The smell of fear was sweeter than the orchids.

I watched the color drain from my brother's face. Harrison. The man who had paid the Colombian cartel to toss me overboard five years ago. He looked good. polished. Soft.

And Isolde...

My gaze drifted to her. Five years ago, she had been a girl of twenty-two, shy and bookish. Now? She was a goddess carved from ice and sin. The midnight blue dress left nothing to the imagination, hugging hips that were wider, softer, more dangerous than before. Her skin glowed under the chandeliers, a creamy contrast to the dark fabric. She looked like a prize. My prize, sold to the highest bidder.

"Julian?" Lord Alistair choked out. "My boy... we thought..."

"You thought I was fish food," I finished, stepping closer.

Two security guards-ex-SAS, by the look of their stance-moved to intercept me. They were the Thorne family's dogs. Highly paid, highly trained martial artists. No superpowers here, just physics and brutality.

"Sir, you need to step back," the first guard grunted, reaching for my shoulder.

I didn't stop walking.

As his hand touched my trench coat, I moved. It wasn't a technique you learned in a dojo. It was a technique you learned in the fighting pits of Macau. I grabbed his wrist, twisted his center of gravity, and drove my elbow into his solar plexus.

Crunch.

The sound of cracking ribs echoed through the silent ballroom. The guard collapsed, wheezing.

The second guard swung a heavy fist. I didn't block. I slipped inside his guard-a slip so fast it blurred-and drove the heel of my palm into his jaw. His head snapped back, eyes rolling into his head. He hit the floor unconscious before the first guard had even finished falling.

Total time: three seconds.

I adjusted my cuffs. "Your security is lacking, Father. You should ask for a refund."

The room erupted into gasps. Women clutched their pearls. Men stepped back, terrified of the violence yet unable to look away. This was the thrill they craved. The savagery hidden beneath their tuxedos.

I walked up the steps to the podium, invading Harrison's personal space. He smelled of fear sweat and expensive cologne.

"Julian," Harrison stammered, trying to regain his composure. "We... we buried an empty casket. We mourned you."

"I bet you cried tears of joy," I whispered, leaning in so only he and Isolde could hear. "Happy engagement, brother."

I turned my gaze to Isolde. Up close, she was devastating. The scent of jasmine and rain clung to her. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her lips parted in shock. I could see the pulse fluttering in her throat.

"Isolde," I said, my voice dropping an octave, rough with five years of unsaid words. "You haven't aged a day. You've just grown... sharper."

"Julian," she breathed. Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed her. She wasn't scared of me. She was intrigued. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I was," I said, reaching out. I ignored Harrison and took her hand. Her skin was warm, electric against my cold fingers. I brought her knuckles to my lips, maintaining eye contact. The heat in her eyes flared. "But death didn't want me. So now, you're stuck with me."

I turned to the crowd, raising my voice.

"I am formally contesting the transfer of the Thorne Estate," I announced. "And as for this engagement... consider it under review."

The ride to the penthouse was silent. The rain hammered the roof of the blacked-out Maybach Julian had "acquired" from a Russian associate earlier that morning.

He wasn't staying at the Thorne Manor. That house was a nest of vipers, and he wasn't ready to sleep with one eye open just yet. He was staying at the Obsidian Tower, a brutalist spike of glass and steel overlooking the Thames.

Julian stripped off his wet coat, tossing it onto the Italian leather sofa. Beneath the suit, his body was a roadmap of violence. Scars-knife wounds, bullet grazes, burn marks-marred the tanned skin of his torso. Muscles coiled like steel cables under his shirt.

He poured a glass of whiskey. No ice.

"Sir," a voice came from the shadows of the hallway.

Kai stepped out. Kai was Julian's shadow. A Korean-British hybrid, lean as a whip, wearing a casual hoodie that hid a dozen concealed blades. He wasn't a servant; he was a brother-in-arms forged in the same hell Julian had escaped.

"Did you plant the bugs?" Julian asked, taking a sip. The whiskey burned, a welcome sensation.

"Every room in the Thorne Manor. Even the bathrooms," Kai said, a smirk playing on his lips. "Harrison is currently vomiting in the master suite. Your father is calling his lawyers."

"And Isolde?"

