A Poor Vet Took In a Dying Stray Dog — Hours Later, She Discovered the Wounded Man She Saved Was the Mafia Boss Who Owned Him

Chapter 5

“You’re going to have to come out eventually,” Silas said from the doorway.

Briar hadn’t heard the door open. One second it was locked, the next he was there, filling the frame, dripping rain onto the linoleum, and the men in black suits had materialized behind him like a tide.

“How?” she whispered. “How did you find me?”

He didn’t answer. He just looked at her — really looked, gray eyes moving over her face like he was memorizing it — and then he did something that made every worker in the shelter freeze mid-aisle.

He reached behind him, into the crowd of terrified volunteers, and pulled a boy named Marcus forward. Marcus had been covering the front desk. Marcus had been holding a leash.

“Her,” Silas said, and his voice carried. “She’s the one who saved my life. She stays. The rest of you — you were never here.”

A shelter worker — a big man with a broom — let out a sound between a gasp and a laugh. “Wait. Isn’t that Silas Kane? The billionaire. The — the *mafia* boss.”

“I don’t care who he is,” Marcus said, white-faced, “they’re here to kill her. Look, we don’t want any trouble. If you want her, you can have her. We’re just innocent bystanders.”

Briar’s throat closed. *You can have her.*

“Exactly,” another voice chimed in, relieved. “But if you’re going to kill her, can you take her outside? Leave my clinic alone.”

Silas’s eyes found Briar’s. Something passed across his face — cold, then hot, then something she couldn’t name.

“Leave her clinic alone,” he said, softly, dangerously. “This woman opened my chest with a rabbit scalpel and stitched a heart into it with her own hands. She’s not trouble. She’s the reason I’m still breathing. So I’ll thank you not to treat her like trash in front of me.”

“Thank you,” Briar managed. “But I —”

“I think what she needs,” Silas said, turning to the man beside him, “is a place to stay. It’s my turn to take care of her. We’ll explain everything when we get home. Let’s go.”

“No.” Briar’s voice came out sharp. “No way. You’re going to let a low-life like her —” she stopped. Blinked. “Wait. *You’re* the top of this. You’re not just some thief. You’re the whole operation. You’re the reason those men were shooting at me. You’re the reason I can’t go home, the reason I got fired, the reason my landlord —”

“All of that,” Silas said quietly, “is exactly why you’re coming with me. Because out there, they’re still looking for you. And here, alone, with forty-two dollars and a stolen dog, you’re a corpse with a heartbeat.”

He stepped toward her. Briar stepped back.

“Don’t walk at me. Don’t come near me. I didn’t agree to anything —”

Silas reached her in two steps, bent, and scooped her off her feet like she weighed nothing. Briar shrieked.

“PUT ME DOWN!”

“Yes,” Silas Kane said, carrying her through the shelter doors into the rain. “That’s the kidnapping. Welcome to the negotiation.”

“No! I’m not going anywhere with you! Who even *are* you?!”

“Silas Kane.” He set her down on the running board of the middle SUV, gently, almost tenderly, and stood between her and the open street. “And you’re coming home with me now. Before someone who’s not as nice about it gets to you first.”

“You’re kidnapping me,” Briar said, disbelieving.

“Yes.”

“Where are we going?”

“My house.”

“Your house.” She could hear herself getting shriller and couldn’t stop. “Who’d you steal it from?”

Silas almost smiled. “Nobody. Bought it with my own hard-earned money. Got something for you.”

He looked at her — soaked, shaking, furious, beautiful — and for one unguarded second, the man who’d eaten a bullet to save her life and the man who’d just carried her out of the only home she had left were the same person, and that person was terrified.

“You’re not in danger with me, Briar Sloane,” he said. “You’re only in danger from everything else. So I’m going to keep you. And I’m going to teach you how to keep yourself. And then, when you can take me down, you can leave. Deal?”

“Deal,” Briar said, before her brain caught up with her mouth. “I mean — no. That’s not how this works. I don’t —”

Silas Kane opened the door. “Too late. You said deal.”