re fourty-five, not eighty,” I said. “And you live with us by choice.”

“Regretting that every day,” he muttered, but he stepped forward anyway and squeezed the back of my neck, his thumb brushing the base of my skull. A silent “you good?”

I leaned into it for half a second. “We’re fine.”

His gaze flicked briefly to Silas, then back to me. Something unspoken passed there. Leo notices everything. He just doesn’t always comment.

“Sit,” Mama ordered again, more firmly. “Food’s almost ready.”

“I’ll grab Dad,” I said, needing the air as much as he needed the reassurance.

I stepped out onto the back patio.

The sea stretched out below us, dark blue giving way to softer shades as the sun started to lift. The morning air was cool against my sweat-damp neck. Dad stood near the railing, hands braced on the stone, head bowed slightly.

Ezra Black didn’t fidget. He didn’t wring his hands or pace in tight circles.

But this… this was his version of it.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He didn’t startle. Of course he didn’t. “You’re late.”

“By ten minutes,” I protested.

“Ten minutes can get you killed,” he said, still not turning around.

“And ten minutes early can get you noticed,” I countered. “We did what we had to.”

Silence settled between us, thick as the morning haze over the water.

Then he sighed and finally turned to face me.

Lines carved deeper around his eyes now. His hair had more silver than black at the temples. But he was still Ezra Black. Still solid. Still terrifying if he wanted to be.

His gaze scanned me from head to toe in one sweep, cataloging injuries, tension, whatever he could read from my stance.

“Any hits?” he asked.

“Couple bruises,” I said. “I made sure they have more.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. “That’s my girl.”

Warmth bloomed in my chest at the words. It always did.

“We found some things,” I said. “Dante and Silas took them to Cassian’s office. Laptop. Ledger. Names.”

His attention sharpened. “Names?”

“A ledger with this ‘S. Laurent’ all over it. And on a board, someone ripped a page, but the bottom half of a printed name was still there. ‘…NICOLAS.’”

His jaw clenched.

There it was again—that shadow that passed over his face anytime the past reached its hand into our present.

I stepped closer. “You think it’s him, don’t you?”

“I think old ghosts like to pretend they’re buried when they’re not,” he said. “And I think you’re too young to be worrying about names that should’ve stayed under dirt a long time ago.”

“Too late,” I said. “You raised me in this world. I don’t get to play stupid about it.”

He studied me for a long moment, something tight and raw in his eyes.

Then, without warning, he jerked his chin toward the training mat off to the side of the patio.

“Hands up,” he said.

I blinked. “Now?”

“Now,” he repeated. “Show me what Silas has been teaching you.”

I huffed a laugh. “Competitive, are we?”

“Always,” he said.

I dropped my shoes, stepped onto the mat, and lifted my hands. The cool morning air kissed my bare arms. Dad mirrored my stance, easy and relaxed, like this was just another drill from when I was ten.

But something about it felt… softer.

“Jab,” he said.

I threw one. He blocked.

“Again. Your left shoulder’s telegraphing.”

I adjusted. Threw another.

“Better,” he said. “Elbow in. You’re not painting a wall, you’re breaking a nose.”

I snorted. “You’re very poetic at sunrise.”

He smirked. “Your mother disagrees.”

We moved together, slow at first, then quicker, old rhythm settling between us. Punch, block, feint, dodge. The sounds of our hits echoed faintly against the stone. My muscles warmed. My mind cleared.

“Good,” he said finally, dropping his hands. “You’re sharper.”

“Silas has been working with me on footwork,” I said before I could stop myself. “And angles. He’s—”

“I know what he’s been working with you on,” Dad cut in, something flickering in his eyes. “I trust Silas.”

The words landed heavier than they should have.

He trusts him.

With me.

My chest tightened.

For a moment, the morning light, the mat beneath my feet, the sound of the sea—it all blurred with another memory.

⸻

I was thirteen the first time Dad let someone else watch my training.

