ONE FIFTY SIX
Now in the living room, Gael sat across, perched on the edge of the single-seater, looking less like a guest and more like a ticking bomb. He hadn’t said a word since dinner, not really. He just sat there, eyes wide and unblinking, glued to the TV, but I could see his leg bouncing restlessly, fingers twitching against the fabric of his jeans like he needed a needle, a scalpel, a distraction, something, anything. His face was drawn. He hadn’t touched the lasagna. Just cut at it with his fork until it looked like roadkill and then pushed the plate away and left the dinner table.
On the screen, the news anchor was mid-sentence, voice calm but tense, reporting the wreckage like she was describing a damn recipe. “Three officers were confirmed dead at the scene. One in critical condition. Incident occurred at approximately 3:45pm just near Central Park—”
My throat tightened.
They played the footage. Blurry. Grainy. From a witness phone camera, I think. It was chaos. Real, screaming, exploding, fire-eating chaos. The camera panned across Central Park’s south side, just by the curved corner where the benches circle in, and then you could see Tina—God, Tina—racing across the road like something had taken over her body, her hair flying in every direction as she ran. She barreled right into a cop, full force, and knocked him flat on his back like a damn linebacker. The camera cut. Fast.
Next, it jumped to the street, to the Ferrari. My chest cinched.
Slick, black, fast. Our getaway car tearing down the avenue with cop cars behind it like hungry dogs on leash. Tires screeching. Then, a crash. One of the patrol vehicles collided with a post, hard. Metal folded in on itself. Another rammed into its back. Flames burst. Sirens. Screams. The Ferrari zipped past it all like we were ghosts. There was one shot from someone’s dash cam that caught Dominic through the windshield—just a flash—but I saw his eyes. Hollow. Focused. Like war.
The reporter’s voice dropped low and serious. “A bounty has now been placed. All suspects are considered armed and highly dangerous. A reward of 7.2 million dollars is being offered to anyone with credible information that leads to their capture. The fugitives include—”
Seven point two.
The number didn’t echo. It rang. Like the sharp toll of a bell in a silent cathedral. Clean, loud, and final.
My spine straightened without thinking, chest clenching like I’d taken a punch straight through my ribs. My eyes didn’t just glance toward Gael, they snapped to him, like a magnet to metal. There was no room for subtlety. My head turned before I could even process it, my blood cold, my heart suddenly thudding in my throat.
He was already staring at the screen. Still as stone. Not blinking. Not breathing. Like he’d just found God in high-definition pixels and a blood-red breaking news banner. He didn’t move, but everything about him screamed tension. His hands were clenched on his lap, fingers curled so tightly his knuckles were the color of milk. I watched the way his throat moved, bobbing once, subtly, like he was swallowing a thought he couldn’t say out loud. Then his tongue darted across his lips. Slow. Calculating. Like a man who just spotted a plate of steak after starving for three weeks, but knew it might be laced with arsenic.
There was no remote near him. I scanned the coffee table, the arm of his chair. Nothing. I wanted to turn this shit off. Still, I could feel the shift in his energy. The subtle coil of muscle in his shoulders, the way his eyes twitched at the corners as he processed the number—seven point two million—and all it could buy him.
I could see it written across his face like it had been tattooed there: calculation. survival. profit.
He was thinking. Running numbers. Options. What seven million could do if you knew the right people. What seven million could do even if you didn’t. I could almost hear the thoughts, like ghosts whispering behind his still eyes. Seven million could buy silence. Buy freedom. Buy safety. A new car, a new island, a new name, a new face. Seven million could make him someone else. Or no one at all.
And God, the worst part? He’d barely even have to try.
Because if he wasn’t going to flip before, he sure as hell had reason to now.
That number made everything different.
And all I could think in that moment, my heart screaming against my ribcage, the television flickering in the corner like it was taunting me, was that I would’ve doubled it. Right there. On the spot. I would’ve offered him fourteen, no hesitation. I would’ve signed over property, wired accounts, called people if I could.
Because once upon a time, I could. I had money. Not just money, real wealth. Generational, institutional, bloodline-deep. The kind that didn’t run out. The kind that was buried under foundations of companies and fake names and tax havens in countries you’d need a visa to even pronounce. I had properties. Businesses. Jewelry stashed in banks I hadn’t set foot in since I was twenty. I had lawyers who could erase a problem with a phone call. Brokers who made millions off me in the time it took me to blink. I had power.
But now?
Now, I was a name on a watchlist. A face on a fugitive bulletin. I couldn’t access a damn thing. If I tried, the alarm bells would go off. Interpol would light up. The second I touched anything I used to own, the whole machine would come alive. And it wouldn’t just be me they came for, it’d be Dominic. Tina. Isabella. Even Adam.
Everything I had was frozen. Untouchable. Just like me.
So, I couldn’t offer him double. Triple. Hell, I couldn’t offer him ten bucks and a pack of gum. All I had was hope. And that was the weakest currency of them all. Especially in a room where seven million dollars hung in the air like a ticking bomb.
I looked at Gael’s face again. He wasn’t just tempted, he was thinking. Really thinking. And that terrified me more than the number itself. Just before the anchor could finish listing our names, the screen went black.
I flinched.
Footsteps. Measured. Quiet but heavy.
I looked up.
Dominic.
He walked into the room like the night belonged to him. Slow. Intentional. Not a single ounce of hesitation in his stride. There was no light behind him, just shadows. One hand gripped the remote. The other, still, still held the damn gun. Like it was part of his body now. I didn’t know how he hadn’t dropped from exhaustion yet. His eyes were bloodshot, lids low, movements sluggish, but the man looked like the most dangerous kind of tired. The kind that didn’t make mistakes.
His shirt clung to his chest like a second skin. His collarbone peeked out from the open top, and the fabric stuck to him in places, especially along his ribs where I knew, I knew, the gauze underneath was probably soaked and uncomfortable. His hair—God—his hair was damp, sticking to his forehead in erratic strands, as if he’d poured water over himself instead of taking a proper shower. He looked like sex and danger. Death and desire.
And he was looking straight at Gael.
He didn’t speak at first. Just stood there, gaze cold, heavy. Gael tried to hold it. Couldn’t. His eyes darted away, like a child caught stealing candy. He scratched the side of his neck. Dominic took a step forward.
Then another.
Finally, his voice broke the silence. Deep. Low. Drenched in quiet authority.
“Isabella put Adam to sleep,” he said, his eyes flickering to me for half a second. “He’s fine. Perimeters are clean. No one’s following. I swept the place. We’re good for tonight.”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. My mouth was dry. My heart, no, my soul was still stuck on seven point two million and whether Gael was going to kill us all in our sleep or rat us out.
Dominic continued. “To keep it that way…” He looked back at Gael, walking closer now, slower, his steps matching the deadbeat rhythm of my pulse. “…I need your phone.”
Gael blinked.
“What?” he croaked, voice cracking.
“Your phone,” Dominic repeated, calm but firm. “You don’t get to keep it. Not after that”—he motioned toward the dark screen—“not after that number went up.”
Gael scoffed. “It’s off. I’ve had it off all night. I’m not gonna—”
“I don’t care.” Dominic cut him off. “You’re in this house. You follow my rules. Hand it over.”
The room went quiet. Even the air stopped moving.
And I just sat there. Watching. Waiting.
Because there was no way Dominic was going to ask again. Not twice.
And God help me…
I didn’t want him to.
I wanted to see what happened if Gael said no.
Because part of me, the part of me that was exhausted and dirty and broken and bleeding from the inside out—
wanted to be ruined.
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