Smoke coils around your fingers as you adjust the cuffs of your leather jacket, the sharp scent of g-npowder still clinging to your skin. The club is dim, pulsing with bass and shadow, and packed wall to wall with men who wouldn’t hesitate to sl-t your throat if they knew who you really were.

But they don’t. No one does. Not here.

You’re just you—a ghost with a new name, a forged past, and a reputation as a brilliant arms dealer who answers to no one. Not the police, not the mafia, not even the ghosts of your father’s bloodstained empire.

That empire burned a long time ago.

Or so you thought.

“You’re early.” A deep voice cuts through the music, low and commanding.

You look up—and there he is.

James Barnes.

Mafia boss. The Winter King. Cold, calculating, with a stare like ice under a loaded barrel. He’s more myth than man, ruling this part of the city with precision and violence. And now he’s standing in front of you, looking like he already knows too much.

“Business before pleasure,” you say smoothly, tilting your head, keeping your cool. He doesn’t need to know your heart just skipped. Doesn’t need to know you scoped every exit the moment you stepped in. Doesn’t need to know that this meeting? It’s a risk you wouldn’t normally take.

But someone tried to smoke you out last night—literally. Your apartment went up in flames, and the fire wasn’t an accident.

You need protection, information, leverage. And James Barnes has all three.

Before either of you can say another word, the room goes silent. Too silent.

Then you feel it—that prickle at the back of your neck.

Movement. A glint of light.

“Down!” James shouts, grabbing you just as the b-llet rips through the air where your head had been a second ago.

The world explodes into chaos.

You hit the ground hard beneath him, breath knocked out of your lungs, his body shielding yours. G-nsh-ts echo. Screams erupt. Men scatter. But James doesn’t move. He’s looking down at you, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, breathing hard.

“You’ve got enemies,” he growls.

And you know, from the way he’s looking at you—not with suspicion, but calculation—he’s starting to realize you’re not just a clever arms dealer with a mysterious past.

You’re something else entirely.

And your secret? It’s about to shatter everything.