The most beautiful woman I had ever seen walked straight up to my table in a Charleston hotel café, dropped ten crisp hundred-dollar bills beside my untouched coffee, and said, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you pretend to be my boyfriend until tonight.” She had no idea she was offering pocket change to a man half the city was afraid to cross.

The heavy scent of salt water, diesel exhaust, and cold steel hung in the damp night air.

I stepped behind a rusted blue container, peering toward the open concrete apron of Pier 14. A black unmarked box truck was backed up against a loading ramp. Three men in heavy work jackets were frantically loading wooden crates from a shipping container onto the truck bed.

Standing near the cab, holding a flashlight with trembling hands, was Miles Harper.

"Hurry up, you idiots!" Miles hissed, his voice cracked with panic. "Evan Cole knows something! If his security team catches us here, we're dead! Just get the crates locked in and drive!"

"They're already locked, Miles," I said calmly, stepping out from the shadow of the container into the dull amber beam of the floodlight.

The three workers dropped the crate they were carrying with a deafening CRASH. Wooden splinters flew as steel shipping crates slammed against the concrete.

Miles shrieked, dropping his flashlight. It rolled across the pavement, casting chaotic light against my dark suit and the suppressor attached to the barrel of the handgun resting casually at my side.

"C-Cole!" Miles squeaked, backing up until his spine hit the side of the box truck. "What... what are you doing here?!"

"I own this pier, Miles," I said smoothly, taking a slow, measured step forward. "Every square inch of concrete you're standing on belongs to me. Which means those crates full of unregistered, illegal assault rifles you're trying to smuggle through my port... also belong to me."

"I... I didn't know!" Miles lied desperately, his knees shaking. "My father's company handle the freight clearance! I was just... I was just fixing a paperwork error!"

"You were using my clean reputation to run black-market weapons for a cartel in Miami," I corrected, my voice dropping into a chilling register. "And then you had the nerve to sit at a table with Nora Bennett and play the perfect gentleman."

"Please!" Miles begged, tears welling in his eyes as he held his hands up. "Don't kill me! I'll pay you! Whatever you want! I have millions!"

"I don't need your money, Miles," I said quietly, raising the pistol until the sights aligned squarely between his eyes. "I have plenty of my own."

"EVAN! NO!"

A sharp scream shattered the darkness.

I froze. I turned my head slightly. Nora was standing at the edge of the shipping containers fifty feet away. She had used the emergency unlock inside the Mercedes to break out. She stood under the yellow glare of the floodlight, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with total, unadulterated horror as she looked at the gun in my hand, the trembling men, and the broken crate spilling weapons onto the concrete.

"Nora..." I gritted out, my heart dropping into my stomach. "I told you to stay in the car."

"Oh god," she whispered, her voice trembling violently. "Miles was right... You... you're a criminal."

"Nora, listen to me—"

Before I could finish my sentence, one of Miles’s hired goons—a heavy-set man with a scar across his jaw—realized I was distracted. He lunged into his jacket, pulling a snub-nosed revolver.

"Look out!" Nora screamed.

BANG!

The gunshot echoed across the silent water like a cannon shot.

I ducked instinctively, feeling the wind of the bullet brush past my cheek. In a fraction of a second, my training took over. I raised my suppressed pistol and fired twice in rapid succession—THWIP-THWIP.

The heavy-set man collapsed to the ground with a dull thud, clutching his shoulder and screaming in pain. The other two workers immediately threw their hands into the air, dropping to their knees on the wet concrete.

Miles didn't fight. He let out a pathetic squeal, dropped to his knees, and put his hands over his head, sobbing hysterically.

Suddenly, five black SUVs tore around the corner of the warehouse, their headlights blinding the entire pier. Doors slammed violently as eight heavily armed men in black tactical gear poured out, led by Marcus. Within three seconds, Marcus’s team had secured the pier, zip-tying Miles and his men.

"Area clear, Mr. Cole," Marcus called out, stepping over the groaning man on the floor. "Customs and federal agents are five minutes out. We’re handing Harper straight to the ATF."

I didn't answer Marcus. I lowered my weapon, engaged the safety, and tucked it back into my holster.

I turned around to face Nora.

She was backing away from me, her chest heaving, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She looked at me not as the man who had held her hand at Magnolia House, but as a monster.

"Nora," I said softly, stepping toward her, my hands open in front of me. "It’s over. You're safe."

"Don't touch me!" she sobbed, taking another step back into the dark shadow of the containers. "Don't come near me!"

"Nora, please—"

"You lied to me!" she yelled, her voice breaking. "You're not just a businessman! You shoot people! You live in this... this terrifying world! My God, I brought you to my family's home! I put ten hundred-dollar bills on your table and thought I was buying a fake boyfriend!"

She let out a harsh, bitter laugh through her tears.

"You must have been laughing at me the entire time," she cried, wiping her face with her sleeve. "The desperate baker hiring a mobster to scare her mother."

"I wasn't laughing, Nora," I said, my voice thick with an emotion I hadn't felt in years. Pain. Real, sharp pain in my chest. "I wasn't acting."

"Stay away from me, Evan," she whispered, her eyes dark with heartbreak. "Just... leave me alone."

She turned and ran into the darkness toward the main street, her heels clicking rapidly against the pavement until the sound vanished into the Charleston night.

Marcus walked up beside me, watching her go. "Do you want me to send a car to follow her, boss?"

I stood there on the cold, wet concrete, staring at the empty space where she had been standing.

"Keep two men on her from a distance," I ordered quietly, my voice hollow. "Make sure she gets home safely. And make sure Miles Harper spends the rest of his life in a federal prison."

"Yes, Mr. Cole. And you?"