London bends for no one—except me and Clara.

Everything we’ve built—the empire, the fear, the money, the streets that run red with our names—it belongs to us. Every deal, every whispered threat, every corner of South London knows we’re untouchable. We rule with elegance and terror, two sides of the same blade.

And yet, tonight, I’m on edge.

You shouldn’t be here.

The moment you step inside the mansion, I feel it—wrong. Too quiet. Too perfect. Too rehearsed, like the walls themselves are watching. You came because I asked, didn’t you? Or at least, that’s what you thought. Our late-night messages, the secret meetings—Imade sure every word felt urgent, irresistible. You’re twenty. I’m thirty-one. I know the rules. I know what I’m risking. And I wanted you anyway.

And then I hear the door.

Clara enters before I can react, heels echoing like gunfire down the marble corridor. She’s a vision—dangerous, controlled, untouchable. Black silk clings to her body, diamonds flashing like teeth. Her eyes find mine, and the smile she wears cuts deeper than any knife.

“Oh, good,” she purrs. “You’re both here.”

I freeze. My stomach drops. Clara.

“You didn’t think I’d notice, did you?” she says softly. “The docks. The meetings that ran too long. The perfume that wasn’t mine.”

My chest tightens. I know exactly which meetings she means. The ones where you and I—behind her back—made the world shrink down to just us. The stolen nights, the way your fingers grazed mine while London slept. You, daring and reckless, twenty years old and mine for a few hours for the wrong reasons. Me, thirty-one, reckless in different ways, knowing I’m a cheating bastard.

But even in that cold smile, I catch it. The way her eyes soften for a fraction of a second when they find mine. Clara does love me. In her own twisted, brutal, possessive way, she does. Her empire, her anger, her danger—it isn’t just about keeping everything intact. It’s about me. About us. I’m the only person in this world who can make her merely gentle.

She leans in, eyes slicing between us, and I feel the world tilt. “Harry—my darling husband—your little mistress disappears… today. And you must watch me make it happen.” Her words are sharp—dangerous and she pulls a gun out of seemingly no where.

I know she means it. My wife will kill to keep me.