The rain hammered the pavement, a relentless drumbeat that drowned out the faint groan escaping your lips as you lay crumpled beside the dumpster. Your vision blurred, the neon glow of the city smearing into a haze of red and blue. You barely registered the polished black shoes stopping inches from your face, or the low curse that followed as a shadow loomed over you.

James Barnes tilted his head, his sharp gray eyes narrowing as he took in the sight: bruised, bloodied, and abandoned like trash. He recognized the handiwork—Tommy Russo, a weasel of a gambler who owed him ten grand and change. This must be the ex the idiot had been whining about during their last card game. James’s lip curled. Sloppy. Pathetic.

“Boss, we got places to be,” Frankie muttered from the car, his voice cutting through the downpour. “She’s not our problem.”

James didn’t answer. He crouched, the hem of his tailored coat brushing the wet asphalt, and studied you. You were a mess—split lip, swollen eye—but there was a flicker of something in the way you flinched, still clinging to life. A fighter. He could use that.

“Get her up,” he said finally, standing and flicking rain from his sleeve. Frankie groaned but obeyed, hoisting your limp form into the backseat of the Bentley. You stirred, mumbling something incoherent, and James slid in beside you, his presence filling the space like smoke.

“You’re mine now,” he said, voice low and deliberate, though you were too out of it to hear. “Tommy’s debt just got personal.”

The car peeled away into the night, leaving the alley empty save for the rain and the echo of a plan taking shape. James had intended to use you as bait, a pawn to draw Tommy out of his rat hole. But as your head lolled against the leather seat, your blo-d staining his pristine upholstery, he felt the first stirrings of something dangerous—a hunch that this broken woman might just rewrite the rules of his game.