We were in a smaller house back then, in a different country, different life. The training mat was set up in the converted garage, fluorescent lights humming overhead. My tiny fists were wrapped in tape that felt too tight. I’d already fallen twice.

“Feet apart,” Dad said. “Like this.”

He’d spread my sneakers with his own foot, frowning. “You’re not a baby deer. Plant yourself.”

“I’m trying,” I’d complained, lip wobbling.

“I know.” He’d crouched down to my height then, his voice softening in a way I didn’t hear often. “Hope, look at me.”

I did, blinking through unshed tears.

“Someday, I won’t be standing in front of you,” he’d said. “And I need to know you can stand for yourself. Okay?”

I’d swallowed hard, nodding.

“That’s my girl,” he’d said, tapping my chin lightly. “Now—hands up. Show me.”

I threw a clumsy punch.

From the doorway, a quiet voice said, “She’s got your stubbornness.”

I’d glanced over to see Silas for the first time—leaning in the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes darker than the shadows around him.

Dad had snorted. “God help us all.”

Silas’s gaze had drifted down to me. He looked at me like I wasn’t just a kid flailing at the air—but like I was someone who could become something.

“Try turning your hip when you punch,” he’d said gently. “You’ll get more power without using more strength.”

I’d looked at Dad. He’d nodded once.

So I did.

And when my little fist hit the pad that time, the sound was louder. Solid. Real.

Dad’s eyes had warmed. “See? Listen to him when I’m not here. He knows what he’s doing.”

I hadn’t understood it then.

But now, standing across from Dad on a different mat, in a different country, with a whole lifetime of choices between then and now…

I understood too much.

⸻

I blinked the memory away and found Dad watching me, his expression softer than most people ever got to see.

“You think too much,” he said quietly.

“You raised me that way,” I shot back, but my voice came out a little rough.

He exhaled, stepped forward, and tapped my forehead lightly. “I raised you to survive.”

I smiled faintly. “Same thing.”

He shook his head, just a little. “No. Surviving and overthinking are not the same. Don’t confuse the two.”

Before I could decide whether to argue, Mama’s voice floated out again.

“Ezra! Let the girl breathe and get in here before the food gets cold!”

He glanced toward the door, then back at me. “Come on. Before your mother decides I’m the enemy.”

“She already decided that when you taught me how to use a knife before a curling iron,” I said.

He smirked. “You’re welcome.”

We walked back in together.

The kitchen was warm and bright, filled with the smell of coffee, eggs, and toasted bread. Dante was already stealing bacon off a plate. Nana swatted his hand. Leo leaned in the doorway, scrolling through something on his phone. Silas stood near the counter, speaking low with Cassian over the open laptop we’d brought back.

For a moment, I just… watched.

This strange, patched-together family.

Blood and not-blood.

Old wounds and new beginnings.

My world.

I caught Silas’s profile as he listened to Cassian, jaw tense, eyes sharp. Like always, my heart did that annoying little stutter it shouldn’t.

As if he felt it, his gaze slid over, catching mine for a split second.

Something unspoken sparked between us.

Cassian cleared his throat deliberately. “Hope. When you’re done staring at my nephew, I’ll need your notes on the warehouse.”

Heat crept up my neck. “I wasn’t—”

“Yes you were,” Dante said around a mouthful of toast.

Nana hid a smile behind her mug. Mama just arched a brow and slid a plate in front of me like she’d already seen this coming years ago.

Dad said nothing.

But I felt his eyes on me. On Silas. On the invisible line pulling us together.

Being Ezra Black’s daughter meant a lot of things.

Today, it meant this:

I could feel the future shifting under my feet.

And I had no idea that somewhere, out there, a woman named Scarlett Laurent was already moving her own pieces across a board with our family’s name on it.

We just hadn’t seen her hand yet.

But we would.

And when we did?

The fire in me my father always warned me about…

She’d picked the wrong girl to set a match to.

By the time the sun slid down over the water, the house finally felt quiet.

