CHAPTER FIVE:

THALIA POV

Less than two minutes and we arrive at what he calls "my apartment." He simply drove us behind his building-a route I've never been able to track because I always lose him at some point during my surveillance.

Standing outside this so-called apartment, with a garden situated at the corner, his penthouse looms just across a stretch of manicured trees and rooftops. Close enough to watch. Close enough to control.

He's putting me in a cage and calling it a job.

"How is this my apartment?" I ask, but like earlier, he ignores me and heads inside.

The building is compact but luxurious. A mini-duplex with clean lines aan pool that overlooks the city. I hate pools, especially large ones. Their vastness always reminds me how alone I am. But this one is different-contained, controlled, like everything else in Carlos's world.

I scan for cameras while he's not looking. Three visible-one by the entrance, one covering the living area, one aimed at the pool. Standard security. Another reason this PA job is a hard no.

"The intercom by the gate connects directly to my building," he says, running his fingers along the marble countertop.

"When I call, you answer."

He's nuts.

"If I was meant to be a slave, I'd have been born in the 1600s."

He doesn't acknowledge my insult, just continues.

"New clothes will be delivered in..." he glances at his Hublot watch

"-fifteen minutes. Select what you want and return the rest."

"Can I say no?"

But he's already moving deeper into the apartment, inspecting every corner.

Currently, I'm drowning in his shirt and jeans-a humiliating reminder of last night. I'd demanded my own clothes back, but he'd simply said "dry cleaning" with the kind of finality that brooked no argument. The jeans hang loose despite the tie he provided as a belt, and his shirt drapes over me like I'm playing dress-up.

My fingers find the third camera in my pocket. Still there. I need to plant it somewhere-the VIP club or his warehouse.

"I can't be a personal assistant," I say to his back as he examines the security panel by the door.

"You need someone submissive."

He opens cabinets, checks the refrigerator that's already been stocked. Everything planned, everything controlled. Just like him.

"That's not me. But I can cook, supervise, any w..."

He turns so suddenly I don't have time to balance myself or imagine the blood his hands symbolize before they close around my waist as he lifts me onto the kitchen island in one fluid motion.

The marble is cold against my thighs, but his hands burn through the fabric. I'm tall, but perched here with him standing between my legs, he still towers over me.

My stomach lurches. Not from the height. From the proximity.

My mother's throat. My father's chest. My brother's-

"What's in your apartment that made you almost kill us getting away from it?"

His voice cuts through the spiral. I force myself to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Marcus's training: Stay present.

"My husband."

The lie comes out steadier than I feel. His eyebrows draw together, and something dangerous flickers in his dark eyes.

"Husband." He repeats it with a deep tone and furrowed brows.

"He doesn't like other men around me. If he sees you..." I let the sentence trail off, watching his eyes narrow.

Carlos steps closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his chest. His hands are still on my waist, thumbs pressed against my ribs. Making me feel everything Vaughn made me feel before.

Push him away. Reach for the gun at your ankle. Do something.

Gun. He knows I have a gun. I need better lies. He tilts his head to the side.

I don't move. Shouldn't. Because buried beneath the revulsion is something worse: curiosity. The same sick fascination that makes people slow down at car accidents.

"If he sees you, it won't end well."

His eyes turn dark and glaring, making his face a mask of something raging.

He lets go of me, but I can still see his neck veins protruding as he walks over to the mini-bar in the living room. He doesn't find what he wants.

A loud slam makes me jump

Before I can move to climb down, he strides toward me. Three seconds. That's all the warning I get before he's in front of me again, cigarette smoke curling between us like a threat as his hand wraps around my throat.

Firm enough to hold me in place, not enough to cut off air. An unwanted heat pools between my thighs.

"Is that why you have a Colt Mustang strapped around your knee?"

His voice lays something heavy on my throat.

"Tha...lia." My name drags out like he's standing on the edge of a cliff, and I'm drawn to the bobbing of his Adam's apple.

"Your... your gender isn't trustworthy."

I gaze away from him, but his grip turns me back to face him.

Empty silence heightens the awareness of us together. His eyes search me-from my eyes to my lips, then down my seated body before hovering on my lips again.

He opens his mouth to say something but closes it again, puffing his cigarette before letting go of my throat.

My feet hit the floor and I walk past him, feeling his gaze glued to my back.

Within seconds, footsteps echo from behind me. Fast.

Then my head snaps back. Pain shoots across my scalp as he fists my hair and yanks me back against his shoulder.

I gasp, hands flying up instinctively to grab his wrist. The position forces my back to arch, my throat to expose, my body to curve into his.

