CHAPTER 1
SILAS
Silas Vane didn’t believe in kidnapping, only in reclaiming what was owed.
From the high balcony of the Rossi estate, the gala below looked less like a celebration and more like a collection of expensive ants scuttling for scraps. They didn’t know that the marble floor they stood on, the imported wine they drank, and the air they breathed were all bought and paid for by the man watching them from the shadows.
I took another slow drag of my cigar, the smoke dissolving in the cool night air. The security feeds looped silently on my wrist-mounted interface, showing every exit, every hidden camera, every heartbeat that didn’t belong.
Then, she walked into the frame. Elena Rossi.
She was the only thing in this sterile, corrupt garden that wasn’t synthetic. Her white silk slip dress was too simple for this kind of display, yet it highlighted the way the moonlight loved her skin. She wasn’t looking at the politicians or the bankers. She was looking at the roses she had planted, her hand lingering on a petal as if she could hear it breathe.
A flower in a graveyard.
She didn’t belong in my world. She didn’t belong among the wolves waiting to tear her mother apart. But she was collateral now. A six-month sentence. Six seeds to pay for her family’s sins.
I stubbed out the cigar and activated my earpiece. “Option A is off the table. Lock the perimeter.”
I stepped away from the railing and descended the sweeping glass staircase. As I reached the ballroom floor, the ambient noise began to die. It happened wherever I went. The musicians faltered. The laughter choked. The elite of the city parted like the Red Sea, their eyes pinned to the floor. They knew the Shadow King rarely left his fortress, and when he did, he didn’t leave empty-handed.
Diana Rossi, Elena’s mother and the city’s most corrupt District Attorney, stood frozen by the champagne fountain.
“Silas,” she breathed, her heavily powdered face turning the color of ash. “The payment isn’t due until midnight. I have the offshore accounts ready—”
“Keep your money, Diana,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, though it carried across the dead-silent room. “You stole something from my servers. Information that could burn this city to the ground.”
“I can return it,” she stammered, stepping back.
“You can’t unsee what you’ve seen. The debt has changed.” I didn’t look at her. My gaze shifted across the room, locking onto the open terrace doors.
Elena stood there, framed by the moonlight, clutching a single red rose. Her wide, dark eyes met mine, and for a fraction of a second, the rest of the world ceased to exist. She didn’t look at me with the same pathetic terror as her mother. She looked at me with fire.
“What do you want, Silas?” Diana asked, desperation creeping into her voice.
I walked past the District Attorney, my heavy boots silent on the marble, until I was standing over the girl in the white dress. I reached out, my black leather glove wrapping around her delicate wrist. The thorns of her rose dug into my palm, but I didn’t flinch.
“I want her,” I said.
Diana made a sound like a dying animal. “No. Silas, please. She has nothing to do with this. Take the money, take the properties—”
“She is the only thing of pure value you have left,” I interrupted smoothly. My thumb brushed the erratic, racing pulse at Elena’s wrist. Her skin was warm, a stark contrast to the cold leather of my glove.
Elena finally spoke. Her voice was quiet, but it didn’t shake. “Let go of me.”
“Not for six months, piccola,” I said softly, leaning in until the scent of vanilla and night-blooming jasmine filled my senses. “Your mother incurred a debt. You are the collateral.”
Before Diana could signal her pathetic, hired security detail, my men materialized from the shadows of the ballroom—half a dozen ghosts in tailored suits, their hands resting casually over concealed weapons. The message was clear. Anyone who moved would die.
I pulled Elena toward me. She stumbled, her soft body colliding with my chest. She gasped, her fingers opening, and the crushed red rose fell to the white marble floor, leaving a smear of red like a drop of blood.
“We are leaving,” I announced to the paralyzed room, my eyes never leaving Diana’s terrified face. “If anyone follows us, the Rossi estate burns to ash before sunrise.”
I turned, dragging the District Attorney’s daughter through the parted sea of the city’s elite. They watched the Shadow King take his prize, and not a single one of them dared to breathe.
