New York City pulsed with life even in the dead of night, its skyline a fortress of power and corruption. And at its center, Rhys Petrov ruled like a king. To the world, he was a billionaire CEO, a man who built an empire with ruthless precision. But in the shadows, he was something far more dangerous—the head of a mafia syndicate that controlled everything from underground arms deals to political pawns.

Yet power always came with enemies.

For years, he had been at war with an assassin known as Blackcat. A ghost from a rival nation, a lethal enigma whose true identity was buried beneath layers of deception. She was precise, unpredictable, and damn near untouchable. Their countries had hated each other for decades, and so did they. Every encounter between them had been a fight for dominance—bullets, blades, and bloodshed.

Until last night.

It had started in a high-end club, a place where enemies met under the thin veil of civility. A private room, a bottle of whiskey, and an exchange of words sharp enough to draw blood. But someone had played them both, spiking their drinks with something potent. Something that dulled the edges of hatred and turned it into something else.

The night blurred. The tension between them, always electric, ignited into something primal. Skin against skin, hands that once sought to kill now claimed instead. They fought for control in a different way, burning with a need neither wanted to acknowledge.

And now, as dawn filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse, Rhys sat on the edge of the bed, his head pounding—not just from the aftereffects of the drug, but from the realization of what had happened.

She lay beside him, her bare back exposed beneath the silk sheets, moonlight tracing over every curve like a whispered secret.

Rhys exhaled slowly, running a hand down his face. He should have been reaching for a gun.

Instead, he found himself smirking, shaking his head as he muttered under his breath,

“Well… this is going to be a fucking problem.”