Chapter 8
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The ballroom was a war zone.
Smoke still hung in the air, guests scattered like rats, and blood was smeared on the floor from someone’s busted lip. My tux was torn, my hands were covered in ash, and I couldn’t hear shit past the pounding in my ears. But all I could see was her empty chair.
Harmony.
Gone.
And Aziel? That kid was nowhere. The ring bearer. My leverage. Gone. I didn’t feel the panic yet. Not fully. It was the rage that came first.
1 barked orders. “Shut the gates. Lock the goddamn docks. No one leaves Masterson airspace without me hearing about it.”
Security scrambled. Phones were buzzing, radios crackling, but none of that noise could drown out the one thing screaming in my head–she ran.
Again.
And Margaret was already passed out in my arms, breath shallow and head tilted back like some porcelain doll cracked in the middle. Her mascara was streaked down both cheeks and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
I carried her straight to the car and shoved open the back door.
“Private wing. No paparazzi. No fucking media.”
By the time we reached the hospital, she was curled up against my chest, breathing light, like she might float off if I let go.
They rushed her into one of my personal suites. Doctor checked her out, ran a few scans, poked around her vitals.
Verdict?
“She’s fine,” he said. “Just dehydrated. Stressed. Probably traumatized and needs rest.”
I nodded and waved him off. As soon as the room cleared, I sat on the edge of the bed and
looked at her.
“Talk now, Margaret.”
She sat up slowly. Tears welled up again, fat ones rolling down her cheeks. She looked at me like a kicked puppy and whispered,
“Hakeem… they weren’t real. Those pictures. They’re fake.”
I didn’t say anything. Just stared at her. Reading her. Her hands reached for mine. Soft… Shaking.
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“They were edited. Doctored. You know what Al can do now. People are creating whole
fake voices and faces out of nothing. Harmony had time. She had money. She knew exactly how to hit me where it hurt.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You think she deepfaked you fucking five different men and giving cash to a goddamn traitor?”
She nodded, desperate. “Yes. Yes, Hakeem. That’s exactly what she did. She hates me. She always hated me because I came back alive. She’s not well. She’s dangerous.”
I sat back. Let out a sharp breath. Margaret buried her face in my chest and sobbed. “I tried. I wanted to love her like a sister. I wanted peace. But she doesn’t want peace. She wants me gone.”
I wrapped my arms around her. Felt her shaking against me. It was easy to forget everything when she cried like that. She knew how to break down in front of me, how to pull me in and make me feel like the world was too cruel for someone like her.
And maybe she was right.
Maybe Harmony did fake those images. She had motive. She had brains. She had nothing to lose.
Still…
Something in me itched. That little voice in my head I never listened to when I should’ve.
I kissed Margaret’s forehead, whispered, “Sleep, baby. You’ve been through enough.” She nodded against my chest, mumbled something about love and betrayal, and passed out with tear trails still drying on
. her cheeks.
I stayed still until her breathing evened out.
Then I slipped my phone from my pocket and called Micah from cybersecurity.
“Analyze those pictures. Every single one. Metadata, pixels, timestamps. I want proof. If they’re fake, I want to know how. If they’re not…”
My voice trailed off.
If they’re not, then I’d been sleeping next to a goddamn poison vine dressed in white.
I stepped out into the corridor, cracked my neck, and asked my men, “Where’s the tracker ping?”
One of them looked at me, nervous. “It stopped transmitting. Last location was inside the restroom at the venue.”
My hand curled into a fist. “She fucking cut it out.”
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I turned, slammed my fist against the hallway wall so hard the plaster cracked.
“Get me street cams. Port feeds. Private airfields. I want every safehouse she’s ever used on the watchlist and I want all old aliases reopened. Check the Montellos, the old South
Ridge contacts, every bastard who owed her a favor. You hear me?”
They nodded, scrambling. I went back into the suite, straight to the bathroom. Washed the dried blood from my knuckles, but the sting didn’t fade.
I looked in the mirror and saw my own eyes glaring back.
Red. Unforgiving.
“I gave her everything,” I muttered.
The ring.
The house.
The fucking kingdom.
“And she ran away from me.”
Again.
I reared back and slammed my fist into the mirror.
Glass shattered. Blood poured. I didn’t care.
“She’s mine,” I whispered into the cracks.
“And whatever was mine… will always be mine.”
Then I turned to my men.
“Find her. I don’t care what it takes.”
THEY FOUND the damn passport.
Or what was left of it.
One of her aliases, burned halfway in the firepit behind the old estate wall. Ashes and melted plastic, blackened edges curled like a warning. Like she was laughing at me while she torched every trace.
“Tracker offline. Burner phone dead. No bank hits. No camera trail. She ghosted,” one of my men said.
I crushed the edge of the table with my hand, sent glass flying. The guards flinched like I was about to unload my gun on their faces.
“You telling me you idiots let her walk out the front fucking door with the kid, torch her ID, and none of you saw a thing?”
They all looked at each other. Useless. Nervous.
I mound fast arahhod the nonront maid hu the arm “Snook”
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I moved fast, grabbed the nearest maid by the arm. “Speak.”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “I–I don’t know, sir. I didn’t see anything. I only bring her food sometimes-”
I let her go. I wasn’t gonna get answers screaming at people who couldn’t fight back. But I wasn’t done. I made them all line up. Guards. Drivers. Maids. Gardeners. One by one. I
stared into every damn face. No one talked. Nothing but fear and silence.
“She fooled all of you,” I muttered. “She made you look like clowns.”
No one answered.
They knew better.
