Blood & Silk

The boardroom of Sunset Enterprises smelled like money and old coffee. Twenty-three pairs of eyes were fixed on Isabella Vale as she stood at the head of the long glass table, black silk blouse open just enough at the throat to be deliberate, pencil skirt cutting a clean line down her thighs. “The merger dies if we sign their last revision,” she said, voice calm. “They want our coastal assets and zero liability. I’m not handing them the noose.” Marcus from legal cleared his throat. “Isabella, their lawyers—” “Can choke on it.” She smiled without warmth. “Next item.” Her phone buzzed once against the table. Private number. She ignored it. It buzzed again. Then a third time. She excused herself with a cool nod and stepped into the private corridor outside the glass walls. The city glittered thirty floors below. “Speak.” “Bella.” The voice was low, rough, familiar in a way that still made something tight coil low in her stomach. “Your father’s been taken.” Everything in her went still. “Where.” “Not over the phone. I’m already in the building. Rooftop. Now.” The line went dead. Isabella didn’t return to the boardroom. She walked straight to the private elevator, heart hammering hard enough she could feel it in her throat. The doors opened onto the wind-scoured rooftop. Night air slapped her face. He was already there. Lucien Hale. Six-foot-three of controlled violence in a black coat that did nothing to soften the breadth of his shoulders. Dark hair streaked with silver at the temples. The same man who had stood beside her father at every birthday, every Christmas, every time the world tried to touch her. The man her father had once called *brother* in everything but blood. Her godfather. He turned when the elevator doors shut behind her. “You’re late,” he said. “You’re supposed to be in London.” “I was. Until an hour ago.” His eyes moved over her once—quick, assessing, not polite. “They’re not after the company first. They’re after you.” Her pulse kicked. “Who.” “People who don’t leave bodies that can be identified. Your father made a deal ten years ago to keep you clean. That deal just expired.” Isabella took one step closer. The wind caught the edge of her blouse, pressing the thin fabric against her. “Is he alive?” “For now. They want you to come willingly. Alone. No security. No police.” She laughed once, sharp. “And you came to what—escort me?” Lucien’s jaw flexed. “I came to stop you from being stupid.” “I’m the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company, Lucien. Not the seventeen-year-old who used to sneak into your study and steal your whiskey.” Something dark moved behind his eyes. “You still steal things that don’t belong to you.” The silence between them stretched, charged. She could smell the faint trace of his cologne—something expensive and cold—and under it, the metallic edge of adrenaline. “Tell me the plan,” she said. “There is no plan that keeps you safe if you walk into their hands.” He stepped into her space. Close enough that she had to tip her head back. “You stay with me. You do exactly what I say. And you don’t open that pretty mouth to argue when I tell you to run.” Isabella’s breath left her in a slow exhale. “And if I refuse?” Lucien’s hand came up, not quite touching her throat, hovering just above the pulse that hammered there. “Then I take you anyway.” The elevator dinged behind them. Both of them turned. Three men in dark suits stepped out onto the rooftop, guns already drawn. The one in front smiled like he knew exactly who she was. “Miss Vale,” he called over the wind. “Time to come home.” Lucien moved first. He shoved Isabella behind him so hard she staggered, then the gun was already in his hand—black, suppressed, appearing from inside his coat like it had always been part of him. Two sharp, almost silent cracks. The first two men dropped. The third opened fire. Bullets chewed concrete. Lucien grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward the service stairwell as glass shattered somewhere behind them. They hit the stairs running. “How many more?” she gasped. “Enough.” His voice was flat, focused. “Stay on my left. If I go down, you keep running. Do you understand me?” “Lucien—” “Do you understand me, Isabella?” She met his eyes for half a second in the dim stairwell light. “Yes.” They burst through the next landing. Another man waited. Lucien didn’t slow. He slammed the man into the wall hard enough that something cracked, then drove an elbow into his throat. The body crumpled. Isabella’s heels skidded on blood. They reached the underground parking level. Lucien’s black car was already running, doors unlocked. He pushed her into the passenger seat, slid behind the wheel, and the tires screamed as they tore out of the garage. City lights streaked past. Isabella’s hands were shaking. She pressed them against her thighs to hide it. “Where are we going?” “Somewhere they can’t follow tonight.” His knuckles were white on the wheel. “After that… we find your father. And we burn whoever took him.” She looked at his profile—hard, beautiful, lethal—and felt the first real spike of fear that had nothing to do with the men with guns. Because the man who had just killed for her without hesitation was the same man who used to tuck her in when she was small. And the way he had looked at her on that rooftop had not been paternal. Not even close. The phone in the center console lit up with a single text from an unknown number. **We have him. Come alone or he dies screaming. 48 hours.** Lucien glanced at it, then at her. “They’re not getting you,” he said, voice low and final. “Not while I’m breathing.” Isabella stared at the message until the screen went dark. Forty-eight hours. And the man beside her—her father’s best friend, her godfather, the only person who had ever truly scared her—had just decided she belonged under his protection. Whether she wanted it or not.