Mama had bullied us all into “resting our eyes” after breakfast, which was code for she couldn’t relax until she saw all three of us horizontal and breathing. Dante passed out immediately on the couch, one arm thrown over his face. Leo retreated to Cassian’s office to pretend he was retired while absolutely not minding his own business. Nana watched some old Italian drama with the volume low, muttering commentary under her breath.

Dad disappeared with Cassian to go through the ledger and the laptop.

Silas went with them.

Of course he did.

By the time night fully settled, my body was tired but my mind was vibrating. The warehouse. The ledger. That ripped scrap of NICOLAS. The way Silas had said You already did when I joked about never winning with him.

I couldn’t sit still anymore.

So I did what I always do when my brain won’t shut off.

I went to the balcony.

The stone was cool under my bare feet as I stepped out, sliding the glass door quietly closed behind me. The night air smelled like salt and jasmine from Mama’s potted plants. Below, the coastline glittered with distant lights, the sea black and endless.

I leaned my forearms on the railing and closed my eyes, breathing in slow.

For a second, I let the noise fall away. No ledgers. No names. No NICOLAS. No missions.

Just the echo of Dad’s voice from this morning.

Hands up. Show me.

And beneath that, softer:

I raised you to survive.

A tiny knot pulled in my chest.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I didn’t even have to look to know the name on the screen.

Roman:

You alive, Trouble?

Cassian’s not working you to death, is he?

Miss you.

I locked the screen without answering, shoving the phone back down like it had burned me.

“Thought I’d find you out here.”

I didn’t jump.

I’d know that voice anywhere.

Silas stepped out onto the balcony with that quiet, unavoidable presence of his. He’d showered—his dark hair still damp, curling slightly at the ends. He’d changed into a soft black t-shirt and worn joggers, barefoot like me.

Looking at him like this, relaxed and clean and not covered in warehouse dust, was unfair.

“I should start charging rent,” I muttered, not looking back at him. “Everybody acts like this is my office.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he said, coming to stand beside me at the railing. “You think more out here than you do anywhere else.”

“You stalking my thoughts now, Ricci?” I asked, glancing sideways at him.

“Don’t need to stalk what you wear on your face,” he said. “You’re loud up here.” He tapped his temple.

I rolled my eyes and looked back out at the water. “Maybe I just like the view.”

“Mm.” His gaze lingered on me; I could feel it. “The view’s not bad.”

Heat crept up the back of my neck, and I hated that he could cause that with two words.

We stood in silence for a moment, the night air cool between us. The muffled sound of the TV drifted faintly from inside. Somewhere, Dante laughed at something Nana said.

“You did good tonight,” Silas said finally. “At the warehouse.”

I snorted. “You told me I rushed my choke.”

“I did,” he said. “You still did good.”

“Careful,” I said. “You’re gonna ruin your reputation.”

“What reputation is that?” he asked.

“Untouchable,” I said. “Unshakeable. Occasionally insufferable.”

His mouth twitched. “Occasionally?”

“Most of the time,” I amended.

He huffed a soft laugh and leaned his elbows against the stone, mirroring my posture. For a moment, we just breathed in sync, looking out over the sea like we weren’t both wired with unspoken things.

“Cassian’s digging through the files,” he said. “He’s sending the laptop to one of his guys. The ledger already pissed him off.”

“That’s his default setting,” I said. “Pissed off and expensive.”

“True,” Silas agreed. “But this felt… different. That name on the board rattled him.”

“Nicolas,” I said quietly.

He nodded once.

My fingers curled against the stone. “You think they’re coming back?”

“They never really left,” he said. “The past doesn’t stay buried in this world. It just changes banks.”

I studied his profile for a second. The stubble on his jaw. The faint scar near his hairline I’d never asked about. The way his eyes never fully relaxed, like part of him was always scanning for exits even when he was standing still.

“How long have you known about Alexander?” I asked.

Silas didn’t answer right away. His throat worked once.

