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Carys fought the numbness crawling up her spine, but her limbs betrayed her one by one. Her fingers twitched uselessly against the floor, her muscles slackening as though her bones had melted. Her breath staggered, growing shallow even as her heartbeat pounded wildly against her ribs.

Valerie’s small face blurred in her vision—eyes wide, frightened, and apologetic. Too apologetic.

The world pitched sideways. Again. How she managed to drag herself painfully back to reality was pure fear. Going under meant Leo was going to do something she wouldn't remember and by God, even if he was going to shoot her dead now, she needed to look him in the face as he pulled the trigger.

Leo’s silhouette loomed above her like a wall, the overhead light casting him in sharp, merciless angles. He wasn’t loud. He didn’t need to be. His presence alone carried a warning that curled cold fingers around her throat.

“Easy,” he murmured, crouching beside her as if he were comforting a sick animal. His breath brushed her ear, warm and deceptively gentle. “Fighting it only makes it worse.”

Carys wanted to spit in his face, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. Her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, her vision tunneling until all she saw was his calculating smile. All she could manage at the moment was... nothing, she was at his mercy.

Behind him, Valerie wrung her hands, shaking her head as if trying to undo the last thirty seconds. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall. She looked and acted different in front of her father- stronger? Carys' mind was too slippery to make sense of anything except acknowledge the danger she was unfortunately in.

“Take her,” Leo ordered, rising to his full height.

Two men stepped out of the shadows, men Carys hadn’t even realized were present. That alone sent panic slicing through her—how long had they been watching? How long had Leo been inside the house without anyone raising an alarm?

The estate was supposed to be airtight under Leon’s control.

So how did his father stroll in and drug someone in the middle of the hallway?

Valerie whispered to him, barely audible. “Daddy, she didn’t do anything. I promise. She helped me—”

Leo rested a hand on her head, shushing her softly, the gesture affectionate but chillingly dismissive. “Sweetheart, this is grown-up business. You don’t have to understand it yet.”

“I don’t want her to get hurt,” Valerie whispered.

“She won’t,” Leo lied with a smile that never touched his eyes. “Not unless she gives me a reason.”

Unwelcome hands settled on her body and lifted her, disturbing the center she had created. When she was plunged into darkness a second time, she was too tired to fight it.

—

She drifted in and out of consciousness. Heat. Cold. Voices she couldn’t quite place. The helpless feeling felt oddly familiar, one she had experienced once or twice on the job. Then she always had Brent to bail her out before they broke her mind, this time, it wouldn't be that simple or easy. Breaking her here meant the end of her life.

Sometimes the ground was beneath her; sometimes she felt weightless, as if she were being carried. A car door slammed. Tires screeched. Someone complained about the time. Another argued about Leon’s patrol schedule. A rough voice swore under his breath, saying they needed to hurry before the “ghost son” returned.

The ghost son? Leon.

Even drugged, her mind latched onto the thought with stubborn clarity. He would notice she was missing. He always noticed everything. He might not like her—hell, he barely tolerated her—but he wouldn’t ignore her disappearance.

Would he? Fuck! She needed to believe he would or she'd crack before Leo started torturing her.

The estate was already unstable. Ivon was injured. Leon was stretched thin. And Leo—Leo moved like a man who knew exactly when to strike. They were turning on each other. And Carys was caught in the center like a match capable of burning the whole family down. The undertones were nothing like she imagined. All the intel in the world would never have prepared her for the Valachi's

She woke abruptly, gasping when cold water splashed over her face.

Her body still felt heavy, but sensation had begun creeping back into her fingers, little tingling needles stabbing along her nerves. She was seated. Tied. Her wrists bound behind her to a chair far sturdier than anything she could break even on her best day. Rope rubbed raw against her skin.

The room around her was dim, lit by a single bulb hung from the low ceiling. No windows. Concrete walls. No sound except the faint hum of electricity and a dripping pipe somewhere behind her. A basement? A storage bunker? No, this felt too deliberate. Too prepared. Leo hadn’t chosen this place randomly.

