Chapter 1
I was on my knees on the concrete floor when the freight elevator creaked open behind us.
Wind slammed against my face, but I didn’t flinch. Nothing mattered anymore not when my little brother, Aziel, stood bound and trembling near the edge of that skeletal crane arm.
“Three seconds, baby,” Hakeem said from the chair he dragged up here, “Sign that statement, forgive Margaret, and your brother walks out of here alive. Don’t test me. You
know I don’t bluff.”
My palms were shaking, but my heart was a war drum in my chest. Aziel looked so small up there, tied to a rusted pipe, his wide eyes darting from the edge to me.
“H–Harmony,” he whimpered, “Why are we up so high? Can we go
“Hakeem,” I choked, looking
home now?”
up at the man I married. The man I thought would never let anyone hurt my family. “Margaret burned my mother alive. She locked her inside the house and set it on fire like it meant nothing. My mother is dead. Aziel is all I have left–he has special needs, and you’re using him to protect your mistress? Do you even hear yourself? Do you remember what he means to me?”
He leaned forward, brushing a hand over my hair like I was a dog he was proud of. I
wanted to bite him.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, “When you started threatening charges, did it ever cross your mind how much she means to me? How far would I go for her?”
He arched a brow at me…Then he started counting again.
Two.”
Panic ripped through my chest. I could barely see straight. This man… this monster… I gave him everything. Eight years. My name. My body. My soul. I thought I was his world.
Maybe I was.
Until she came back from the dead.
I clutched the hem of his slacks, trembling. “Let her say sorry. Just let me hear it. She murdered my mother… Let me hea
her admit it.”
He scoffed, “She said she’s not the one who burned your mother. That’s the end of it. She’s not suffering with PTSD, Harmony. You think I don’t see that? I asked you for compassion. You couldn’t give me that. You really let me down.”
I stared up at him, and I knew. Right there, I knew. There was no fixing this. No forgiveness. No version of this story where he loved me anymore.
I swallowed the taste of bile and whispered, “I’ll… I’ll sign. Just don’t kill him. Please.” That sick smile spread across his face again. “There’s my good girl.” Then it disappeared. His voice turned colder than death. “But baby… you went too far. I can’t let it slide.”
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“One.”
“No-!”
Before I could scream, his bodyguard moved. One hard kick to Aziel’s chest. I watched my baby brother fall.
One second he was standing there, crying, waiting for me to come get him and the next, he was gone. Nothing but air.
My scream ripped through the steel frame of that unfinished building. My lungs shredded. My arms flailed, trying to reach for him, to run, to leap. But two guards grabbed me, dragged me back as I thrashed like an animal.
The wind howled louder. The city lights below blurred with my tears. And that bastard, he just sat there. Calm. Unbothered.
Just eight years ago, I was Mrs. Harmony Masterson. Respected. Feared. Admired.
I was the queen beside the heir of the most powerful mafia family in Masterson Heights. Then everything started to fall apart. Because of one fire.
That afternoon, my mother’s house went up in flames. She was locked inside. The report said faulty wiring. An accident.
But I knew better. By the time I got there, the fire trucks were gone and all that remained was smoke, ash, and a tarp over her body.
Something in me cracked.
Hakeem held me that night. Promised justice. Swore he’d find whoever did it and burn them alive. But when we got the security footage from a neighbor’s porch camera… everything changed.
The woman spotted near the back gate moments before the fire? Margaret Lawrence. The ghost from his past. The woman everyone thought was dead. But she wasn’t.
Suddenly, my dead mother didn’t matter. Suddenly, justice didn’t matter. All that mattered
was her.
He forgot everything else.
Including me.
I begged him to press charges. He said no. I demanded justice. He said she needed help.
I pushed harder and he snapped.
So he took Aziel.
“My love,” he said with that fake–soft voice, “just one signature and it all ends. Stop living in the past.”
I never thought it would come to this.
I used to believe he loved me.
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Hakeem Masterson chased me like his life depended on it. Everyone said I was just a fling, some pretty little thing from the slums he’d throw away when he got bored. I thought so
too. So I left. I faked my death and vanished.
He went insane. The polished, untouchable heir went full–on suicidal when he found my clothes by the sea.
And I thought, maybe… maybe he really loved me.
But later, I found a letter hidden in his safe. A suicide note.
Not for me. For her.
For Margaret.
Dated the exact day I disappeared. The tears I thought were for me… The cliff he stood
on…
The way he swore he’d never love again-
None of it was about me.
I was just her shadow.
I cried for three fucking days.
He held me. Swore I was wrong.
“Baby,” he whispered, “Margaret’s gone. She’s a ghost. You’re the one I breathe for. I’ll prove it. If you still doubt me, I’ll jump. I’ll jump every day until you believe me.”
He walked straight to that cliff again. No hesitation.
I broke. I begged him to come back. I told myself it was real. He even gave me control of his personal unit, his private kill team.
“They’re yours now,” he said, pressing the badge into my hand. “If I ever cross you, use them. No mercy. Kill me. Deal?”
I laughed through the tears. “I’m not a killer. I just want you to love me.”
He looked me straight in the eye. “Hakeem only loves Harmony. Always.”
But when Margaret came back, he never said those words again.
“Harmony,” he told me one night, soft and tired, “she’s not okay. She’s been through hell. Please, give her time. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
I thought he was just guilty. That once he had closure, he’d come back to me.
But I was wrong. So damn wrong. My mother’s dead. My brother nearly died.
And his scream… it won’t stop playing in my head.
When we got down from that site, I lost it.
I screamed. I kicked. I threatened to burn that entire fucking building to the ground if they didn’t tell me where Aziel was.
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Then the elevator gate opened.
A guard stepped out, carrying him.
Aziel.
Alive.
Barely conscious, but breathing.
Chapter 1
