All Chapters of Empire of Dominance: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Raven must have blacked out for a second in a moment of flat, absolute shock.When she came back to herself, everyone was screaming. The world was a blast of noise and motion all at once. She was pinned and laid limp under the massive, dead weight of Burt Johnson’s corpse.He’d been about to tell her the truth. She’d been so close, and someone had killed him. Just like that. Brutal. Efficient.Someone was listening to every word.Which meant they’d heard her questioning him.So… why wasn’t she dead too?She couldn’t move. Someone was shouting orders over all the screaming. Shadows whirled overhead past the vacant pits of Burt Johnson’s empty eyes.Suddenly, his weight was yanked off of her in one gargantuan tug of force. Raven gasped in a breath—had she stopped breathing? Johnson’s blood was going rapidly cold on her skin. For a long second, that was the most real, tangible thing in the whole world.Then she was looking into Kade Sinclair’s dark, dark eyes. For a strang

Kade’s POVKade was a quiet child: it came from being the only son of such a powerful man, or so he told himself later in life. After that powerful man was gone. After he was left alone in the aftermath, at the helm of the mammoth company that his father had left in his hands.But a side effect of being a quiet child was that Kade learned to listen very well. Voices and expressions became transparent to him, as if they were a language that he’d learned by heart. He, in turn, learned not to give anything away in that language, at least most of the time. He became a vault, all emotions locked below a layer of bedrock.He was the one son and heir of the Sinclair family, and that was the least that was expected of him.His father was a precise and pristine man, a man whose suits were always impeccable and whose voice carried gravity in whatever room he was in. He used that voice sparingly; Kade learned from him well.His mother was pure elegance, a woman who never laughed at the

Day five in the penthouse rolled to a close like a long, exhausted breath. Raven paced restlessly from room to room. She’d gotten in the habit of leaving the big living room flatscreen TV on, just to have another voice in the apartment throughout the day. She felt pathetic, with daytime infomercials, news programs, and weather reports as her only company.She started humming to herself, more out of nervous frustration than anything else. Kade still wasn’t back yet. It was getting on past six o’clock.There would likely be another grand dinner tonight delivered from one of the city’s best restaurants. Likely another evening of incredible luxury. She’d trade it all to feel the wind on her face. Just for a few minutes.But there was very, very little chance of that. Kade had stopped allowing even his private chef into the apartment. Instead of waning with the passing days, his paranoia only seemed to be mounting—though she doubted anyone but her could sense it as such. To everyon

The word “hitman” hovered at the front of her mind as she opened the file Kade had delivered to her.The police report was thorough. It would have been convincing if she didn’t know what she knew.She felt explosive with restlessness. She tried not to count the days she’d been in this apartment, staring at the inside of the curtain. Day after day after day after day.This was the only place she could put her restlessness, her energy. Her desperation.Again and again, Hector Lyonell’s name stood out to her against the yellowed paper of the report. These were Hector Lyonell’s words, his description of the scene, his impression and conclusions. Typed up and printed and shoved in a file.It was surreal to know what was behind those simple, cut-and-dried reporting. She would believe it—and that terrified her. These people were so good at moving in the shadows while moving in plain sight. Even as an ordinary citizen, she could have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for

Raven spent the rest of the meal wondering exactly what the gold leaf in her mouth actually tasted like. She came to the conclusion that it didn’t taste like anything at all, by the time the last of the wine was gone and Kade was leaning back in his chair, dabbing his lips clean delicate touches of his napkin.“Now for the real test,” he said, meeting her gaze.“The real test?”“When we came down from the penthouse, there was no way for our observers to have anticipated that. Now we’ve given ample time for whatever concierge or doorman is on the Oriri payroll to have notified them of our movements. Which makes the return journey the really dangerous part.”Raven breathed out, slowly and heavily.“Listen, I know you’re all in favor of paranoia and all that, but the concierge? Really?”“Why not?” Kade refolded his napkin. “I know they keep Frederick on the take. And besides, I control most of the concierges in each of the Lu siblings’ buildings.”She knew she shouldn’t be s