1. Nik

CHAPTER 1

Nik

The taillights of the car taking Brie Colombo off to her fate fade like dying embers until the black desert night swallows them completely.

My chest feels like it’s been hollowed out, but my arm is still warm from her last reassuring touch as she passed by me to go with the Colombo men. Behind me, I hear Holden breathing hard, and the sound twists something inside me.

“Dominika.” Eva’s voice cuts through the desert night. “Get in the car. Now.”

I don’t budge. But I turn my face toward hers, let the headlights of her car fall full onto my expression.

It makes her bodyguard Leon shift his massive frame, positioning himself instinctively between Eva and potential threats—in this case, me. His hand rests on his weapon, and I catch the glance he gives Lyssa and Scarlett. I know those tricks: assessing angles, calculating risks. My father taught me the exact same things. Taught me to respect the Novak Consortium. Taught me everything I know about protection…

And now the irony burns. Years of lessons on guarding people, and I let Brie just walk away with her potential killers.

And as for the Consortium?—

Eva walks around Leon to come closer to me. “I’ve been patient with you, Dominika. But even my patience has its limits.” Her accent thickens slightly—a tell I’ve learned means she’s truly angry. “If you don’t come with me now, you will lose everything. Your position. Your purpose. Is that what you want? To leave your family name in disgrace?” She tips her head to one side, and I assume her eyes are boring into mine, but all I see is her dark silhouette against the car lights. “What would your father think?”

The desert wind whips loose strands of my hair across my sweaty, sticky forehead. “Did you deal arms to a woman known as Grandmother?”

Behind me, I hear Lyssa and Scarlett shift, their interest piqued. Eva’s figure remains still, but the fact that she pauses so long tells me everything I need to know. “Business is business, Dominika,” she says at last. “The governing principle of the Novak Consortium has always been objectivity—which you seem to have forgotten. We sell to anyone with the means to buy.”

It’s true that I always knew that. It’s just that I never really thought about the consequences of such an approach. And thinking that Brie’s house at Solara might have been destroyed with a weapon provided by the Consortium…

“Is that all that matters to you?” I ask Eva. “Money?”

“What matters to me is something far more valuable: power. I hold more power than all the criminal organizations in Las Vegas combined. They need me—but I don’t need them. If someone won’t trade with me? There are dozens more who will jump at the chance.” She holds out her hands to me, beckoning me to her. “Come now, stop being silly, Dominika; you were happy enough when I made you part of my retinue.”

She’s not wrong. All these years, I’ve been chasing that sense of belonging, desperate to prove myself worthy, to walk the path my father laid out for me. But now I see it clearly—the Consortium was never about family. It was never about loyalty or honor or any of the things I believed in, even though my father drummed them into me.

For Eva, the Consortium is only useful for one reason: it benefits her.

I glance back at Holden, who looks like he’s holding his breath, still staring in the direction of the car that took Brie away from me. Holden loved Terry, truly loved him, and look where that got him—covered in desert dust with blood on his expensive shoes. Love is dangerous in our world. I know that. Have always known that. The smart thing for me to do would be accept that. Walk away—better yet, bow to Eva Novak and run back to the Consortium.

But all I’m worried about now is Brie, stuck in that car with Frank and the others. Is she scared? Planning something? She’s stronger than they know, smarter than they give her credit for. But she’s also alone now, surrounded by men who see her as nothing more than a temporary inconvenience.

“Fuck off, Eva.” My voice carries, making Leon growl, but I ignore him. “Get into your car and drive away. We’re done here.”

She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her perfume, and it turns my stomach. Behind her, Leon tenses, ready to move. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Dominika.”

I’m not sure why she wants me to come with her so badly, but I feel quite calm. “You’re not my enemy, Eva.” I watch satisfaction spread across her face before I deliver the final blow. “You’re nothing at all to me.”

The flinch is barely perceptible, but I catch it—a tiny crack in her perfect facade. But she recovers quickly, turning toward Lyssa and Scarlett. “Tell Hadria Imperioli that if she has any interest in leveling up her little Syndicate, I’d be willing to meet with her.”

It’s supposed to piss me off, a spiteful little show of pulling strings.

But Lyssa’s smile is sharp when she replies, “I wouldn’t wait by the phone, sweetheart.”

Without another word, Eva Novak turns her back on us and walks back to her car, Leon falling in behind her like a well-trained dog. And then I watch her vehicle disappearing into the night, taking with it the last vestiges of the life I thought I wanted.

The desert wind begins to pick up across the empty landscape. Somewhere out there in the darkness, Brie is trapped with the Colombos, and I let her leave, let her put herself into danger.

I have failed her utterly.