Seventeen years after leaving Tennessee, I returned to the rotting house where I’d grown up, intending to erase the last piece of my past before a major Mafia deal closed.

The barrel of Julian’s revolver gleamed under the green light of the desk lamp. For a man who had stood beside me in gunfights across three states, his grip was remarkably steady.

“You miscalculated, Julian,” I said, my voice dangerously calm as my fingers curled around the grip of my Beretta inside the drawer.

“Did I?” Julian smiled, taking a slow step closer to the desk. “You’ve spent the last three years trying to legitimize this organization, Mason. Real estate portfolios, municipal bonds, charity foundations. You wanted to play corporate executive while the old families in Chicago and New York looked down their noses at us. You forgot what built this empire in the first place.”

“Blood and fear,” I replied.

“Exactly,” Julian hissed. “And you lost your taste for both when you started rescuing stray kids from rotting shacks. Alistair and I realized months ago that if we want a seat at the national syndicate table, we need someone running Tennessee who understands how to make aggressive moves. Not a sentimentalist.”

“So you sold my childhood home to a two-bit loan shark just to smoke me out?”

“Dalton was a convenient tool,” Julian shrugged, tightening his grip on the gun. “He had leverage over those kids through their older brother’s gambling debts. Once we deeded that property to his shell company, we planned to use the land to route unmonitored cargo shipments straight through the state line without your knowledge. By the time you noticed, your organization would already be owned by the Syndicate.”

“And Alistair?”

“Alistair knows too much,” Julian said smoothly. “He’ll be taking a very permanent retirement in a shallow grave near the Cumberland River by sunrise. Just like you, boss.”

Julian’s finger began to squeeze the trigger.

He was fast—damned fast. But Julian had spent the last five years sitting behind a mahogany desk reviewing spreadsheets and approving wire transfers. I had spent seventeen years surviving the back alleys of Memphis before I ever wore a tailored suit.

Before his hammer could fully drop, I whipped the heavy oak desk drawer out entirely, slamming it directly into his shins while simultaneously drawing my Beretta and firing through the wood.

The deafening crack of the gunshot shattered the quiet study.

Julian screamed, stumbling backward and crashing hard against a heavy mahogany bookcase. His revolver clattered across the hardwood floor, sliding beneath the leather sofa near the fireplace.

Before he could recover, I vaulted over the desk, pinning him to the floor with my knee pressed firmly against his chest and the barrel of my gun pressed right between his eyes.

“You’re out of practice, Julian,” I breathed, the adrenaline surging hot through my veins.

Julian coughed, blood trickling from a graze on his shoulder where my bullet had clipped him through the drawer. He stared up at me with wild, desperate eyes, realizing his coup had failed in less than three seconds.

“Go ahead,” Julian spat, coughing again. “Kill me. Alistair is already waiting for your accountants to audit him. The moment I don’t check in by 4:00 AM, the entire Syndicate legal team descends on your warehouses.”

I didn't pull the trigger.

Killing Julian right now would satisfy my anger, but it would leave a mess of loose legal threads that the Syndicate could pull to unravel my entire empire. I needed to dismantle their network piece by piece, starting with the man chained in my basement.

“Marcus!” I shouted toward the open doorway.

Heavy footsteps pounded up the grand staircase a second later, and Marcus burst into the study with his submachine gun raised, followed by two armed guards.

Marcus took in the scene in a single glance: Julian pinned to the floor bleeding, my gun leveled at his head, and the shattered desk drawer splintered across the rug.

“Boss?” Marcus asked, his voice steady.

“Take him down to the armory,” I ordered, standing up and straightening my cuffs. “Put him in the cell next to Dalton. Make sure they can talk to each other. I want them to realize how badly their plan just fell apart.”

Marcus grabbed Julian roughly by the collar, hoisting him up like a sack of laundry. Julian didn't fight back; he just glared at me with pure venom as they dragged him out of the room, leaving a dark smear of blood across the polished hardwood floor.

I stood alone in the quiet study for a long moment, listening to the crackle of the fireplace.

My phone buzzed again.

I picked it up. It wasn't an encrypted corporate alert this time. It was an internal intercom notification from the third-floor guest wing.

Motion detected in Guest Suite 302.