"And now he leaves the empire in the hands of his eldest child. His daughter."...
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Stephane felt every eye in the cemetery turn toward her. Rain streamed down her face, mixing with something else she refused to acknowledge as tears. Her father's casket sat six feet away, about to be lowered into the ground, and all these bastards could talk about was whether she was good enough to replace him.
Gabriel Trossard kept talking, his voice carrying across the crowd of black umbrellas and expensive suits. "Forgive me, but Francesco's successor is a woman. In a world like ours, can she truly hold the Martinelle name together? The Sterlings just murdered one of the most powerful men in this city, and you expect us to follow a girl who's never even done anything like—-"
"Enough." Uncle Lionel's voice cut through the rain. "Show some respect, Gabriel. This is my brother's funeral."
"I'm only saying what everyone's thinking," Gabriel shot back, and the murmurs started spreading through the crowd like poison.
Stephane's throat tightened. Three days of knocking on doors that slammed in her face. Three days of allies who suddenly had convenient excuses. Even Uncle Lionel had pulled her aside yesterday and told her maybe she should let the men handle this.
There was no other way.
She pulled the phone from her clutch and dialed before doubt could stop her. It rang twice, and someone picked it.
She took a deep breath. "Rahul?" Her voice low and urgent.
"About time, Miss Martinelle." The voice on the other end wasn't familiar. "Mr. Armitage is back in town and at his usual spot, the Sanctuary."
She ended the call, pulse racing. Her mother's hand squeezed hers, trembling and cold. Stephane pulled free and turned, walking through the crowd before anyone could stop her. The voices calling her name faded behind her as she reached the cemetery gates where her driver waited.
"The Sanctuary," she said, sliding into the backseat.
He looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Miss Martinelle."
"Just drive."
The Sanctuary was all glass and steel, sitting on neutral ground like it owned the whole damn city. Everyone knew who really owned it though.
Rahul Khanna.
Stephane's hands shook as the elevator climbed higher. She hadn't seen him in five years, not since he'd disappeared without a word, without a goodbye, without anything except the ghost of his touch and this ache in her chest that never quite went away. Now she was walking into his territory soaked and desperate, about to beg the boy who broke her heart to help her destroy the people who'd murdered her father.
Her reflection in the mirrored elevator walls looked like a corpse. Pale and drowned and already dead.
The doors opened.
Rahul sat behind his desk with whiskey in hand, those dark eyes tracking her the second she stepped inside. Five years had stripped away everything soft about him, everything she'd loved. The boy who used to hold her hand and steal kisses was gone, replaced by something that made her stomach drop just looking at him.
"I was wondering how long it would take for you to come crawling back to me, Stephane," he said, voice like silk over a blade.
She wanted to tell him she wasn't crawling, that she didn't need him, but the words died in her throat because they were lies and he'd know it.
"The Sterlings killed my father." Her voice cracked. "They shot him in his own home and now they're coming for the rest of us. For my family. For everything he built."
Rahul didn't move. Didn't even blink.
"I need your help," she pushed out. "Your men, your guns, your."
"And what makes you think I'd give you anything?"
Because you loved me once. Because you promised.
"Weren't you the one who left me?" The words ripped out before she could stop them. "Five years ago you just disappeared, Rahul. You left me. So shouldn't I be the one who's angry? Shouldn't I."
He stood.
Stephane's words died as he rounded the desk, moving like a predator. Her heart slammed against her ribs. When he looked at her she saw nothing of the boy she'd loved, just these cold dark eyes that could watch her die without flinching.
She stepped back before she could stop herself.
Rahul closed the distance and leaned in until his breath ghosted against her skin. "Do you really need my help, Stephane?"
Her throat closed up. "Yes."
"Say it properly."
"I need your help." She forced herself to meet his eyes even though everything in her screamed to look away. "Please."
His hand came up, thumb tracing her jaw and tilting her face up. His touch burned through her skin, lighting up every nerve she'd tried so hard to bury. She hated how her body still remembered him, hated how much she wanted to lean into it even when she knew this was a mistake. As he leaned closer the silver chain around his neck dangled low, brushing the hard, toned planes of his chest where his shirt collar had pulled open. Heat rolled off him in waves, dark promise in every inch of the man he had become.
"You want my men, my guns, my protection to butcher the bastards who murdered your father?" His voice was low and intimate, a caress wrapped around a threat.
Stephane's breath caught. "Yes."
His thumb dragged down her throat, pausing where her pulse hammered beneath the skin.
"Then here's my price." Those dark eyes locked onto hers. "You. In my bed. As my mistress."