pte

nker and the L

a nuclear bomb in digital form was now buried deep beneath her bookshelf in a lead-lined

now. He was alert. His loyalty had cracked. She

a funeral hymn. She picked u

sterday. Razor's men had shown up at a bar she had never listed. And now, Philip had s

gainst the cold wall. S

uarters, he ruled over billions. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with hair like carved obsidian and a jaw that belonged in s

ngs that shimmered like frost. But it wasn't her beauty that undid him; it was her silence, the way she moved like

to. Often, she didn't. But on the rare nights she did come to him, she gave him glimpses half-closed eyes under candlelight, the smell of jasmine in his sheets, murmure

ed locked in a vault he couldn't access. She never said "I love you." Not once. She whispered distract

urprise her in London once, only to find she'd vanished. He paid investigators to follow her-discreetly, of course. What he learned disturbed him: connections to cov

ly. No names, no petting words. Only heat. Philip, for all his alpha presence in boardrooms, became submissive in her hands. She mou

love meant suffering. He belie

was

tens (Tension

erotic mystery had begun to resemble surveillance.

things-what city she was in, what meetings she had. Once, he caught sight of a man tailing her at a gala. She smiled l

e the voi

meant nothing to him-but the moment he played it, his bank's internal surveillance t

touched him like routine. He asked about the message. She froze. Then she

beth Taylor was not

hiding ev