Out of instinct, I twist his finger. He winces but doesn't let go.

I should fight harder. Heel to his toes. Move.

But I don't. Because when he pulls me flush against his chest, his scent gets me pinned: citrus and oud and something darker underneath. The same scent I've been inhaling from his shirt all day, that's been surrounding me like smoke.

"Does your husband know you're in my apartment?" His other hand slides to my lower back, fingertips pressing just above my waistband, igniting currents through me. I hate it. Hate that my body responds to the same hands that-

"Wearing my clothes, smelling like me, about to get your life to revolve around me?" His nails dig further into my waist.

A startled rush of air slip from me.

I elbow him in the side, but he just presses tighter.

"Careful."

"Careful"

That's all he says as he holds my hand hostage, pulling me closer to his chest and my traitorous nipple harden beneath his shirt as I lean into his touch.

You're sick. This is sick.

"Does he, pretty doll?" He rumbles low into my ear. The sound is a feathering touch to my nerves, I clench my stomach and core together.

"You have my phone. I'm not doing this job, and I don't answer to any man." Despite my words, I close my eyes and breathe him in when he pulls me closer.

"You must not know me if you think you can enter my house, disobey me, then waltz out on your own accord."

The deepness of his voice and the authority take hold of me.

Before I can speak, he lets me go.

The absence of his touch feels like cold water. I should be relieved-I AM relieved, but my skin still burns where his hands were. My scalp tingles from where he pulled my hair. My throat remembers the pressure of his fingers.

I'm standing here in his apartment, surrounded by him, wanting him, and I can't remember the last time I hated myself this much.

My hands are shaking. I curl them into fists before he can see.

I need air. Time away from him. Before I forget why I'm here.

"We're going to the warehouse," he says, tossing car keys at me.

I catch them midair. Warehouse? Great!

Carlos eyes me, and I control the smile that's trying to surface.

"I can't wear your clothes in front of your men!"

But he's already out the door.

Good. Perfect time to establish boundaries.

I head to the kitchen and grab cereal, milk, a bowl. The apartment unsettles me. The layout matches mine too closely to be coincidence.

Same lilac wall paint, structure but I push the thought aside.

I settle on the sofa and eat slowly, deliberately.

The TV won't turn on. Probably controlled by his system.

Everything here is controlled by him. Except me.

The door slams open.

I don't look up. Just take another bite of cereal, letting the crunch fill the silence between us.

Seven steps and he's in front of me.

I raise the spoon to my mouth-

He snatches the bowl and hurls it at the wall. Ceramic shatters. Milk drips down the wallpaper.

Before I can react, I'm upside down over his shoulder, his arm an iron bar across the back of my thighs.

"I'm not your fucking puppy!" I thrash against his grip, but it's like fighting stone.

He doesn't answer. Just carries me outside into cold air and dumps me into the driver's seat of his car.

"Drive."

The rumble of his voice and darkness of his eyes should make me obedient, but as I said, I'm no puppy.

"No can do. If I needed to be controlled, I'd have come with a leash."

The venom in my words bypasses him. He looks amused instead of disrespected.

"Your husband didn't get you a leash?"

I roll my eyes.

"Our sex life is no business of yours."

My words come out as harsh as intended.

Something cold replaces the darkness that marred his eyes earlier. They stay glued on me, searching, calculating.

Whatever he sees takes him out of the car and over to my side.

"You can go home."

Confusion creases my forehead.

"You can go meet your husband." He takes the keys from me, lifts me out, then drives off.

I stand there, confused and cold. Facing "my apartment." Surrounded by empty road and trees.

The more I look at it, the more it resembles my building. Not just the size, but the architecture.

I walk to the back of the house. A large gate separates me from his glass doors. Luxurious, sleek, proof of wealth.

He really lives in a comfortable apartment, and that stings. He should be burning, buried with my family, miserable.

The need to crash through his glass surges up, but I calm myself. He has cameras that will capture me, and the glass is highly likely reinforced, unbreakable.

Instead, I do something else.

I pluck a few flowers from the mini garden and squeeze their juice onto each CCTV lens.

Minutes later, happy with myself, the sun is already a burning glow. I take a few steps outside his premises, and a van arrives.

Two men and a woman step out.

"Good morning, ma'am."

I scan their faces, then the van's name. The clothes.

"Are you Miss Thalia?" one guy asks.

"Yes, I am. You're here with my clothes, right?"

All three beam.

"You'll deliver them somewhere else, but drop me at the bus stop first."

They look wary. As they should be.

