"Bound By The Wrong Brother"

My father gave me an ultimatum: marry a man I despise or lose my entire inheritance. I chose to run, boarding a private jet with no intention of looking back. But his reach is absolute. The phone buzzed before we even left New York airspace. "Send me a picture with Sterling now," his voice barked, "or I'm calling your pilot to turn that jet around." I faked the photo and fled to Las Vegas, my last resort. My mission was simple: find my father's illegitimate son, the one secret that could break his hold over me. My only lead was a grainy picture of a ruthless fixer, a man who cleaned up my father's messes. I found him in a desolate diner, a giant of a man surrounded by a wall of guards. I gambled everything on a single coin toss for the information I needed. He saw right through my desperate bluff. He leaned in close, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "In my city, the house always wins." I was left standing there, humiliated and defeated. But as he turned to leave, he glanced over his shoulder. "But you're lucky. Today, I'm just curious what Howard Bright's daughter is doing so far from home." He had seen me not as a threat, but as a curiosity. I had lost the battle, but I wasn't done yet. I was no longer running. I was hunting.

Chapters

Chapter 7

The massive man in the back booth shifted, turning his head slightly to listen to another guard.

Outside, a massive chrome delivery truck rumbled past the diner's front window. The harsh desert sun bounced violently off the truck's polished side panel, slicing a blinding beam of light through the dim, smoky air of the diner.

It struck the man in the back booth, illuminating the left side of his face.

Harper's breath stopped dead in her throat.

A thick, jagged, faded scar stretched from the base of his neck, disappearing up under his jawline.

Her heart skipped a beat, then slammed against her ribs with terrifying force. Her fingers went numb.

The stainless steel fork slipped from her grasp, hitting the ceramic plate with a loud, sharp clatter.

Chloe jumped, nearly dropping her burger. "Jesus, what is your problem?"

Harper couldn't hear her.

Her hands dove into her Birkin, tearing through the contents until she pulled out her phone, her fingers trembling so badly she mistyped her passcode twice.

She opened the hidden folder, pulling up the grainy photo she had stolen from her father's safe.

She zoomed in on the man's neck until the pixels blurred. She looked up at the man in the booth, then down at the screen. The image on her phone was blurry, but the combination was undeniable: the same custom watch, the same brutal jawline, and now, a jagged scar exactly where a deep shadow had fallen in the photograph. It had to be him.

A violent mixture of pure terror and electric adrenaline exploded in her bloodstream.

This was him. The cleaner. The man who knew where the bastard son was.

Harper wiped her slick, sweating palms against the expensive silk of her dress.

She pushed herself up from the booth, her knees shaking so badly they nearly knocked her water glass over.

"I need to use the restroom," Harper said, her voice cracking and hoarse.

Chloe didn't even look up from her phone screen.

Harper stepped out of the booth, standing in the center of the narrow aisle. She sucked in a lungful of greasy air, forcing her spine to straighten.

Her heels clicked loudly against the black-and-white checkered linoleum.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The sound echoed over the low hum of the diner.

As she closed the distance, the outer ring of guards instantly sensed the shift in the room. Their broad shoulders tensed. Three of them casually, smoothly slipped their right hands inside their suit jackets.

Harper ignored the lethal threat.

She stopped exactly three feet away from the edge of his table, staring down at the top of his dark head.

He was still looking down at his coffee.

Slowly, deliberately, the man lifted his chin.

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