The rooftop wasn't just a place of reckoning anymore.
It was the first loose thread in a web Selene never meant to get tangled in. A knot she hadn't even known existed, until now.
Her breathing came shallow and fast, heart pounding like war drums beneath her ribs, but somehow her hands stayed steady. She didn't know how. Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was pure rage holding her together.
Darius was a liar.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The worst part was knowing he might've been lying to himself the whole damn time. And that kind of lie? The kind you tell yourself just to sleep at night? That was the kind that ruined people.
The man moaned on the ground - his former associate, someone she once trusted - looked as if he was trying to wake up from a bad dream. Cam was crouched over him, he was easily restraining him, muscles and focus honed like a blade. But Selene barely noticed. Her attention was locked on Darius.
Because Darius hadn't moved.
He stood completely still, his eyes fastened to the unconscious body like the answers he didn't want to give were hidden somewhere beneath that bruised skin. His face was shadowed, it was dark with something unreadable. This reminded her of smoke in a room, which had no exit - thick, choking, inescapable.
"Darius," she whispered, her voice barely able to cross her neck like a hoarse whisper. "What the hell is happening?"
At first he didn't answer. Just turned slowly to face her, and in his eyes—God, in his eyes—was something that felt like a confession he hadn't meant to let slip. Something that didn't want to be spoken out loud. His jaw flexed tight. And for the first time, he didn't look like the man who had swaggered into her life with heat and mystery.
He looked wrecked. Stripped bare.
"He was never after you," he said finally, voice thick and low. "He's here for me."
Selene's stomach twisted like something inside her had dropped.
That truth didn't settle right. It grated against everything she thought she knew. She stumbled one step back, her breath catching her mid-chest.
"No," she said, shaking her head like that will undo the words. "It can't be right. Who the hell is he?"
Cam glanced up, pausing his work. "Do you want to know who he is—or why he came?"
Her heart slammed harder. The rooftop suddenly felt colder. "Both."
Darius exhaled slowly, dragging his hand through his hair like he needed the motion to keep steady. His lips pressed into a hard line. A man who'd already said too much and wasn't sure how to take it back.
"He's from my past," Darius muttered. "A life I walked away from."
Selene's gaze sharpened. "You walked away?"
He nodded once, but his eyes didn't really look at her. "A life that doesn't let people walk."
She didn't have time for cryptic answers. Not now. "Start explaining," she said, more sharply than she meant—but she didn't take it back. Too much was on the line. She couldn't afford softness. Not when everything she'd built could crumble.
Darius's jaw ticked. "I used to run with people who do more than strip or push drugs," he said slowly, quietly. "People who don't ask questions. People who take what they want and leave nothing behind."
Her chest tightened until it hurt. "And now they're after you?"
He looked up at her then—really looked—and something shifted in the air between them. Like the rooftop tilted beneath their feet.
"I didn't want you caught in this," he said, voice low. "I never did."
But that line had already been crossed. She'd already stepped over it. There was no going back.
"Then tell me everything," she said. "Who are they? Why now?"
Darius hesitated, swallowing like the words were knives going down.
"They're part of a syndicate," he said finally. "Not just street thugs—real power. Men who run the underground. The ones who pull strings without ever stepping into the light. I was one of them. Until I walked away. But they don't forgive. They don't forget. They come for what you love."
Selene's voice cracked with disbelief. "Consequences? You're saying they'll destroy everything?"
"They will," he said. His eyes were like stone. "That's their way."
The silence that followed was brutal. Heavy. Selene felt her lungs shrink in her chest. Everything she'd built—her empire, her stability, her name—was now sitting on a fault line because of a man who hadn't been honest from the beginning.
She glanced down at the man Cam had restrained. He was starting to stir, groaning softly, like reality was dragging him back in. And her gut twisted tighter.
Was this man just a pawn for something worse? Or had Darius dragged her into hell without giving her a choice?
She opened her mouth and was about to demand several answers - but her phone rang, slicing directly through the tension -like a blade.
She didn't even look at the screen. Just replied.
"Selene," her assistant's voice came through, tense and nervous. "We have a problem. The shipment—it didn't make it. Someone intercepted it. It's gone."
Ice shot through her veins.
She didn't ask who. Didn't need to.
"I'll be there in twenty," she said and hung up.
She turned to Cam. "Stay with him."
Then she faced Darius again. "We're not done."
Darius didn't speak. Just stared at her, gaze intense and unreadable.
She hated that. Hated how easily he could read her. How quiet he was, and how loud it still felt.
"I'm coming with you," he said.
She didn't argue. Couldn't. There wasn't time.
As she walked V towards the lift with Darius by her side, her heels made a loud, reverberating impact on the concrete.
She said, "Don't make me regret this," and shut the doors as they did. The lift seemed to go on forever.
The elevator felt endless. Trapped in a box with a man who changed everything.
When they hit the ground floor, Selene grabbed the key and moved quickly towards the garage. Darius kept close behind. Too close.
She slipped in the driver's seat and roared the vehicle to life. Darius leaned on the car, his gaze was heavy.
"Where are we going?"
She didn't answer. Just hit the gas and sped into the night.
After twenty minutes they reached the warehouse. The darkness was pressed around them, and flickering lights overhead felt like a warning.
"Stay close," she said, voice firm.
Darius didn't need to be told twice. He moved like he belonged in war.
Selene didn't trust anyone. Not now. But as they turned the corner and saw her men in a tight circle, she already knew.
"Boss," murmured one of them anxiously. "We've got a trouble."
She didn't stop. Just pushed through and moved toward the back crates, heart hammering.
One of the boxes had been cracked open.
Empty.
The shipment was gone.
Darius stepped beside her, quiet but close.
"I told you they'd come for everything."
She looked at him, eyes burning. "I'll make them pay," she growled. "Every last one of them."
But even as the words left her lips, a deeper truth settled in her chest.
This wasn't just business anymore.
This was war.
And the only person she could lean on—was the one man who'd lied to her from the very start.