Fallon Crawford’s fist hit the table hard enough to make the silverware jump.
“Twenty million,” he said, voice low and rough.
“Gone.
Just like that.” The chandelier above the long dining table threw soft gold across six faces that had gone very still.
Kyle’s brow tightened.
“We had men at the docks.
It should have been clean.” Hunter’s fingers tapped the wood.
“Apparently not.
The feds were waiting.” Leila kept quiet and watched them.
A cold feeling had started low in her stomach and refused to leave.
They were supposed to handle this.
They always handled this.
Fallon leaned back, eyes moving from one son to the next.
“How does a full convoy get taken without a single warning?” “Someone talked,” Travis said.
His voice was quiet, almost flat.
“Someone flipped.” Hunter’s mouth twisted.
“Mateo.
He’s been off since the kid was born.
Feds probably waved a reduced sentence or a threat at his daughter and he folded.” Kyle’s gaze cut sideways.
“Maybe.
But who picked the route?
Who brought in the new broker?” Travis’s jaw flexed.
“The broker was yours.” Leila’s eyes moved between them.
“You’re both so busy pointing fingers you’re missing the real problem.” Kyle snorted.
“Oh, you’ve got the answers now?” Hunter leaned forward, smirk sharp.
“Stay in your lane, sis.
Let the men deal with business.” Leila turned her head slowly, met his eyes, and gave the smallest shrug.
“If you say so.” Kyle’s hand curled into a fist.
“You little—” “Enough.” Fallon’s voice was not loud, but it filled the room.
The argument died.
Leila looked at her father.
She didn’t pout or soften her voice the way she sometimes did when she wanted something.
She simply held his gaze and waited.
Fallon’s hard expression eased the way it always did for her, the only one who could still pull that out of him.
The man who made other men kneel was, for a moment, just a father looking at his daughter.
“You two can finish this later,” he said.
“No blood on the table.
I want to know who sold us out.” Hunter’s mouth twitched.
Travis stayed silent.
Across from them, Jenner, the woman who had raised the Crawford children for most of their lives, set her glass down with quiet finality.
“Kyle,” she said.
“Apologize.
Then focus.” Kyle’s jaw worked.
“Sorry.” Leila didn’t smile.
She simply nodded once and turned back to the table.
“If Mateo is talking, twenty million is the least of it.
Names.
Routes.
Everything.
We deal with him tonight, or the whole city turns against us.” Silence stretched.
Kyle exhaled.
“She’s right.” Fallon’s gaze rested on her a second longer.
“She usually is.
We find Mateo.
We end it.” Travis rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“We still owe product.
The Gallos are circling.
The feds are watching every move.” Fallon’s smile was thin and cold.
“Then we bleed the streets.
We take the Gallos apart.
We give the Baboas what was promised.
Nobody walks away from crossing us.” Kyle poured another drink.
His hand shook just enough that the bottle clicked against the rim.
He drank fast.
Hunter’s eyes had gone flat and predatory.
Leila watched the tremor in Kyle’s fingers and felt the cold in her stomach tighten another degree.
Something was wrong.
Not the usual family noise.
Something underneath it.
She reached for her own glass.
Kyle’s elbow nudged the table.
Wine spilled across the front of her dress.
“Goddammit,” she muttered, dabbing at the stain with a napkin.
Hunter’s smirk returned.
“Better clean that up.
Looks expensive.” Leila stood, smoothed the fabric once, and walked out without another word.
The hallway stretched long and quiet behind her.
She did not look back.
In the bathroom she ran cold water over the stain and stared at her reflection.
The argument had been loud, but loud was normal.
The Crawfords lived on conflict.
What wasn’t normal was the way Kyle’s hand had shaken.
The way his eyes had slid away when Travis mentioned the broker.
The way he had knocked the wine onto her like he needed her out of the room.
A chill slid down her spine.
A single gunshot cracked through the house.
Leila froze, fingers still under the water.
A second shot.
Closer.
Then a third, a fourth, a fifth, rapid and brutal.
No.
She was already moving, heels striking hard against the floor.
Survival training her father had drilled into all of them took over before thought could catch up.
Her hand went automatically to her waist and found only smooth fabric.
No gun.
The dress had no place for one.
She ran anyway.
She hit the dining-room doorway and stopped as if she had been struck.
Blood was everywhere.
It painted the polished floor, streaked the walls, pooled under the overturned chairs.
The chandelier still glowed gold, lighting the bodies as if they were part of some terrible display.
Fallon sat slumped, eyes open and empty, a thin line of red running from his temple down his cheek.
The man who had never looked small looked broken.
Hunter’s hand still gripped a knife.
His throat was open.
The predator eyes were gone.
Kyle lay face-down, fingers twitching once, then still.
Five minutes earlier he had been needling her the way he always did.
Now the room smelled of copper and gunpowder and nothing else.
Travis’s chair was overturned.
Blood spread dark under his head.
Travis, who had known every secret she had ever whispered and never once used one against her.
Jenner sat half-fallen against the wall, eyes open, the quiet strength that had held the house together gone.
Leila’s body would not move.
Tears would not come.
She stood in the doorway and stared while her heart tried to claw its way out of her chest.
She wanted to close her eyes and open them again on an ordinary night—Fallon calling her to dinner, Kyle being an ass, Hunter asking her to sneak him chocolate later, Travis watching everything with that distant half-smile, Jenner saying nothing and understanding everything.
All of it gone.
A presence shifted behind her.
An arm locked around her waist, iron and absolute.
She twisted, drove her elbow back, raked her nails across skin.
The man grunted but only tightened his hold.
Blood and gunpowder clung to him.
“Let me go—” A fist crashed into her temple.
Stars exploded across her vision.
Pain ripped through her skull.
The dining room blurred—bodies, blood, chandelier light tilting sideways.
Her knees buckled.
“Heel—lp… Da—ddy…” Her gaze dropped to the wrist holding her.
A coiling dragon tattoo wrapped the skin, fiery lines disappearing under the sleeve.
It seemed to move in the fading light.
Leila’s breath caught.
That tattoo.
She knew it, but from where?
Darkness swallowed everything before the answer could surface.