“Long enough,” he said eventually. “Long enough to know your father did what he had to do.”

Something in his tone made me curious, but before I could push, he shifted the focus.

“What about you?” he asked. “How you holding up?”

“With what? Punching two idiots in a warehouse?” I shrugged. “Fine. Better than they are.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said quietly.

“Then say what you mean.”

His gaze slid to mine, and it felt like stepping off a ledge.

“You’ve been different lately,” he said. “Not just in the field.”

“Are we circling back to this again? We already had the ‘you’re different, Hope’ talk.”

“Humor me,” he said.

“No,” I said. “You humor me. What exactly do you think is ‘different’?”

He looked at me for a long moment, like he was weighing how honest he wanted to be.

“You’re sharper,” he said. “More controlled on missions. More distracted everywhere else. You stare at the board like it insulted your mother. You watch exits more. You sleep less.” His eyes dipped to my pocket. “And when your phone buzzes, you look at it like you want to throw it into the ocean.”

My chest tightened.

“Maybe I just hate my phone,” I said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe you hate what’s on it.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Roman had been texting from the States for weeks now. Check-ins. Jokes. Old nicknames. You miss me yet?

Half of them I answered. Half of them I let rot.

“Roman’s been reaching out a lot,” Silas said, like he could hear the messages echoing in my head. “You gonna answer him tonight?”

I stiffened. “Did Leo tell you that?”

“No,” he said. “I pay attention.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I muttered.

“Maybe you shouldn’t keep a man dangling three time zones away when you already know you’re done,” he said, voice low.

That stung more than I wanted to admit.

“Excuse me?” I said sharply.

He didn’t flinch. “You know he’d still drop everything for you if you snapped your fingers. You know that. Roman’s not subtle. He wasn’t when you were kids and he sure as hell isn’t now. You’ve known him, what, since you were what—ten? Eleven?”

“Nine,” I shot back before I could stop myself. “Cruz brought him by the first summer he stayed with us. He stole my ice cream and I kicked him in the shin.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. “Sounds right.”

Memories flickered, uninvited—Roman lanky and grinning at thirteen, trying to impress Dante with stupid stunts; Roman at sixteen, taller and broader, winking at me across the training yard; Roman vanishing for months at a time when he went back to his mother in the States, then reappearing like a storm that acted like it had never left.

He’d always had one foot in, one foot out.

“Growing up, he was in and out,” I said quietly, more to myself than to Silas. “Half the year here, half the year with his mom. Every time he came back, he acted like no time passed. Like I’d just been… waiting.”

“And were you?” Silas asked.

I hesitated. “No. Not for him.”

He watched me, saying nothing.

“When I got older and he came back that last time,” I went on, “he tried to pick up where we left off. Jokes. Late-night calls. Acting like we were inevitable.” I shrugged one shoulder. “He was comfortable. Familiar. Someone who already knew the house, the family, the rules.”

But not my heart, I didn’t say.

“He was there,” I admitted. “When things got… heavy. When missions got darker. When I didn’t want to think too hard about why I kept looking for you on every job.”

Silas’s jaw flexed, almost imperceptibly.

“But no matter how hard I tried,” I finished, “it never felt like more than a patch over a hole. He was comfort. Not home.”

Nights in Cassian’s house were never fully quiet.

Even with half the guards off-shift, the gates locked, alarms armed—it all still hummed. Old stone settling. The sea outside. The low drone of the generator somewhere in the bowels of the place.

It made sleep feel optional.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, the whole night playing on a loop.

The warehouse. Silas’s voice behind me—You don’t get bored. You get dangerous.

Cassian’s not-subtle dig—“When you’re done staring at my nephew…”

Dante’s idiot grin. Dad’s eyes on me out on the mat.

And then, threaded through it like an annoying ringtone I couldn’t shut off:

Roman:

Heard you were on a run tonight. You good?

Roman:

You ignoring me or is your phone dead again, piccola?

