Page 204 of The Owner's Temptation

Then—my head.

A sickening crack echoes through my skull, and a white-hot bolt of pain bursts behind my eyes. The world spins wildly, then fades at the edges, the color bleeding from everything until it's gone entirely.

The world turns dark.

Ican’t breathe.

The air thins around me as the truth settles in like a fucking vice around my chest. My hands curl into fists. My breath comes ragged.

Lorenzo has Sienna.

Jaxon stands slowly, eyes still fixed on the glowing monitor. His mouth is moving, but I don’t hear a word. My pulse is too loud—thundering in my ears, drowning everything else out.

I need to know when the fuck she left. How long he's had her.

That she’s still alive.

I snatch my phone off the bench–I don’t even remember dropping it–and call Eve. She picks up immediately.

"Lucian—this one thing was bothering me," she starts. "Her contract... Dominic. He’s listed as a new client, but he said he met her at the luncheon. I thought that was only for sponsors?—"

“Eve,” I cut her off, my voice gravel and fire.

She goes quiet. I hear her footsteps stop, the bustle of the street around her fading out.

“That’s not a client,” I say through clenched teeth. “It’s not a fucking client.”

Killian straightens, his full attention locking on me.

“It’s Lorenzo,” I grind out. “He has her, Eve. He has Sienna. How long?”

A beat of silence. I can hear her breath catch. I can see her in my head, frozen in place on some city sidewalk, realization flooding her face.

“How long has she been gone, Eve?” My roar shakes the rafters as I slam my fist into the table hard enough that the windows rattle.

“Two... two days.” Her voice breaks into a whisper. She’s crying now. “Lucian, I didn’t know. I swear to God?—”

“Lucian,” Jaxon cuts in, voice tight. “I found the bug.”

I end the phone call and whip around. He turns the laptop toward me, and it’s the same fucking profile I just found.

The smug fucking picture of my old childhood friend smiling at me in an open challenge.

Behind him is a wall of whiskey bottles.

Our whiskey bottles. The ones I’ve been leaving after every battle in this cold war we’ve been fighting.I’m going to fucking kill him.

“He submitted a client application,” Jaxon says quickly. “It wasn’t a profile—it was a fucking virus. When your staff opened it, the breach was complete. He had access to the system.”

My vision goes red at the edges.

“But there’s one more thing,” Jaxon adds, hesitating and I know it’s fucking bad. “There’s a file in her contract folder. A video.”

The blood drains from my head. My legs nearly buckle, but I catch myself on the edge of the table. I nod once.

“It was uploaded last night.”

“Open it.”

---