Sexting the Ruthless Don

6

Azeelia Cole

The glow of the phone screen illuminated the dark ceiling of my bedroom long after the notification vanished.

You really should stop chasing your brother’s killer, Azeelia. Especially when you have no idea who you’re actually hunting.

He had called me by my real name. The thin curtain separating Scarlet from Azeelia hadn't just been pulled back; Gabriel had torn it down completely. Yet, sitting there in the quiet of the night, I realized he hadn't exposed me to his men, nor had he blocked the encrypted account. He was waiting to see what I would do next.

I didn't sleep a wink. Every time I closed my eyes, Gabriel’s voice echoed in the dark: Your brother worked for me.

At 4:00 AM, I threw off my blanket, turned on every light in the apartment, and pulled down the plastic bin containing Ethan’s remaining personal effects—the things the police had handed back to me in a cardboard box three years ago.

I dumped everything onto the living room rug: old university textbooks, leather-bound notebooks, a broken watch, and misplaced receipts.

I had combed through these items a hundred times. But back then, I was looking for proof that he was an innocent victim. I was looking through the eyes of a grieving sister who viewed her older brother as an unblemished hero.

This time, I looked for the gaps.

I picked up his old financial accounting textbooks. I flipped through the heavy pages of Advanced Corporate Taxation. Halfway through the text, near the spine, the binding looked unusually thick. My heart pounded as I ran my fingers down the inner crease.

Using a pocketknife, I carefully sliced open the inner cloth lining of the back cover.

A small, black plastic card slid out, bouncing onto the rug.

I picked it up. It was a sleek, unembossed keycard featuring a minimal gold crest—a stylized lion holding a sword. Below the crest were the words: The Obsidian Lounge.

My breath caught in my throat. Two days ago, I wouldn't have recognized the logo. But after spending months mapping out Gabriel Marchetti’s web of shell corporations, I knew exactly what it was. The Obsidian Lounge was an ultra-exclusive, private members-only club in the heart of the financial district. It was owned by Apex Holdings—the primary holding company Gabriel used to manage his high-end real estate portfolio.

Ethan had been there. He kept a keycard hidden inside a textbook he hadn't touched since college.

Gabriel hadn't lied to me. Ethan really had a secret life.

POV: Azeelia Cole

"You look like a corpse, Azeelia."

Maya dropped a steaming paper cup of black coffee onto my desk at the City Chronicle offices. She pulled up a chair, leaning her elbows on the partition with a sharp, analytical glare. Maya wasn't just my closest friend at the paper; she was the only investigative desk colleague who knew I hadn't given up on Ethan’s case.

"Thanks. Just haven't been sleeping," I murmured, wrapping my cold fingers around the warm cup.

"Marcus said you looked like you were going to faint during the morning pitch meeting," Maya said, her voice dropping lower. "And don't try to change the subject. Where were you yesterday afternoon? You missed the editorial deadline for the gala write-up, and your phone went straight to voicemail for four hours."

I rubbed my eyes, feeling the heavy exhaustion pressing behind my temples. I couldn't tell her about the encrypted app. I couldn't tell her about Viper_00 or the seductive game I had been playing with the most dangerous man in the city.

"I went to an old warehouse out in the industrial district," I admitted in a whisper, leaning closer to her. "I was following a lead from Ethan’s old phone logs."

Maya’s eyes widened in alarm. "Azeelia, are you crazy? What happened?"

"Some men cornered me," I said, my voice barely audible above the clatter of keyboards around us. "They... they were asking what Ethan gave me before he died. They said he stole something from their boss."

Maya gasped, catching her breath. "Did you call the police? Did you get hurt?"

"No. Gabriel Marchetti’s security team showed up. They disarmed them and brought me to his estate."

Maya sat back, her face turning pale. "Marchetti brought you to his house? Azeelia, you need to go to the federal authorities right now. He's trying to intimidate you!"

"He didn't threaten me, Maya," I said softly, looking down at my hands. "He told me something else. He said Ethan worked for him. He said Ethan was his personal auditor."