Roman:

Tell your old man I said hi. On second thought, don’t. I like breathing.

I’d answered him with exactly what he deserved:

Nothing.

I flipped over, shoved my face into the pillow, groaned, flipped back. My brain wouldn’t sit still. It lined men up like they were files—Roman, loud and familiar in my messages; Silas, quiet and ten feet away in the warehouse, seeing too much.

Roman would have said “that was hot as hell” after I dropped that guy.

Silas had said, “You were fast. Still rushed your choke.” Compliment and criticism in the same breath, like he refused to let me be anything less than sharp.

Eventually, frustration won. I threw the covers off and swung my legs out of bed.

Tea. I needed tea. Or sugar. Or both. Or Nana’s secret stash of “medicinal” whiskey in the pantry.

The hallway was dim, pools of gold light from wall sconces smearing along the stone. When we first moved in, I’d gotten lost in this place constantly; now I could walk it half-asleep. Cassian always joked it was less of a house and more of a “compound with good taste.”

Bare feet silent, I padded toward the kitchen, tugging my oversized t-shirt down over my thighs. The air smelled faintly of coffee and something buttery—someone had baked earlier.

A soft light spilled from the kitchen doorway.

I slowed, peeking in.

Silas stood at the counter with his back to me, one hand wrapped around a mug, the other braced on the marble. He’d changed into a black t-shirt and loose sweats, hair damp like he’d showered. Shadows hugged the lines of his shoulders.

Of course he was awake. Brooding is a full-time job.

“Do you live in here now,” I muttered, stepping into the light, “or are you just haunting Cassian’s appliances?”

He didn’t jump. He never did.

He glanced over his shoulder, mouth tugging at one corner. “You’re up late.”

“You’re up late,” I echoed, opening the cabinet for a mug. “And since I outrank you in charm and looks, I get to ask first.”

He snorted softly. “Pretty big talk for someone who tried to take down a six-foot guard with her eyes closed at fifteen.”

“That man had it coming,” I said. “He called me ‘princess.’”

“And you almost broke his wrist,” Silas said. “Your father was proud. The guard was… less so.”

I smiled despite myself and set a mug on the counter. The kettle was already filled; of course it was. He slid it toward a free burner, turned the gas on with a flick.

“Kettle’s communal,” I said. “You don’t have to act like my personal butler.”

“I wasn’t,” he said mildly. “I don’t do well when you handle open flame at this hour.”

“Wow,” I deadpanned. “The support in this house is unreal.”

He leaned a hip against the counter across from me, cradling his own mug—coffee, from the smell. Because apparently he was trying to actually die.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

I hopped up onto the counter, one knee bent, the other leg dangling. From here, I had an easy view of him: the faint smudge of stubble at his jaw, the tattoo ink disappearing under his sleeve, the little line between his brows when he was watching something too closely.

“Adrenaline’s still being dramatic,” I said. “Plus my brain doesn’t know how to shut up.”

“Your brain never shuts up,” he said. “You just get better at pretending it does.”

I rolled my eyes and fussed with the tea bag. “What about you? You’re usually up at dawn, not… the middle of whatever this is.”

He took a sip, gaze steady on me over the rim. “Cassian wanted to go over the names in that ledger while they’re still fresh in my head. After that, my head wouldn’t quiet down either.”

“Because of the ledger,” I said. “Or because of the half-ripped ‘NICOLAS’ on the wall?”

His jaw tightened a fraction.

“Both,” he admitted.

The kettle began its low rumble, steam curling. I poured the hot water, watching it bleed amber around the tea bag. The simple, normal motion felt weirdly grounding against the weight of the conversation trying to form between us.

My phone buzzed on the counter beside me.

Roman. Again.

Silas’s eyes dropped to it, then back up to my face.

“You could answer him,” he said neutrally.

“Wow, you and Cassian run a hotline now?” I said. “Relationship advice, press one. Bullet removal, press two.”

