Chapter 199 Erase the Trace
Eddie spun on his heel, ready to bolt, but Damon’s hand clamped down hard on his shoulder before he could take a step.
“You’re coming with us,” Damon said, voice like stone.
“Get your damn hands off me!” Eddie barked, trying to twist free. His two bodyguards stormed forward, muscles tensed, ready to tear Damon apart.
Leo moved first. The first guard swung a heavy punch, but Leo slipped aside and drove his fist into the guy’s ribs. The man doubled over, wheezing, and Leo finished with a quick uppercut that snapped his head back.
The second guard lunged in, grabbing Leo by the shirt. Leo slammed his knee into the man’s stomach, then hooked an arm around his neck and flipped him straight onto the table. Bottles crashed, glasses shattered, and the club erupted in screams.
Eddie froze, eyes wide, spitting curses, as Damon shoved him forward.
“Move,” Damon growled, dragging him toward the exit while Leo wiped his knuckles clean.
“Wait—wait! You can’t drag me out like this!” Eddie shouted, twisting hard against Damon’s grip. His shoes slipped and scraped, but he couldn’t get free.
“I’ve got friends! You hear me? Big friends! You’ll regret this!” His voice cracked as Leo shoved him forward.
The music in the club was still thumping, but heads turned as Eddie’s protests got louder, more frantic.
“You’re making a mistake! You don’t even know who you’re messing with! I’ve got contacts, deals,you take me down, and you’ll go down with me!”
Damon didn’t even flinch. He just jerked Eddie harder, his hold bruising. Leo snorted, his voice a low growl by Eddie’s ear.
“Keep running your mouth, and I’ll break your jaw before we get outside.”
But Eddie didn’t shut up. He kept ranting, spitting out threats, his face red with panic.
“You’ll pay for this! All of you! You’ll wish you never laid a finger on me!”
His shouts followed them as the doors slammed open, the night air swallowing the sound while Damon and Leo dragged him straight toward what was waiting.
“Where am I? Let me out! Hey—you idiots, let me out!” Eddie shouted, his voice muffled beneath the bag pulled tight over his head. His heart hammered against his ribs, betraying the bravado in his tone. He had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was being shoved into a van, a bag thrown over his head, then darkness as one of the men knocked him out cold. When he came to, the bag was still there—but now he was tied to a chair.
He jerked his head from side to side, but saw nothing. Only silence and thick, smothering darkness pressed in on him. It gnawed at his nerves, whispering the truth: he was in deep trouble.
His mind spiraled back to the choices that had dragged him here. He never should have posted that damned video on the dark web. He hadn’t even known how to return it to Veronica after she left the country the very next day. For months he held on to it, until they approached him—that creepy man with the scar splitting his lip and Amanda at his side.
They’d promised him money. Real money. A ticket out of years of poverty, of being the guy always on the outside looking in. He knew the dark web was poison, but greed overrode caution. He uploaded it. And now—look at him. Tied to a chair like some criminal.
He should’ve known better. Especially after what he saw that night—after the girl in the footage was rescued by her husband. Eddie could still remember the man’s feral glare, the raw violence in his presence. He’d heard rumors the guy had even killed the director just for slapping his wife. And still, Eddie went through with it.
“Shit,” Eddie muttered, panic curling up his throat. “I’m fucked.”
A calm voice drifted out of the darkness. “It seems you are.”
Eddie froze. His breath hitched. Before he could process the words, the bag was yanked off his head. White light seared his eyes, forcing him to squint. But even through the sting, he felt it—that suffocating weight pressing down on him. An aura that screamed danger.
When his vision cleared, he saw him. Sitting casually across the table, smoke curling from his lips, was Knight.
Eddie blinked up at the light, eyes watering. The man across from him wasn’t some frail shadow—he was all muscle, broad shoulders filling the chair like a throne. His presence was suffocating, dangerous, and yet he was impossibly handsome, the kind of face you’d never forget even if you prayed to. Smoke curled lazily from between his fingers, calm where everything else in the room screamed violence.
“Do you know who I am?” Knight asked, his voice low, smooth, carrying a weight that made Eddie’s stomach clench.
Eddie’s mouth worked. “Y-yes, yes, I. ” He swallowed hard. “You’re… you’re the man….”
“You’re her husband,” Eddie blurted, panic making him stupidly candid. “You’re… you’re Kieran Blackwood.”
Knight’s smile was polite and empty at the same time. “And what else do they call me?”
His breath hitched on the name that haunted the underworld. “They call you Knight.”
Knight’s lips curved into a smile, slow, empty of warmth, the kind of smile that meant nothing good.
Knight’s eyes hardened. “Correct.”
Smoke drifted between them as Knight leaned forward. “Why.”
“Why what?” Eddie squealed.
“Why did you put that video up?” Knight’s tone was casual but everything in the room screamed danger.
Eddie’s bravado cracked like glass. He began babbling, words tripping over one another. “I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to. They, Keenan. He and Amanda came to me. Said they’d make me money. Said it was easy. Said Veronica said it was fine…”
“Keenan.” Knight’s knuckles whitened on the arm of his chair. The name landed like an insult. “Bishop.”
Eddie’s breath hitched. “Yeah, Bishop or whatever. He and Amanda. They showed me how to post, gave me the account, the wallets. I, I was broke. I thought, I thought I could get by. I didn’t think it’d spread, I didn’t know..”
Knight watched him, expression very hard to read. The room waited on a blade’s edge.
“How do you take it down?” Knight asked finally, the question slow and precise.
Eddie’s mouth was dry. “It’s on private boards. Buyers pay in crypto—escrow wallets. Files get hosted on hidden servers, mirrored across nodes. To remove it, you go through brokers. You pay them, they pull the listing, kill the hash, lock the storage keys. Sometimes you buy the file back from the buyers themselves. Sometimes you bribe the admins. It doesn’t erase everything, but it buries it. Makes it hard to find.”
Knight’s stare didn’t waver. “And you can do that?”
Eddie nodded fast, almost frantic. “Yes. I still have the wallets, the broker numbers, the buyers. I can call them, send the crypto, buy it all back. I can shut down the listing I posted. I can make it go dark. Just… just let me do it.”
Knight leaned back in his chair, smoke curling from his lips, eyes like winter. “Then you’ll do it now. Here. With Damon watching.”
Damon’s hand clamped onto Eddie’s shoulder, iron-hard. “You’ll list every wallet, every broker, every buyer. You’ll make the calls. You’ll move the money. No stalling.”
Eddie swallowed a sob and nodded. Damon shoved a phone at him after untying his hand, and under their watch, Eddie began typing, pulling up accounts, rattling off hashes and IDs. A payment sent. A broker answering in clipped tones. A promise to pull the listing once confirmation cleared.
Knight rose slowly, towering over him, his presence suffocating. “Good. You started this. Now you’ll bury it. Every copy you sold, every wallet you touched, you’ll clean it up. And if I see it resurface again…” His eyes flicked, cold and final. “It won’t be about the video. It’ll be about you.”
Eddie nodded frantically, his whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm. Knight finally shifted, turning his head slightly toward Lionel.
“Get me Amaya.”
That was all he said. No explanation, no wasted words. Then his cold gaze slid back to Eddie, who sat bound and shaking, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts.