21. Luke

Eyeingthis fucking box like it might blow up at any moment unleashing an explosion of maggots all over me, I gingerly carry it back to the house. There is a fancy, brand-new Porsche, which doesn’t even have proper plates on it, parked in the driveway, making me wonder who the fuck this is.

Opening the front door, all is quiet, so I slip into the kitchen, only to be greeted with Cian dressed to kill, possibly literally, in a black suit. “Funeral today?” I ask.

He snorts into his coffee. “No. You’re looking at the new me.”

I raise an eyebrow and gesture outside. “That’s yours then?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice.”

His eyes drop to the box and go cold. “Another one?”

“Yeah. Three in three days.”

“And you were there because…?”

“Just checking the feed,” I murmur. “This is becoming a pattern. Whoever is stalking Victoria is making sure to be consistent.”

“Does Victoria know?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep it that way.”

I nod. It’s his call, not mine. I place it on the counter and stare at it.

“What’s in it?” he asks.

“Haven’t opened it yet.”

“Scared there might be more maggots?”

“Maybe,” I concede with a rough laugh.

“Want me to do the honours?”

“Sure.” I step back, giving him room as he moves forward, but keep close as he lifts the lid slowly.

The sight that greets us is a mess of chopped-up, blood-soaked white roses, their thorns sharp and glistening. A single, pristine white envelope is in the centre, nestled amongst the crimson-stained petals. It’s almost artistic in a fucked-up sort of way, like this psycho has time on their hands for dramatic flair. Cian reaches in with a nonchalance that pisses me off because inside, I’m raging. This is an escalation of yesterday’s more poetic box.

He flips open the envelope without hesitation, pulling out a card with one word scrawled across it in jagged, violent letters. In blood: MINE

There is no signature, no other clues, just this possessive proclamation. Whoever is behind these deliveries doesn’t just want to scare Victoria; they want to claim her, and that sets something dark and dangerous alight inside me.

Cian’s jaw tightens as he stares at it. “Fucking find out who this fucker is so I can kill him.” He shoves the card at me, and I take it, dropping it back in the box.

“This is escalating quickly,” I tell him my earlier thought.

I watch as Cian’s eyes narrow, a sure sign he’s already plotting someone’s demise. He’s a man of action, and someone threatening his girl is like a red flag to a bull. This shit is complicated enough without some psychopath throwing curveballs into the mix.

“No shit,” he murmurs, locking his gaze onto mine. “Do whatever it takes to find this prick.”

“I will.” I pull my phone out, take a few snaps of the box, and place it on the counter. Somehow, through an act of fate or extreme bad luck, my fingers glide over the screen, drawing up the video that Victoria sent to me earlier of her and Cian fucking against her front door.

Cian’s eyes go to it in an instant, not even needing it to play to see what it is. His entire body goes rigid as he picks up the phone and stares at it, doing the inevitable and pressing play just in time to hear Victoria coming all over his cock.

“How the fuck did you get this?” he asks quietly. So quietly, I know I’m a dead man walking.

I swallow hard, trying to keep my composure because a show of panic is not going to do me any favours here. “She sent it to me,” I say as even-keeled as possible, keeping my gaze locked on Cian’s.

“And why would she do that, hmm?” He asks the question before he slams his hand to my chest, making me stumble backwards to hit the wall behind me. “To make you jealous? Are you playing some kind of sick game with my girl, Luke?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer but does the one thing I was hoping he wouldn’t. He goes through the rest of the message thread, seeing my video to her and hers to me.

Fuck.

“Cian, it’s not what it looks like. I haven’t touched her, I swear. This was a game.”

“A game? You are sending my woman videos of you tossing your cock, because she’s sending you videos of her fingering herself. What the fuck is this? How long has this been going on?”

“Since yesterday. It’s fucked up, I know, but I would never touch her?—”

“But you want to? Is that it? Are you making a play for her?”

“No.” But then I man up. This wasn’t how I wanted it to go down, but we are here, and we’re doing this whether I was ready for it or not. “I want her. Fuck, I want her so badly, it’s making me crazy?—”

His fist hits my face before I can finish. Pain explodes through my jaw. But I stay upright, bracing myself against the wall. Cian’s eyes are black with fury, his breaths coming hard and fast.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he hisses, his voice a low threat that has seen men twice my size cower.

I spit blood onto the floor, pushing past the pain, and stand my ground. “Look, it’s not just me.” My voice is steady despite the throbbing in my face. “She’s in this too. We’ve talked about it. She wants us both.”

His hand tightens into a fist again, but he doesn’t swing. Not yet. I can see the war going on behind his dark eyes—not just anger but betrayal, confusion, and something else.

“She’s not just your girl anymore,” I tell him, because it’s the truth, however inconvenient it may be. “She’s ours.”

There’s a long moment of silence where I could actually hear a pin drop in the loaded air between us.

“And you think she wants you?” His words are clipped—a razor edge to them.

“Yes,” I say without hesitation.

Cian looks away for a moment, and when he looks back, there’s a new calculation in his gaze. “And what if I don’t share?”

I don’t falter. “Then we’ve got a problem.”

For a few more heartbeats, we stand there sizing each other up—not just friends or brothers-in-arms now but rivals in something that’s always been more fucking dangerous than the business we’re in. Love—or whatever twisted version of it we’re tangled up in—isn’t for the weak, and I’ll be damned if I back down now.

His next words cut through the tension. “She really wants this?”

I nod, fierce determination settling inside me. “Yes, she does.”

Cian’s fist uncurls, and he steps back, raking a hand through his hair—a sign of frustration, of surrender, or maybe a bit of both. “Fuck.” He barely whispers it, but it echoes loud in my head.

The silence stretches on, but I can see the wheels turning in Cian’s mind. He’s doing the math and figuring out if he can live with this change in the dynamic. If he can truly share her with me without it ending in more bloodshed than our usual operations.

“Ask her,” I murmur.

His gaze pins mine in fury as he throws my phone on the counter. “Oh, I fucking will, you cunt. And if I find out this has gone further than you’ve said, I don’t give a fuck who you are to me, you are fucking dead.” He stalks out, leaving me leaning against the wall, trying to catch my breath with blood dripping from my split lip. Shit just hit the fan in a way I wasn’t fully prepared for, but I knew the moment Victoria sent me that first video, it was a point of no return.

I push off the wall and head to the sink, grabbing a tea towel, dampening it and pressing it against my face. The fabric soaks up the blood quickly. It’s not the first time I’ve bled for this life, and it sure as hell won’t be the last.

I throw the bloody towel in the sink and splash water on my face, watching as it mixes with crimson swirls going down the drain. This is what we are - violence mixed with desire, an unpredictable concoction that keeps us all on edge.

Victoria’s face flashes in my mind - her eyes wild with lust, her lips swollen with kisses that she shares between Cian and me. Focusing on the box, I have to push this encounter from my mind. I know Victoria will back me up. She won’t throw me under the bus, not when she wants this as much as I do.

Picking up the note, I read it again with a sigh: MINE

“Yeah, well, fucking get in line, mate. Get in line.”