The city never slept, but Damian Cross had learned how to vanish inside it.
He stood in the shadows of a narrow alley, hood pulled low, blending in with the stream of faceless strangers. To the world, he was dead—obliterated in a jet explosion that had filled news cycles for twenty-four hours straight. But Damian had staged the whole thing, down to the last bolt of twisted metal.
It wasn't the first time he'd faked his death.
And if The Syndicate had their way, it wouldn't be the last.
He glanced at the burner phone in his pocket. The call to Ava had been risky. He hadn't heard her voice in months—hadn't allowed himself to. She was the only person in his empire he trusted completely, and for that reason, he had stayed away. Trust was dangerous. Attachment was deadly.
But the men circling his tower weren't there for his company. They were there for her. And if Ava Monroe was pulled into this shadow war, it would be his fault.
Damian's chest tightened as he slipped into the back seat of a waiting sedan. His second identity stared back at him from the driver's mirror—dark brown contacts, unshaven jaw, hair dyed black. No trace of the billionaire the cameras worshiped and despised. Only a man called Daniel Ross, a name he had used for years when the suits and skyscrapers became too loud.
"Where to?" the driver asked without looking back.
Damian's voice was low, controlled. "South docks. Warehouse 39."
The car pulled away, weaving into the neon-soaked veins of Manhattan. Damian turned his attention to the leather satchel at his side. Inside were files—dozens of them—mapping Syndicate networks across three continents. He had spent years collecting evidence, waiting for the moment to burn them down. But the deeper he dug, the clearer one truth became: they were already inside his empire.
And Ava… Ava was either the key to destroying them or the weapon they planned to use against him.
Damian's jaw tightened as he remembered the photographs. He had ordered her shadowed, not out of suspicion but out of necessity. Ava didn't know it, but she had been marked years ago—her father once crossed The Syndicate and paid the price. Damian had sworn she would never suffer the same fate.
But protecting her meant pulling her into his darkness. And Damian Cross had vowed long ago never to let anyone too close.
The sedan slowed, pulling into the deserted docks. Warehouse 39 loomed against the night sky, rusted but alive with faint light seeping through its windows. Inside, a dozen of his most loyal men waited. Men who owed him their lives, men who lived in the shadows as he did.
As Damian stepped inside, the whispers ceased. Eyes followed him—not as the billionaire who graced magazine covers, but as the man who led them through blood and smoke.
"Status?" he asked, his voice echoing off steel beams.
One of the men, a scarred veteran named Rourke, handed him a tablet. "They've breached your tower, boss. But they didn't take files. They were looking for her."
A chill settled in Damian's bones.
Ava.
The Syndicate had finally drawn their line. They weren't after his empire, not yet. They were after the woman who had been his only constant in a world built on lies.
Damian's fingers curled into fists. The double life he had balanced so carefully was unraveling. The mask of the billionaire and the shadow warrior could no longer remain separate.
And for Ava's sake, he wou
ld have to choose which man he truly was.