"Give Me His Name, And He Won't Breathe Tomorrow": The Billionaire Underworld Boss Dialed By Mistake—Now He Owns Her Debt

The smell of copper and wet timber rose thick in the freezing air.

"Gideon!" Mave dropped to her knees beside him, heedless of the puddles soaking through the hem of her emerald gown. Her trembling hands hovered over the torn fabric of his tactical vest, terrified that touching him might worsen the bleeding.

"Don't stop," Gideon ground out through clenched teeth. His face had gone ashen beneath the dark stubble, beads of cold sweat mixing with the rainwater coursing down his jaw. "Move... through the timber gap. Now."

Across the yard, shouting echoed over the sound of the rain. Marco's shooters were circling the perimeter of the crushed Land Rover, their flashlights slicing through the downpour like pale searchlights.

"Over here! Check the cranes!" a voice barked.

Gideon tried to push himself up, but his boot slipped on the oily flagstones. A ragged hiss tore from his chest as his hand clamped down hard over his right rib cage. Blood welled between his fingers, black in the shadows.

Mave didn't hesitate. Survival instincts forged through years of bearing dead weight took over. She hooked her shoulder beneath his left armpit, wrapping her arm around his thick torso.

"Lean on me," she whispered fiercely into his ear. "Come on. You survived half the syndicates on the coast; you are not dying in an alley behind a rusted crane."

A harsh, breathless chuckle rumbled in his throat, but he threw his weight onto her. Her knees buckled under the sheer mass of muscle and tactical armor, but she dug her heels into the grit and hauled him forward. They slipped through a narrow break between two towering stacks of creosote-treated pallets, turning into the pitch-black maw of an abandoned maintenance shed.

Mave kicked the rotten wood door shut behind them and slammed the rusted iron latch into place.

Inside, the roar of the downpour was muted into a hollow drumming against corrugated tin. The air smelled of axle grease, mouse droppings, and damp earth. Gideon collapsed back against a workbench cluttered with forgotten wrenches and rusted chains, sliding down until his shoulders hit the wall. His head fell back, breath rattling in his throat.

"The radio..." he muttered, his fingers clumsy, fumbling at the shattered plastic casing clipped to his tactical belt. "Crushed in the impact. Backups... ten minutes out."

"You don't have ten minutes if that bullet hit an artery," Mave snapped.

She dropped to her knees between his spread legs. Her fingers were steady now, stripped of panic by the sheer, urgent demand of the moment. She unbuckled the quick-release clips of his heavy tactical vest, hauling the Kevlar away from his chest. Underneath, his black henley was saturated with hot blood.

Reaching down, Mave seized the silk of her emerald dress. With a sharp, violent rip, she tore a long strip from the hem, followed by another.

"Tearing up couture," Gideon whispered, his eyes hooded, tracking her movements in the dim gloom. "A waste of silk, little bird."

"Shut up and hold still," she ordered, peeling back the sodden cotton of his shirt.

The wound was ugly—a jagged furrow torn along his lower ribs where a rifle round had skipped off bone. It was deep, bleeding freely, but the bullet hadn't penetrated the pleural cavity. It was an exit wound.

"Clean pass," Gideon grunted, reading her expression. "Scraped the bone. Hurts like a bastard."

"You're lucky," she breathed, balling up a wad of silk and pressing it directly against the laceration.

Gideon’s whole body went rigid. His hand shot out, thick scarred fingers wrapping around her wrist with enough force to bruise, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped against his cheek. A low groan of raw, unadulterated agony ripped past his lips.

"I know," Mave said softly, leaning into the pressure, using her own weight to stem the flow. "I know it hurts. Keep your eyes on me, Gideon. Look at me."

His dark eyes snapped open, locking onto hers. Through the agony, something terrifyingly vulnerable flickered in their depths. In this forgotten shed, stripped of his weapons, his men, and the iron armor of his reputation, Gideon Ward was just flesh, blood, and pain.

"Why didn't you run?" he rasped, his thumb brushing unconsciously against the delicate pulse point in her wrist. "You could have slipped into the container maze. Marco wants me. He wouldn't have chased you."

"And leave you to bleed out in the mud?" Mave tied the first strip of silk tightly around his waist, knotting it with vicious determination. "You paid for Chloe’s braces. You put guards at her door. In my world, Mr. Ward, we don't abandon the people who keep our families alive."

Gideon stared at her, his breathing slowing from frantic gasps to heavy, measured draws. "You don't know me, Mave. If you did, you would have let them finish it."

"I know you took a bullet meant for my head," she said quietly, smoothing down the bloodied bandage. She looked up, her face mere inches from his. The heat radiating off his skin was intoxicating, mingled with the scent of gun oil and cedarwood. "That’s enough for tonight."

Outside, the sudden crunch of tires on wet gravel shattered the fragile quiet.

Gideon’s eyes narrowed instantly, the lethargy vanishing as predator instincts reasserted themselves. His good hand dropped to the small .38 caliber derringer still holstered to Mave’s exposed thigh. His fingers grazed her bare skin, sending a violent shiver straight down her spine, before closing around the pearl handle.

"Two vehicles," Gideon whispered, his ear tuned to the hum of the engines. "V8s. Not Marco's junk."

Three rhythmic honks echoed through the rain—short, short, long.

"Luka," Gideon exhaled, lowering the weapon. The relief was palpable, but as he moved to stand, his vision swam and his shoulder dipped.

Mave caught him instantly, wrapping both arms around his broad chest, holding him upright against her smaller frame. For a second, Gideon didn't pull away. He let his forehead rest against the crook of her neck, inhaling the rain-damp scent of her hair, his heavy hand resting flat against the curve of her back.

"You're stronger than you look, little bird," he murmured against her skin.

"I had to be," she whispered back, her heart thumping against his uninjured side. "Nobody else was going to carry the load."

The shed door splintered inward as Luka and three heavily armed syndicate soldiers burst into the gloom, submachine guns raised, their faces pale with terror until they saw their boss breathing.

"Boss!" Luka rushed forward, holstering his weapon. "Mother of God, we traced the transponder from the wreck. Marco’s men—"

"Dead or scattered," Gideon interrupted, pulling himself up by Luka’s shoulder, his mask of iron authority falling instantly back into place. "Marco went too far. Clear the docks. Bring the clean-up vans."

"There’s more, Boss," Luka said, his voice dropping into a tense, nervous whisper as his eyes darted toward Mave.

Gideon’s brow furrowed. "Speak."

"It wasn't an ambush on our supply lines," Luka said, swallow hard. "Marco hit the decoy convoy because someone gave him the secondary routes. Boss... someone sold the manifest from inside the house."

Gideon stiffened, the blood draining from his lips, not from his wound, but from sheer, lethal fury.