Chapter 136 The Scent of Blood
Nate’s POV
The penthouse was silent, the air still heavy and humid with the scent of sex, salt, and the lingering ozone of a shattered nightmare. My skin was buzzing, a low-voltage hum beneath the surface that came from the friction of Mila’s body. I’d left her tangled in the silk sheets, her breath finally deep and even, though she still twitched occasionally in her sleep—a residual tremor from the hell she’d just escaped.
I stood at the edge of the bed for a moment before leaving, looking down at the work of my hands. The satisfaction was a dark, pulsing heat in my gut. I had marked her. Deep, possessive blooms of red and purple stained the creamy skin of her neck and the swell of her breasts, a visceral map of the way I’d reclaimed her. When she’d climaxed, her muscles had constricted around me with a desperate, crushing force, pulling me into her as if she were trying to swallow my very soul to keep the ghosts at bay. I’d shattered inside her, a raw, heavy release that had finally quieted the static in my head. I wanted her again—I wanted to wake her up and lose myself in the vanilla-and-rain taste of her skin until the sun burned through the floor-to-ceiling windows—but she was spent. She needed the rest I’d fought to give her, the temporary peace that only total physical exhaustion could provide.
I adjusted my cuffs, the gold links clicking with a finality that signaled the end of the lover and the return of the predator. I stepped into the secure study, the carnal heat of the bedroom replaced instantly by a cold, clinical frost.
Gavin and Theodore were already there, framed by the rhythmic blue glow of a dozen monitors. Theodore had his shirtsleeves rolled up with surgical precision, his fingers flying across a mechanical keyboard, while Gavin stood like a sentinel by the window, staring out at the Manhattan skyline with a jaw so tight it looked carved from granite. They looked like what they were: the two pillars of my empire, the men who helped me hold the world together when the seams started to fray.
"They’ve been active," Theodore said without looking up. He tapped a key, and a grainy, high-contrast feed from a roadside motel in Secaucus filled the center screen. "Dawn and Mark Stone. They aren't hiding, Nate. They’re peacocking."
"Explain," I said, leaning over the desk.
Gavin turned from the window, his eyes hard and flat. "They’ve hit three underground rooms in the last forty-eight hours. High-stakes poker, private sports books, even a low-level baccarat game in a basement in Newark. They aren't using aliases, Nate. They’re signing every marker with a footnote: 'Reference: Salvatore.'"
A lethal stillness settled over me, the kind of quiet that precedes a landslide. "They're using my name to buy buy-ins they have no intention of honoring."
"It’s worse than a simple scam," Theodore added, pulling up a series of digital breadcrumbs and bank ledgers. "They’re scenting the air. They know Vane is still hunting for the shipyard crates they skimmed years ago—the ones Mila saw in her dream. By throwing your name around in every gutter in Jersey, they’re broadcasting a message to the entire underworld. They’re telling everyone that the 'Stone debt' has officially become a 'Salvatore problem.'"
The realization clicked into place like a chambered round, cold and heavy. The sheer, calculated cowardice of it made my vision tunnel. Mila was upstairs, recovering from memories of a closet she should never have been forced into, while the man who sired her was using her as a human shield. They weren't just running; they were baiting a trap with their own daughter’s life.
"They’re using her," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous, vibrating whisper. "They’re dangling the Salvatore connection in front of Vane like a fresh kill to keep him occupied. If Vane thinks he can squeeze a billionaire for the shipyard debt, he stops looking for two-bit thieves in a Jersey motel. He starts looking at me. And through me, he looks at her."
"They've sold her twice," Gavin growled, his hand tightening on the back of a leather chair until the frame groaned. "Once in that kitchen years ago, and now on the open market. They’re gambling that you’ll kill Vane to protect her, essentially clearing their ledger and making them untouchable by association. They think your obsession with her is their get-out-of-jail-free card."
A dark, twisted amusement flickered in my chest. They thought they knew me. They thought they were playing a high-stakes game of leverage, using my love for Mila as collateral. What they didn't realize was that in my world, you don't use the things I love as a shield. You don't put my woman in the crosshairs to save your own pathetic skins. By turning her into bait, they had stripped themselves of the protection her bloodline might have afforded them. They weren't my family; they were parasites, and I was the cure.
"I want them monitored 24/7," I ordered, my gaze fixed on Mark Stone’s blurry image. He was laughing at something off-camera, probably thinking he’d finally hit the jackpot. "Every phone call, every meal, every movement. But we don't move on them yet. If we pluck them now, the trail goes cold, and Vane starts looking for other ways to hurt us. I want Vane to follow that scent. I want him to think he’s closing in on the ultimate prize."
Theodore paused, his brow furrowed. "Nate, if Vane makes a move on that motel while they're using your name, it could draw local heat we aren't ready for."
"I don't care about the heat," I snapped, the predator in me fully unleashed. "Let them run up the debt. Let them think they've outsmarted the devil himself. I want them to feel safe. I want them to believe that the Salvatore name is a cloak that will hide their sins."
I looked toward the ceiling, my mind momentarily drifting back to the bedroom. I could almost taste the salt on Mila's skin, the sweetness of her surrender. She was my heart, the only pure thing left in a world of filth, and these two vultures were trying to feed on her.
"When Vane finally makes his move on that motel—and he will—I want to be the one waiting in the room," I said, my voice cold enough to crack bone. "Vane is a problem to be solved, but Mark and Dawn? They're a debt that needs to be settled. I’m going to show them exactly what happens when you use my woman as bait. I’m going to make sure they realize that the only thing more dangerous than the man chasing them is the man who was supposed to protect them."
Gavin nodded, a grim, understood signal of war. Theodore’s fingers returned to the keys, his face set in a mask of technical execution. The trap was set. Now, we just had to wait for the rats to get comfortable.