SWAPPED TO THE SYNDICATE KING

Chapter Four

Jarrah

"Tell me," Baden whispered, his breath warm against my ear. "Does my little bride always carry the scent of gun oil and heavy punching bags on her skin?"

His words hovered in the space between us like a drawn blade. My heart hammered against my ribs, a hard, furious rhythm, and every survival instinct I had trained over six years begged me to act. My left foot was already angled slightly back. From this range, a quick heel palm strike to his throat would crush his airway, giving me three seconds to grab his crystal glass, shatter it against his jaw, and make a break for the balcony.

No, my brain screamed. He has guards on the roof. The glass is bulletproof. Drop the fighter. Play the victim.

I swallowed hard, squeezed my eyes shut, and let a ragged, trembling breath escape my lips. I forced my shoulders to collapse inward, letting my spine curve until I looked small, frail, and entirely cornered.

"I... I went to see Jarrah," I choked out, keeping my voice thin, high, and laced with panic. I let a tear slip past my lashes, a trick I’d mastered during undercover surveillance work when I needed to look harmless. "Before... before your men picked me up. I went to her gym in the city to beg her to help me hide. Her gear was everywhere. It... it smelled awful."

Silence stretched over the room, heavy enough to drown in.

Baden did not pull back immediately. His amber gold eyes remained fixed on my face, sliding from the fake tear rolling down my cheek to the rapid pulse fluttering at the base of my throat. The scrutiny was suffocating, like being held under a microscope by a predator deciding whether to bite or play with its catch.

Then, a slow, dangerous smile curved into the corner of his mouth.

In the suffocating heat of his presence, he turned his back on me to pick up his glass from the mantelpiece. "A sharp-edged stray that your family should have put on a leash years ago. But you're here now."

He did not look back as he gestured toward the far side of the penthouse. "Take her down to the guest suite in the west wing, Brodie. Have the stylists here at seven sharp tomorrow morning. I want that dark ink stripped out of her hair. By the time we stand in St. Patrick’s on Sunday, I want my bride to look like the innocent girl Melbourne expects."

"Yes, boss," Brodie’s voice called from behind me.

I kept my chin tucked into the collar of my cashmere sweater, weeping quietly into my hands as Brodie escorted me back into the elevator. Only when the heavy steel doors slid shut, cutting us off from Baden’s sight, did I wipe the moisture from my face.

The guest suite in the compound’s west wing was less of a bedroom and more of a gilded cell.

It was massive, dominated by a king-sized bed wrapped in charcoal linens, polished concrete floors, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out over the crashing black waves of Port Phillip Bay. The only exit was a solid teak door equipped with a heavy digital keypad on the outside.

Brodie locked it behind me with a loud, electronic beep.

The moment I heard the bolt throw, the timid, trembling posture melted off my frame. My spine straightened. My eyes widened, taking in every square inch of the room with the methodical efficiency of an investigator sweep.

Smoke detector in the corner. Wired into the central fire grid, no visible pinhole camera lens. Vent shafts: six inches wide, reinforced with iron mesh, no air duct escape. Windows: double-glazed laminated ballistic glass. Unbreakable without high grade explosives.

I walked into the adjoining suite bathroom. The room was cold marble and matte black fixtures. Sitting on the quartz vanity counter was a luxury leather toiletry kit left by the compound staff, alongside a box of professional hair dye, Rich Chestnut Brown No. 4.

Baden was not taking any chances. He wanted his docile, honey-haired trophy bride, down to the exact color of her roots.

I opened the box, mixed the developer and color cream in the ceramic bowl, and stared at myself in the mirror.

My black hair was the last physical piece of Jarrah I had left. It was the hair I wore when I won my first amateur fight in an underground Docklands basement. It was the hair I pinned back when I spent eight hours in a cold surveillance van tracking corrupt city councilors.

I took the application brush, scooped up the dark, thick paste, and began coating my hair from root to tip.

"Twenty minutes," I muttered to myself, setting a timer on the vanity clock.

I sat on the edge of the deep marble bathtub, resting my elbows on my knees and dropping my face into my hands.

If I made one single slip, if my gait was too wide, if my grip on a fork was too firm, if my eyes held too much iron, he would tear my cover apart.

Focus, I ordered myself, taking a slow, deep breath into my belly.

Fourteen days.

I broke the fortnight down into phases in my head:

Days 1 to 3 (The Containment): Survive the compound, complete the wedding transformation, and map the security patrol rotations. Identify the location of Baden’s central home server and physical vault.

Day 4 (The Cathedral): Walk down the aisle. Exchange vows. Secure full, unimpeded access to Baden’s life as his official wife.

Days 5 to 10 (The Infiltration): Access his primary study. Use my hardware bypass keys to mirror his encrypted transaction ledgers, the ones containing thirty years of blackmail on the Victorian police force, corrupt politicians, and the Barry family’s illegal dock imports.

Days 11 to 13 (The Extraction): Route the decrypted files to my off-site server in Switzerland. Plant decoy financial logs to frame a rival syndicate for the leak.

Day 14 (The Disappearance): Trigger an internal security lockdown, stage my own violent abduction, drop into the coastal waters below the cliff, and vanish under my pre-established burner identity in Western Australia.

Simple, I lied to myself. Clean. Professional.

The timer chimed.

I leaned over the marble basin and turned on the hot tap. I washed the chemical sludge from my hair, watching the dark water swirl around the drain. When I leaned back up and dried my hair with a plush white towel, the girl staring back at me in the glass wasn't Jarrah Vance anymore.

Soft, warm chestnut waves cascaded past my shoulders, framing my pale face and softening the sharp line of my jaw.

I looked exactly like Tahlia. Fragile. Soft. Edgeless.

"Good girl, Tahlia," I whispered.

I walked back into the bedroom, stripping off my cashmere sweater to change into the soft satin pajamas left on the bed. I reached for my bag.

I reached down to the bottom corner of the inner lining, feeling for the small, hard outline of my custom stainless-steel lock pick set, two tension wrenches and three diamond picks wrapped in electrical tape.

My fingers met nothing.

I froze. A sudden spike of ice-cold adrenaline shot straight down my spine.

I turned the bag inside out under the bedside lamp. The inner lining had been neatly, sliced open along the seam. The picks were gone.

A soft, electronic beep echoed from the heavy bedroom door.

The heavy teak door swung open silently.

Baden Sterling stood in the doorway. He had changed out of his suit jacket; he wore a plain black shirt with the top two buttons undone, his sleeves pushed up to his forearms, revealing the dark, intricate ink trailing down his wrists.

He was leaning casually against the door frame, his broad shoulders filling the entryway.

Slowly, he raised his right hand.

Clutched between his long, tattooed fingers were my five stainless steel lock picks, fanned out like a hand of winning poker cards.

He looked at the tools, then looked up, his striking amber eyes locking onto mine with a dark, terrifying glint of amusement.

"Looking for these, Tahlia?" Baden murmured softly.