Silence stretched between us. Maya stared at me, processing the words, before her expression hardened into pure skepticism.

"And you believe him?" Maya snapped softly. "Azeelia, listen to yourself! Gabriel Marchetti is a master manipulator. He’s a mob boss facing potential federal indictments if anyone digs too deep into his logistics network. Of course he’s going to tell you Ethan was dirty! He wants you to stop looking. He wants you to doubt your brother so you'll drop the story and leave him alone."

"I found a keycard in Ethan’s old textbook this morning," I countered, my voice trembling slightly. "It belongs to The Obsidian Lounge. That's a Marchetti property, Maya. Ethan had no reason to have access to a place like that unless he was tied to Gabriel's inner circle."

Maya reached over and gripped my wrist tightly. "Even if Ethan was involved in something bad, Marchetti is still a killer. Do not let him twist your head around. He’s dangerous, Zee."

"I know," I murmured.

But as Maya walked away back to her desk, the doubt in my chest didn't vanish. It only grew heavier.

POV: Azeelia Cole

That night, I sat in my dark apartment, the black keycard resting beside my laptop screen.

My phone chimed.

I picked up the burner phone, staring at the screen.

Viper_00: You're extraordinarily quiet today, Scarlet. Or should I say... little journalist?

My breath hitched. He was acknowledging the elephant in the room. He had dropped the veil entirely, yet he was still using the app. He was still giving me a line of communication.

I picked up the phone, my fingers tapping out a response. I didn't want to talk about the warehouse. I didn't want to talk about my press badge. I needed answers about the brother I thought I knew.

Scarlet: I’m just trying to make sense of things. Tell me something real, Gabriel. How did you know Ethan?

The green light blinked almost immediately, but his response took a full two minutes to arrive.

Viper_00: You were supposed to be seducing me, remember? Now you're asking about dead men.

Scarlet: I'm asking about the truth. You said he was your auditor. If he worked for you, why didn't he tell me? We were close. We talked every week.

Viper_00: Have you ever considered that someone you loved was lying to you, Azeelia? Not out of malice... but out of necessity?

My throat constricted. The shift from his smooth, arrogant persona to this raw, serious tone caught me off guard. For a brief moment, the elaborate chess game we were playing faded away. There was no Scarlet. There was no Viper_00. It was just two people talking through the dark across a divided city.

Scarlet: Why would he lie to me? I was his sister. He was all I had.

Viper_00: Because the world I live in isn't a place for innocent people. When a man steps into the dark, the first thing he does is build a wall around the people he loves. He keeps them in the light so the dirt on his hands doesn't stain them.

I stared at the text, a heavy knot forming in my chest. Tears pricked the back of my eyes.

Scarlet: You make it sound like he was trying to protect me.

Viper_00: He was. Ethan made mistakes. He got involved with people far worse than me because he thought he could earn enough money to clear his debts and buy you a better life. But he kept you completely out of it. He took the risk alone.

The words hit me like a physical blow.

All these years, I had pictured Ethan as a helpless victim dragged into a shadow war he had nothing to do with. But if Gabriel was telling the truth, Ethan had stepped into that world willingly—to protect me, to provide for me, or perhaps because he was trapped. And in trying to protect me, he had kept me completely blind.

Scarlet: If he was protecting me... then who killed him?

Viper_00: That is a question you aren't ready to answer yet.

Scarlet: Try me.

Viper_00: Go to sleep, Azeelia. Stop pulling on threads before the whole room comes crashing down on you.

I looked down at the black plastic keycard sitting on my desk. The lion crest gleamed under the soft lamp light.

Gabriel thought he could warn me off. He thought giving me a piece of the truth would make me retreat back into my quiet, safe life as a small-town reporter. But he had underestimated how far I was willing to go.

I picked up the keycard and slid it into my purse.

I'm not going to sleep, Gabriel, I thought, staring at his last message. I'm going to find out what Ethan left behind.

Tomorrow night, I was going to walk straight into The Obsidian Lounge.