"From Carlos for Thalia. His PA?"

They bite their lips, and one of the men takes in my outfit.

"Or should I say his wife?"

The woman's eyes widen. The men gulp.

Wife. I should correct them. Should make it clear I'm just an employee, barely even that. But something stops me. Let the rumor spread. Let Carlos hear it from his own people. Let him deal with the mess of assumptions.

"Let's go." They oblige.

En route, I book a ride home.

Two gifts: free clothes and time off.

I feel great.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THALIA POV

"We're here, ma'am."

The driver's voice wakes me. Vaughn waits outside, and despite everything, seeing him still brings comfort.

"Please pay him." I signal no to whatever lecture he's preparing.

Inside his gym—half his, half his friend's partnership—he takes the seat opposite me at the small café area.

"Tell me you're not wearing Voldemort's shirt."

The displeasure in his tone is exactly why I came. Something to remind me it's wrong to crave Carlos's touch.

But my mind stays glued on the never-ending loop of him yanking my hair, his gaze on me, how he feels pressed against my back.

"What the actual fuck!" Vaughn's voice thunders. "What are you daydreaming about?"

I let go of my thoughts.

"Always the loud speaker. I can hear you quite well, Vaughn."

"I doubt that. Been calling your fucking name for ages."

"Sorry."

"Big Marc said you planted cameras in Carlos's room." His stupid grin—the one I used to love,appears.

" You're nailing it, babe."

He orders my usual: latte and a croissant. He knows what I like.

I lose myself to the pride in his face.

"How?"

"I fainted, and he took me to his house."

"What the fuck!" He stands so fast his chair thuds into the floor, eyes blown wide as he rushes toward me.

"I'm fine"

"Don't fucking lie to me."

He glares. Already checking my body for bruises before I can stop him.

I let him search, looking at his profile—the strong jaw, the golden-brown hair, the knife scar on his collarbone. He got that scar protecting me during our first year of training at Shadow, when I mouthed off to one of Marcus's men and nearly got slashed for it.

He exhales hard before pulling me into an awkward hug over the table.

"For fuck's sake, Wild Cat. Be careful."

I ruffle his hair.

"You're suffocating me."

He pulls back to look at me, his light blue eyes deepening as they drop to my lips.

I don't look away. My heart doesn't race the way it used to.

We broke up over a year ago, but sometimes we still fall into bed together. No strings. No expectations.

"Why didn't you call me?" he asks, returning to his seat.

"Sorry, sir. My schedule didn't say I'd pass out."

He throws his napkin at me with a laugh that matches my smile.

Marcus is with me because we have a mutual enemy. But Vaughn stood by me without expectation—since our last year of high school until now. Even when I broke his heart by demanding space, then crawled back to him because I couldn't be alone, which still didn't work out.

He stayed by me.

Now we're just... mutual. He's focused on his FBI job while I focus on my revenge.

"He was raised by a single mom who was a soldier," Vaughn says out of nowhere.

I raise an eyebrow.

"You want anything else, babe?" I shake my head, and he dismisses the waitress, ignoring her obvious flirtation.

"Carlos," he clarifies.

"From the office, there's a record of his mom. Former military, shameful discharge. That's all I could get before the file locked me out. High-level clearance."

My heart rate picks up, desperate for more.

I feel emotional and grateful to Vaughn, so I do something that surprises us both. I go over to his side of the table and hug him.

"Hey, Wild Cat." The abruptness makes him drop his fork as his arms wrap around me instinctively. "Everything okay?"

"Thank you," I say, and he pats my back. His softness is contrary to his hard body.

"You're doing great, Thal."

I can't control the tears as they drop onto his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry for how we ended."

He adjusts his seat and pulls me onto his lap.

"You're always my favorite woman. Best of them all." why did I stop loving him?

"Take your time, Thal. I'm here."

But my body craves the danger Carlos embodies.

"What if we don't come back?" The words clog my throat, dripping more tears onto him.

"You'll always have a home with me, Thalia."

People don't see his softness beneath the tattoos covering his arms and chest, beneath his cussing and anger.

"Your words just make me tear up more, you idiot."

He laughs, his palm soothing my spine

"Are we disturbing something?" Marcus's voice cuts through the moment.

"The fuck you blind? Isn't it obvious?" Vaughn replies with his usual harsh tone.

I try to sit up, but Vaughn holds me firmer against him.

"You're dating again?" Henry—Marcus's brother, who bears same name as Carlos, questions.

"None of your business, dickface," Vaughn shoots back.

I feel Marcus's gaze burning into my back. He clears his throat twice.