Kai paused. He walked over to the kitchen island, picking up an apple and tossing it in the air. "She went home alone. Harrison tried to go with her, but she put him in a separate car. She's interesting, that one. Her heartbeat didn't elevate when you broke that guard's ribs. It elevated when you kissed her hand."

Julian swirled the amber liquid in his glass. "She's not the girl I left behind, Kai. She's dangerous."

"She's a distraction," Kai warned. "We are here to dismantle the Syndicate that backs your father. We are here to take the legacy. Women are messy."

"Isolde isn't just a woman. She's the key to the Sterling shipping routes. Without her, Harrison is nothing but a trust fund baby with a drug habit."

Julian walked to the window, looking out at the sprawling, glittering city of London. It was a beast that ate the weak.

"Besides," Julian murmured, the memory of Isolde's scent-jasmine and rain-flooding his senses. He recalled the way the silk dress clung to the curve of her hips, the way her breath hitched when he loomed over her. It wasn't just strategy. It was a hunger that had been gnawing at him for five years.

"I intend to make her mine," Julian said, his reflection in the glass looking like a demon. "Harrison stole my life. I'm going to steal his future wife. And I'm going to make her enjoy every second of the betrayal."

Kai chuckled darkly. "You're a bad man, Boss."

"I know."

POV: Isolde Sterling

My apartment in Kensington was usually my sanctuary. Tonight, it felt like a cage.

I paced the living room, still in my engagement dress, clutching a glass of cold water. My mind was a chaotic storm.

Julian.

He was alive. And god, he was different. The Julian of five years ago was a scholar, a gentle man who quoted poetry and played the cello. This man? This man was war personified.

The way he moved-fluid, lethal. The way he looked at me-like he wanted to devour me whole. I should be terrified. I should be calling the police or Harrison.

Instead, I was... wet.

The realization made me flush with shame. I was engaged to his brother. But the memory of Julian's rough lips on my knuckles, the sheer power radiating off him, woke something primal in me. My body ached with a sudden, sharp longing.

I needed to get out of this dress.

I walked into my bedroom and reached back to undo the clasp. It was jammed. My hands were shaking too much.

"Damn it," I hissed, struggling with the zipper.

"Allow me."

I spun around, a scream dying in my throat.

Julian was sitting in my velvet armchair, in the dark corner of my bedroom. He had bypassed my security system-state-of-the-art biometrics-as if it were a child's toy.

He had ditched the tie. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, exposing the hollow of his throat and a hint of a dark tattoo peeking out from his collarbone. He held a cigarette, unlit, rolling it between his long fingers.

"How did you get in?" I demanded, trying to sound imperious, though my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"I have my ways," he said smoothly. He stood up. The room suddenly felt very small.

He walked toward me, slow and deliberate. He stopped inches away, his heat enveloping me. He smelled of rain, whiskey, and danger.

"Turn around, Isolde," he commanded. It wasn't a request.

My body obeyed before my mind could protest. I turned my back to him, exposing my vulnerable spine to the man who had just risen from the dead.

I felt his fingers brush against my bare skin. They were calloused, rough. The contrast against the smooth silk and my soft skin was maddening. I gasped, my head falling forward.

"You're tense," he murmured, his breath hot against the nape of my neck.

"You broke into my house, Julian."

"I came to collect what's mine."

He found the jammed zipper. But he didn't pull it down immediately. He traced the line of my spine with his thumb, applying just enough pressure to make my knees weak.

"Harrison doesn't know how to touch you," Julian whispered, his voice dark and velvety. "He touches you like you're porcelain. Breakable."

He gripped my hips with both hands, pulling me back against his hard chest. I could feel the wall of muscle behind me, solid and unyielding.

"I know you're not glass, Isolde," he growled against my ear, sending shivers down my legs. "You're steel wrapped in silk. And I'm the only one strong enough to bend you."

Zip.

The sound was loud in the quiet room. The dress loosened, sliding off my shoulders, pooling at my waist, held up only by the friction of my hips.

I was exposed. Vulnerable. And I had never felt more alive.

"Why are you here, Julian?" I whispered, trembling.

He spun me around, his eyes locking onto mine. The blue fire in them was roaring now.

"To start a war," he said. "And to ask you a question."

"What question?"

"When I burn Harrison's world to ash..." his hand slid up my bare arm to cup my neck, his thumb grazing my pulse. "Will you be standing by him? Or will you be ruling beside me?"