“Just an observation,” he said. “You don’t ignore people by accident.”

I poked the tea bag a little harder than necessary. “He’s not here. He’s in Miami or Chicago or wherever Cruz is pretending he’s retired. He disappears for months, then pops up like nothing happened. I’m not obligated to join his little on-call fan club.”

“He’s been in and out of this life his whole childhood,” Silas said quietly. “Sometimes distance is survival.”

“Yeah?” I shot back. “And what’s mine?”

He watched me for a beat. “Yours is control. You pull back when you’re not sure what you feel. That’s your version of bleeding.”

The accuracy of it irritated me more than the Roman texts.

“I’m not bleeding,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

“You don’t think,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You strategize. Thinking is what you call it when you’re hiding from something.”

The kettle clicked off. The room went softer.

I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat sink into my fingers. “You get this annoying when it passes midnight, or is this a full-time personality trait?”

“Only for you,” he said.

The words were simple. They hit like a punch.

Silence stretched. Somewhere down the hall, the old grandfather clock chimed once. The house felt… held. Waiting.

I cleared my throat. “Roman’s not the only one who disappears, you know. He just does it across continents. Everyone in this house disappears whenever it suits them. Leo, Dante on runs, Dad into his own head, you into Cassian’s office for twelve hours at a time.”

Silas’s gaze softened, just barely. “Is that what this is about? Me being in Cassian’s office?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.”

His brows lifted the tiniest bit.

“I grew up watching people leave,” I said, staring into my tea. “Dad going to prison. People we worked with ‘vanishing.’ Cassian bleeding new faces in and out. I like… knowing who’s where. That’s all.”

“You like knowing who’s coming back,” he corrected quietly.

Something pinched in my chest.

I took a breath. “You don’t have to stay up worrying about me, you know. I’m not ten anymore.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

His eyes did a slow sweep—my messy hair, bare legs, shirt slipping off one shoulder, the faint bruises blooming at my wrist from earlier.

The look wasn’t gross or lingering. It was… cataloguing. Concern wrapped in something I wasn’t ready to name.

“I don’t stay up because you’re weak,” he said. “I stay up because I watched you learn to run toward every fight instead of away from it. Kids like that grow into adults who get themselves hurt for other people’s messes.”

“Talking from experience?” I asked lightly.

He gave a humorless half-smile. “Something like that.”

For a second, the silence between us shifted—less brittle, more… fragile.

“You know what’s annoying?” I muttered, picking at the edge of the tea bag tag.

“What?”

“Dad taught me how to break a man’s arm in three seconds. How to spot a tail, how to read a lie, how to shoot with either hand. He trained me for every kind of fight I could see coming.” I huffed out a little laugh. “I don’t think he ever trained me for… whatever this is.”

Silas’s gaze didn’t waver. “This?”

“The part where people care,” I said, gesturing between us with my mug. “Where it actually matters what somebody says to you in a kitchen at two in the morning more than what they did with a gun at midnight. He doesn’t have drills for that.”

“He doesn’t,” Silas agreed. “But he did do one smart thing.”

“Just one?” I said.

His mouth twitched. “He let other people help. He let me help. Cassian. Leo. Carmen. Nana. You didn’t grow up alone in that.”

I swallowed, throat suddenly tight.

“Yeah, well,” I said, trying for flippant and almost pulling it off, “you all did a great job. I’m a delight.”

“You are,” he said, dead serious. “And you’re dangerous as hell when you’re hurt.”

The way he said it—flat, factual, without judgment—sent a shiver down my spine.

“Roman doesn’t know what to do with that,” Silas went on. “He grew up with a front-row seat to Cruz. He thinks loyalty means standing in front and taking the first hit. You start throwing metaphorical punches at him, he swings back or walks away. He hasn’t figured out there’s a third option.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“Standing there and letting you be mad,” Silas said. “Without leaving. Without hitting back. Just… being there until it’s done.”

My heartbeat lurched hard.