He knew Leon was going to come looking and if he was anything like their intel said he was, it was never going to be a fair fight, and Leon definitely knew his son more than anyone.

A shadow moved in front of her. “Well,” Leo said conversationally, pulling up a metal stool and sitting backwards on it. “Good morning.”

Her throat was dry, sandpaper scraping with every swallow. “Where… am I?”

“A safe place.” His smile was polite, charming even. The resemblance between father and sons was nauseating, but Carys swallowed down the bile in her throat. “Safe for me, at least. For you… we’ll see.”

Carys clenched her jaw. “You didn’t have to drug me in front of Valerie.”

“Drug you? Is your memory getting affected?” He leaned forward, elbows resting on the backrest of the stool. “I wasn't the one who injected you. It was Valerie”

Swallowing back the vomit took more effort the next time around. What the fuck was he on about? Suddenly, as if affirming his words. Memories, sharp and mismatched made her gasp. She had felt a pinch in her thigh when she was standing close to Valerie before Leo even approached her, and she spoke?

Carys shook her head. "How did you get her to talk? Are you playing fucking pranks on me? Is this what this is? Valerie doesn't talk and she'd never drug me."

Leo chuckled. Thoroughly amused by her. Waving a hand lazily, Valerie walked into her line of sight. "Why don't you ask her yourself if she can talk? Ask her if she drugged you? Go ahead"

Throat dry, Carys looked at Valerie, really seeing the young girl under a different light. Had she gotten it wrong? "Valerie- honey. Ivon and Leon will be so worried about you? Do they know you talk to your dad?"

Valerie shook her head, gazing down at her dusty shoes. "Papa told me not to tell them. I had to keep a secret and not talking was part of that secret. I'm sorry, Miss Carys."

"Don't ever apologize for things out of your control my love" Leo kissed his daughter's head mechanically, but the look she returned reeked of adoration and love.

"Did you brainwash her?" Carys swallowed thickly, "How sick are you to do that?"

"Valerie, go play with your toys, the adults need to talk." Leo didn't waste any time arranging the proper dynamics once Valerie disappeared. He struck her across the cheek hard. "She is my child, I can do anything with her. Ivon and Leon were supposed to help me build an empire but they took what was mine and what? Thought I would remain quiet?"

"I don't know what Leon does but Mr. Ivon works very hard to keep what he has." Carys played the dumb card. "You can't kidnap your daughter's tutor to draw their attention. Report yourself to the police while you still can and let me and Valerie go, it doesn't have to end this way."
Leo studied her for a long moment and burst into laughter, holding his stomach for several minutes until he righted himself. “Rumors fly around that Americans are stupid, but you're next level stupid, aren't you sweetheart? You're living with snakes and don't even know it. I'm pretty sure one of them's biting you too." His once-over made her shudder. "You look like their type"

"My relationship with your sons is professional." Carys resisted the urge to ask for water, instead she caught the drops rolling down her face from her wet hair with her tongue.

"My sons are not good people- Ivon - maybe - is a smart boy who makes bad decisions in everything, for example hiring a blond woman from overseas to teach my daughter. Why are you really here? Miss Carys"

“I’m here to help Valerie.”

“Liar” He tapped the side of his head. “I have very good senses when it comes to liars. I need questions to my answers and I will get them however I can.”

The open threat slithered down her spine.

“I have nothing to do with anything. I don't know what's happening” Carys said quietly.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Leo murmured, brushing a damp curl away from her forehead with unsettling affection. “That part is not for you to decide, it's for me and whatever I'll use to pull the truth out of you."

The door creaked open.

One of Leo’s men stepped inside. “Sir, we’ve finished sweeping the estate. Leon wasn’t there.”

Leo’s eyes gleamed with dark satisfaction. “Of course he wasn’t. He’s two steps ahead of everyone when he thinks he’s in danger. Clear the estate, tell all the men to retreat”

Carys’s pulse stumbled. “Where is he?” she demanded. Her savior needed to be alive to actually save her

Leo turned to her with a calmness that chilled her.

“Hunting,” he said. “Which means he’ll either find you… or he’ll find something far worse.”