Chapter 80 81
Darren Johnson – POV
I should’ve waited until morning. Should’ve taken the time to polish my findings, line up the narrative, make it airtight before I dropped it in front of her. That’s how I operated — clean, calculated, always in control.
But Krystal Hunter had a way of bending my rules.
So instead, I found myself in her penthouse at nearly midnight, folder tucked under my arm, adrenaline still buzzing in my veins from the calls I’d made and the “truths” I thought I’d uncovered about Raven Anderson.
She opened the door barefoot, wearing yoga leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder. No diamonds, no silk, no armor of Manhattan elitism. Just… Krystal.
“Darren?” she blinked, tilting her head as if surprised but not displeased. “You know it’s midnight, right? Some of us actually do yoga and sleep like normal people.”
“Normal?” I snorted, brushing past her into the apartment. “There’s nothing normal about you, Krystal.”
“Flattery,” she said lightly, closing the door behind me, “will get you exactly one scoop of pistachio ice cream from my freezer. Two, if you tell me why you’re barging in like a Wall Street husband who forgot his anniversary.”
I almost smiled. Almost. Damn her. She always knew how to uncoil the tension in a way that caught me off guard.
I dropped the folder onto her marble countertop, pages spilling out like blood. “Anderson. I dug. Called in favors. The bastard’s family is tied to the Italians. Old cartel money, laundering, payoffs. I’ve got names, dates, even half-baked accounts ready to blow if we push the right pressure points.”
Her eyes flicked over the papers, lips pursed just slightly. I expected a gasp, a triumphant smile, something sharp and vengeful.
Instead, she laughed. Soft, amused. “You really did it.”
“Of course I did,” I shot back. “You wanted him ruined. I don’t half-ass things.”
“I see that.” She leaned against the counter, still barefoot, still smiling at me like I’d just brought her flowers instead of potential felony evidence. “And tell me, Darren Johnson, fixer of Manhattan—why do you care so much about my little vendetta?”
Her tone was teasing, but something in her eyes pinned me harder than any accusation. I opened my mouth and found I didn’t have a neat answer. Not one that sounded like business.
Because the truth was, I didn’t care about Raven Anderson. I cared about her. About the way she leaned into me when she spoke, about the spark in her laugh that wasn’t polished or forced like the women at Manhattan galas. Krystal was… different. Real.
And that unsettled me more than the damn bounced check in my safe.
“I don’t like seeing you lose,” I muttered finally, realizing how weak it sounded.
She chuckled again, low and warm, and walked over to the freezer. A moment later, she slid a bowl of pistachio ice cream across the counter toward me like it was some kind of reward.
“Eat,” she said simply. “Heroes get ice cream.”
Heroes. The word sank into me like a knife and a balm all at once. I’d been called a lot of things in my life — shark, snake, vulture — but never that.
As I took the spoon, her fingers brushed mine. Just for a second. Just enough to make me forget about my brother’s debts, my mother in the hospital, and the mess waiting at my firm.
She was down to earth. Funny. Infuriating. And not at all the spoiled, brittle elites I’d grown up circling in Manhattan’s highest towers.
And I hated to admit it — but somewhere between the bourbon, the ice cream, and that smirk of hers, I realized I wasn’t just working for Krystal Hunter anymore.
I was starting to fall for her.
By the time the credits rolled, my phone had buzzed twice with calendar reminders about morning meetings I was about to obliterate with my lack of sleep. It was nearly 2 a.m., and instead of heading home to my cold apartment, I was on Krystal Hunter’s ridiculous L-shaped couch, knee brushing hers, watching a Korean zombie movie like a college kid on a Friday night.
And she… she was screaming her lungs out.
“Why—why would he open the door?” Krystal clutched the throw pillow against her chest, hair a mess now from tugging it every time a corpse flung itself across the screen. “Oh my God, no. See? This is why I don’t watch this stuff alone! Humans are dumb enough without zombies!”
I smirked, letting her dramatic complaints fill the room. “You’re telling me the fearless Krystal Hunter, stock-market prodigy and queen of penthouses, can’t handle a little gore?”
“It’s not gore,” she shot back, eyes wide as she peeked at the screen, then quickly covered her face again. “It’s the anticipation! You never know when one of those things is going to pop out. I hate it. I hate it. But I also can’t stop watching.”
I leaned back, arm resting along the couch behind her. “Typical woman.”
Her head snapped toward me, narrowing those sharp eyes of hers. “Excuse me?”
“Needing company just to watch fake monsters.” I shrugged, letting the corner of my mouth twitch upward. “You act like you could go toe-to-toe with Wall Street, but a few zombies and suddenly you need someone to hold your hand.”
She huffed, tossing a popcorn kernel at me. “Don’t act like you didn’t flinch when that nurse got bitten. I saw you.”
I caught the kernel mid-air and popped it into my mouth just to annoy her. “Maybe. But I didn’t scream like a banshee.”
The sass rolled between us like old friends, though we’d barely spent more than a few weeks in each other’s orbit. That was the danger of her — she didn’t feel like an opponent. She felt… easy. Like a woman who belonged in a sweatshirt and mismatched socks on a couch, not in a gilded ballroom with the other glassy-eyed elites.
I turned my head toward her. The dim glow of the flat screen cast her in shades of soft blue and silver. Her hair was a little messy, her lips pink from chewing them during jump scares, her laugh—God, her laugh—bright enough to cut through all the shadows I’d been dragging behind me.
And that was when I said it. Quiet, but deliberate.
“You’re beautiful.”
She froze. Just a flicker, the kind of pause only someone watching too closely would notice. Then she tilted her head, eyes narrowing as if she wasn’t sure whether to roll them or let the words land.
“You always this smooth, Johnson?” she asked, voice half-mocking, half-curious.
“Only when I mean it.”
The air shifted. Not heavy, not explosive, but slow and careful—like two strangers walking a tightrope, pretending not to notice how close they were drifting.
She smirked, finally. “Careful. Compliments are like loans with me. Interest rates are brutal.”
I chuckled, but inside, something twisted. Because I wasn’t supposed to feel this. I wasn’t supposed to want her laugh to last longer, or her eyes to linger on me just a beat more.
She was rich, naive, too trusting. A spoiled heiress trying to play queen in a city full of sharks. My plan was simple: seduce her, use her, and walk away before the mask slipped.
But sitting there on her couch at 2 a.m., watching her sass zombies and throw popcorn, I couldn’t deny the truth creeping in like smoke.
She was amazing in all the wrong ways.