It was stupid. It was nothing. But there was a reason my dad trusted this man with my training, with my life. Silas saw angles nobody else did—on the mat, in a gun fight… and apparently in my head.

“That sounds boring,” I said, a little hoarse.

“That sounds like work,” he corrected. “The kind of work people who actually love you are willing to do.”

The word hung there—love—like a bomb with the timer covered.

I looked away, suddenly fascinated by the steam curling off my tea.

“I don’t know what I want from Roman,” I admitted, barely audible. “I don’t think I ever did. When we were younger, it was just… attention. He was Cruz’s son. He knew all the stories. He flirted like it was breathing. It was easy.”

“And now?” Silas asked.

“Now it feels like putting on a jacket that doesn’t fit anymore,” I said. “Comfortable, but wrong. Too tight in all the wrong places. I thought, if I was smart, I’d just… fall in line. Marry the boy from the right family. Make everybody’s life easier.”

Silas’s jaw worked. “And that’s what you want?”

I lifted my eyes to his. Whatever he saw there made his fingers tighten around his mug.

“No,” I said quietly. “It’s what I thought I should want.”

Something in his shoulders loosened. Just a little.

“Then don’t answer him tonight,” Silas said. “Not because you’re punishing him. Because you’re not ready to answer yourself yet.”

I huffed out a shaky breath. “That wasn’t terrible advice.”

“High praise,” he said dryly.

We fell quiet again. The house breathed around us—pipes, wind, the faint tinkle of something shifting in the next room.

“Why are you really down here, Silas?” I asked eventually. “And don’t say ‘ledger’ again.”

He hesitated, then set his mug down, both hands bracing on the counter like he needed something solid.

“I was in the hallway when you came back,” he said. “Earlier. From the mat with your dad. You walked past and you looked… like you were ten again. Like the night before his sentencing hearing, when you sat on the stairs and pretended you weren’t listening.”

The memory hit so hard I almost flinched.

“Ezra’s ghost follows you around more than you realize,” he said gently. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t dragging you somewhere you shouldn’t go.”

“Like where?” I whispered.

“Like thinking you have to carry his whole history on your back,” he said. “You don’t. Whatever’s happening with that ledger… with that name on the wall… that’s his story. Not yours. You get to live yours without inheriting every one of his enemies.”

I stared at him, throat clogged.

“I don’t know how to do that,” I admitted. It felt like pulling a bullet out of my own chest to say it. “I don’t know how to be Ezra Black’s daughter and not… shoulder it.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why some of us stay up at two in the morning.”

His eyes held mine, steady and unflinching.

“Not because you’re fragile,” he added. “But because you’re important.”

My heart thudded so hard it almost hurt.

Footsteps sounded faintly down the hall—Dante’s uneven gait, Nana’s slippers, the house starting to wake despite the hour.

Silas heard it too. The spell thinned, reality creeping back in.

“You should get some sleep,” he said softly. “Cassian will be insufferable if you yawn in his briefing.”

“He’s insufferable anyway,” I muttered.

This time, his smile reached his eyes. “Go to bed, Hope.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, mocking to cover the way my pulse was racing.

As I slid off the counter and moved past him, our shoulders brushed. Just the slightest graze.

It felt like stepping too close to a live wire.

I didn’t look back.

In my room, I set the half-finished tea on the nightstand and picked up my phone. Roman’s messages still waited, little blue bubbles of history and expectation.

I hovered over the keyboard.

Then I locked the screen and dropped it face down.

Because for all the training I’d had—every drill, every bruise, every lesson on how to hurt and how not to be hurt—this was new:

Choosing not out of habit. Not out of family. Not out of fear.

But out of the possibility that, somewhere down the line, there might be something… more.

Out in the kitchen, the light clicked off.

And in the dark, I let myself admit one small, dangerous truth:

Silas Ricci saw me.

Not just Ezra Black’s daughter. Not just a weapon Cassian could aim.

Just… me.

That was a fight no one had trained me for.