She Kissed a Stranger to Escape Her Stalker—Then Discovered the Entire City Feared the Man She Had Just Chosen to Hide Behind.

PART 3

Priya stared at the memory card in Silas’s palm. “What did Marcus leave me?”

Silas closed the pendant and slipped it into his pocket. “I don’t know yet.”

“Give it back.”

“Not until I know what is on it.”

“You cannot keep taking things from me.”

“This may be the reason Curtis was watching you.”

“It is still mine.”

Silas met her eyes. “Yes. And I took it.”

No excuse. No gentle lie. The stark admission unsettled Priya more than a practiced apology might have.

Emmett’s shoulder needed stitches. Priya treated him until Silas’s physician arrived. Then Silas explained that anyone looking for the memory card would search her apartment first. He offered Priya and Nadia rooms at his mansion.

Priya agreed for one reason only. Her daughter. But she set her terms.

“One hundred dollars a month,” she said the following morning in Silas’s study.

Emmett, his arm in a sling, nearly choked on his coffee.

Silas stared at her. “This house is worth six million dollars.”

“Then one hundred is a terrible business arrangement.”

“It is absurd.”

“It is what I can afford.”

“You would be under my protection.”

“I was in foster care from age nine to eighteen. I know what it means to live as someone’s guest. Guests can be removed. Guests are expected to be grateful. Tenants have rights.”

Silas leaned back. “You intend to make me sign a lease?”

“Yes.”

A long silence followed. “Accepted,” he said.

—

Three days later, Nadia planted a young orange tree beside Silas’s older one. Red curls, serious blue eyes, a belief that adults existed mainly to answer questions.

Silas knelt in the soil while Nadia supervised him. “Deeper. Roots are as long as the tree, except nobody sees them.” Silas dug deeper.

Priya watched from the terrace, holding iced tea. Nadia pointed to Silas’s gloved left hand. “Why do you wear that?”

“I am missing a finger.”

“Did it fall off?”

“No.”

“Is it dead?”

Silas considered this. “I think it went somewhere else to work.”

Nadia nodded solemnly. “So you have nine fingers here and one finger at work.”

Silas laughed. Not the quiet, controlled sound his men sometimes mistook for amusement. He threw back his head and laughed until Nadia began laughing too.

Emmett lowered the cigarette he’d been about to light. Priya felt something dangerous move inside her chest.

That night, Silas gave Priya a folder containing the records of her childhood. She had searched for them for years. State employees had claimed the documents were destroyed in a flood. Silas had located them in a day.

The folder described the house fire that killed Priya’s parents when she was nine. A firefighter had carried her out, leaving the crescent-shaped burn scar on her wrist. A hospital form showed that coverage for her skin-graft surgery had been denied.

The approving signature belonged to Warren Holcombe.

Priya looked up. Silas’s face had become very still. “My mother died at St. Arden when I was eleven.”

Priya closed the folder.

“She had been shot. They left her in an emergency-room hallway for three hours because she was married to a criminal and had no insurance.”

Priya’s throat tightened. “I work in that emergency room.”

“I know.”

Their histories stood between them like two ends of the same scar. Priya did not remember who moved first. She only remembered Silas’s hand resting gently against the back of her neck and the difference between this kiss and the first one. The hotel kiss had been panic. This one was a choice.

—

Below the mansion, Silas’s technicians had already decrypted the memory card. It contained thirty-four audio files recorded by Marcus Ashford. Marcus had worked as an audio engineer before losing his job. Later, he’d maintained sound equipment for St. Arden’s private board meetings.

The recordings revealed a twenty-year fraud operation. Hospital executives had invented patients, treatments, and even deaths. They had stolen millions from state insurance programs and children’s charities. The Carrera organization had been hired to frighten employees who asked questions.

Marcus had discovered the scheme.

The final recording contained Warren Holcombe’s voice. Silas recognized it immediately. Holcombe discussed forged accounts as calmly as another man might discuss the weather. He ordered Marcus to be “reminded” what would happen to his family if the recordings surfaced.

Silas crushed the whiskey glass in his hand. For twenty-three years, he had wanted proof that Warren Holcombe had denied his mother treatment. He had built an empire partly to reach a man protected by lawyers, charities, and public admiration. Now the evidence had appeared inside Priya’s necklace.

“Does she know?” Emmett asked.

“No.”

“When will you tell her?”

Silas wrapped a cloth around his bleeding palm. “After Holcombe is dead.”

Emmett’s expression changed. “Boss, that is not protection. That is a decision.”

Silas walked toward the stairs. “I know.”

—

Curtis contacted Warren Holcombe. “The card was inside her pendant. Silas Kade has it now.”

Holcombe remained silent for several seconds. Then he asked, “Do you know professionals?”

The attack came during a private dinner at Silas’s mansion. Priya wore a burgundy dress Nadia had selected because it made her mother “look like a queen who still knows how to give shots.” The first bullet struck a window.

Silas crossed the room instantly, overturning the oak table and pulling Priya beneath it. Glass rained around them. He covered her body with his own while his men returned fire. Priya heard his heart beating against her ear. It was steady. Not because he felt no fear. Because he had decided fear would have to pass through him before it reached her.

The attackers fled within minutes. Emmett captured Curtis in a car across the street. They dragged him into the ruined dining room.

Curtis confessed everything. He had called Holcombe and supplied the location. He had believed the professionals would kill Silas and recover the card.

Silas placed a gun against Curtis’s forehead. “You touched what belongs to me.”

Priya stepped through the broken glass. “Silas.”

Every man in the room froze. No one interrupted Silas Kade when he held a gun.

Priya stood before Curtis. For eighteen months she had imagined him as something enormous — a creature that controlled her life from the other side of a locked door. Now he crouched on the floor, bruised and begging.

“You made fear into a schedule,” Priya told him. “Every Friday at nine. I planned my entire life around the sound of your shoes.” Curtis trembled. “But look at you now. You were never a monster. You were a camera someone placed outside my door. And now the camera is broken.”

She turned to Silas and gently pressed two fingers against the gun barrel. “Do not kill him here.”

“He tried to kill you.”

“He failed.”

“He will try again.”

“Then let him face consequences that do not turn you into an executioner in front of me.”

Silas slowly lowered the gun. “Take him to the police. Give them the recorded confession Emmett just made him repeat.”

Emmett glanced at his boss. Silas nodded. It was the first time anyone in the room had seen him surrender revenge because another person had asked.