I attempt to return to my seat beside Marcus, but Vaughn holds me still on his lap.

"I think she needs to explain how she got into Carlos's home overnight and why she's wearing what I assume are his clothes," Marcus says in his gravelly voice.

The words still Vaughn, but he holds me tighter, burning his gaze into Marcus.

"Can we just appreciate Thalia's effort and acknowledge she slipped into the lion's den without getting hurt?" Henry, ever the peacemaker.

I turn in Vaughn's lap to face them.

"Um."

Vaughn squeezes my thigh.

Summarizing as briefly as I can. Marcus face remain hard as stone all through

For someone so large with a reputation for violence, he doesn't try to look approachable.

Henry high-fives me. Vaughn pulls me closer until I feel his hardness pressing against me, but it doesn't ignite anything.

It should send currents through me like when Carlos ate my half-finished toast, when his eyes tracked my every movement—

No. Don't go there.

"Pleased with my handiwork, I headed here. And I've decided I'm not working for him."

"Take the job," Marcus declares.

We all turn to stare at him.

"He'll control and monitor her," Henry points out, glaring at his much larger brother.

"It's Friday. We have the weekend to reshape her background, give her monitoring tech Carlos won't detect." Marcus faces me.

"You'll take the job. Change apartments to throw him off. Contact us only through burner phones."

"The first time your PA started doing drugs, you found it out within twenty-four hours," Vaughn points out

"So?" Marcus's brows knit together.

"Carlos isn't stupid. If he catches Thalia snooping or finds out a deal leaked by her, he'll kill her" Henry finishes, looking at his brother, hoping he understands it's suicidal.

"She'll be prepared"

"No otra vez" Henry retorts back to Marcus with a hard glare. I wish I understand spanish.

"Carlos doesn't have PA, there must be something if he suddenly needs one"

Marcus notes, looking away from his brother

"I can't," I break the tension.

"He showed me an apartment covered in cameras. Very close to his penthouse. He's already setting up surveillance."

Vaughn pulls me closer, whispering in my ear, "You didn't tell me that."

"Sorry."

"So you want us to lose this opportunity into his inner circle?" Marcus's voice is demanding, final.

"A chef doesn't get access to his private meetings, his schedule, his vulnerabilities. You take the job. Play smart. Call us when shit hits the fan. Final."

Vaughn shifts me on his lap so he can face Marcus directly.

"It's her fucking life at risk. Don't you dare call 'final' without asking for her opinion!"

His voice echoes through the empty café. Vaughn never backs down, no matter how big or volatile the person is. I confidently retort back at some people because I'm sure he'll fight for me. Like now.

Marcus's jaw clenches. He looks at me.

"I..." My throat tightens.

PA screams danger and loss of freedom. Those cameras might record everything.

"Let's reconvene at Shadow," I suggest. Shadow's headquarters—a two-story building housing operatives and surveillance tech. Where we trained.

"We'll figure out how I can be his PA with a lower suicide rate."

Marcus nods and I know the conversation is over.

"Get her proper clothes."

"And Thalia?" Marcus pauses

"Carlos won't be pleased his PA visited another man, then disobeyed him. Be prepared."

I ignore the warning.

"I'm not another man and what pleases Voldemort isn't her business"

Vaughn retort loudly few of the people at the gym passes strange look at us

"You're one hell of a fearless girl," Henry says, half warning, half admiration.

I just shrug

Marcus's scowl remains fixed on me. I don't know who's taller—him or Carlos.

I bite my lip at the thought. I really just found a way to think about Carlos while surrounded by three men who'd kill him on sight.

"My shirt is in my room upstairs. Go change," Vaughn says, his tone firm with an edge of hostility.

To be honest, I love that I can still smell Carlos on me.

But to prove myself wrong, I head toward the stairs.

It's already evening when I leave Vaughn's room with ruined orgasms because I couldn't stop thinking about Carlos.

I head to my car—they must have retrieved it from the Swallow Now parking garage.

I check the burner and plug in the earbuds connected to Carlos's apartment feed that Marcus dropped.

The first words I hear stop me cold.

"There's a shipment happening tonight. I'm leaving in twenty minutes. Meet me at Swallow Now."

That's all he says. I keep the pod in, listening for more information, but only shuffling.

Twenty minutes.

Time is Past 5pm.

"What do you have for me Carlos?"

I don't know the way to his penthouse, but I know Swallow Now.

My hands grip the steering wheel.

Live to kill Carlos, I remind myself.

But as I start the car and head toward him, the mantra sounds less like a promise and more like a prayer I'm not sure will be answered.