Chapter 3 - He smiled.
Shook hands.
Remembered wives’ names and children’s colleges.
He manipulated the room with charm.
Whenever a city official questioned a figure or date regarding the harbor development, Vincent glanced casually toward Khloe.
“Miss Evans, what was the projected third-quarter revenue?”
“$12.4 million, Mr. Costa.”
“With a built-in 10% variance for construction delays.”
Officials nodded.
Satisfied.
None of them knew that the woman giving the answer had nearly fainted over a severed finger 2 days earlier.
By midnight, the ballroom had begun to empty.
The permits were secure.
The district attorney had been sufficiently charmed and discreetly compromised.
Vincent had won.
They left for the valet.
Cold night air touched Khloe’s overheated skin.
Her feet ached from the borrowed heels.
They entered the back of Vincent’s armored town car.
The privacy divider was already raised.
They were alone inside the dark cabin.
Streetlights crossed Vincent’s face as the car moved through the city.
His exhaustion showed in the lines around his mouth.
He pulled loose his bow tie.
Unbuttoned the top 2 buttons of his shirt.
Then leaned his head against the seat.
“You did well tonight.”
“I hated every second.”
Vincent laughed quietly.
“I know.”
“That’s why I brought you.”
Khloe turned toward him.
His eyes remained closed.
“Anyone else would have tried to leverage the introductions.”
“You only wanted to hide behind the ice sculpture.”
Khloe watched him.
For the first time, the armor around him seemed thinner.
He looked less like a crime boss and more like a man drowning inside the life he controlled.
“Why do you do it?”
Vincent opened his eyes.
Khloe continued.
“If it’s mostly logistics and headaches and body parts, why don’t you walk away?”
Vincent turned his head toward her.
The space inside the car suddenly felt smaller.
“I inherited the logistics.”
“My father built the company.”
“But he built it on blood.”
“When he died, I took over because I wanted to legitimize it.”
“Turn the illegal capital into concrete and steel.”
“The harbor project is the last step.”
“Once it’s built, Costa Logistics is entirely clean.”
He shifted slightly toward her.
“But the people we used to work with—the O’Callahans, the unions—they don’t want clean.”
“They want the old way.”
“If I step down or show weakness, they’ll tear the city apart trying to take what I have.”
Khloe stared at him.
For the first time, she could see the crushing weight behind his control.
“You can’t save everyone, Vincent.”
The first name came naturally.
Vincent’s gaze dropped briefly toward her mouth.
Then returned to her eyes.
“I know.”
His voice lowered.
Vincent reached across the seat.
His hand brushed a loose strand of hair behind Khloe’s ear.
His fingertips remained against her jawline.
The touch was impossibly gentle.
Nothing like the violence she knew those hands were capable of.
“I’m trying to save the things that matter.”
He did not move away.
Neither did Khloe.
For several seconds, the city outside disappeared.
There was only the engine.
His cologne.
And the dangerous pull between them.
Monday morning tasted like ash and cheap coffee.
Khloe sat at the walnut desk outside Vincent’s office wearing her normal gray skirt, white blouse, and sensible beige flats.
The emerald dress was at the dry cleaner.
A remnant of a life that did not belong to her.
But the office had changed.
Frank arrived with coffee from an expensive bakery.
Dom placed encrypted drives on her desk without asking for a receipt.
They no longer treated her like furniture.
Khloe had stood beside Vincent in a room full of predators.
She had not failed.
Vincent, however, had retreated.
His office doors stayed closed.
He said nothing about the car.
Nothing about his hand against her face.
Nothing about the heavy silence between them afterward.
He had become the architect of the Costa empire again.
At 1:14 p.m., the quiet shattered.
The fire alarm screamed through the building.
Khloe stood.
Her hand instinctively reached toward the files on her desk.
The private elevator chimed.
The doors opened.
The man inside was not Frank.
He wore a tactical vest.
A suppressed submachine gun was already rising toward her.
Time slowed.
Khloe saw the scuffed combat boots.
Sweat on his forehead.
The muzzle coming up.
Then a heavy body struck her from the side.
Vincent tackled her to the floor.
The glass partition above Khloe’s desk exploded into thousands of fragments.
Suppressed gunfire spat through the reception area.
The bullets tore into drywall and shredded Khloe’s chair.
“Stay down!”
Vincent drew the matte-black handgun from his shoulder holster and fired twice over the edge of the desk.
The cracks of the unsilenced shots filled the floor.
The gunman fell backward into the elevator.
The doors attempted to close repeatedly against his boot.
Khloe could not breathe.
A high ringing filled her ears.
She lay on the rug among broken safety glass.
Vincent knelt over her.
His shoulders covered her body.
“Are you hit?”
His hands checked her arms.
Shoulders.
Back.
“No.”
Khloe’s voice sounded distant to her.
“No, I’m okay.”
“Declan is making a play for the data.”
Vincent scanned the destroyed reception area.
“The harbor permits.”
“Routing numbers.”
“Offshore accounts.”
“It’s all stored locally.”
The stairwell door burst open.
2 more men entered.
Vincent caught Khloe by the collar and dragged her backward over the carpet.
“Move into the office.”
He fired down the hallway, forcing the attackers behind marble planters.
Khloe scrambled on hands and knees.
Glass cut into her palms.
She reached Vincent’s office.
He followed her inside.
Then slammed the mahogany doors and locked the steel deadbolt.
Bullets tore immediately through the center panels and struck the far wall.
“They have the floor.”
Vincent dropped his empty magazine and loaded another.
“Frank and Dom are downstairs checking a shipment.”
“They’re cut off.”
“What do we do?”
Khloe’s voice shook.
But she was no longer crying.
A cold clarity had taken over.
Vincent looked at her.
Saw the blood on her hands.
His jaw tightened.
Then he crossed to the bookshelves.
He grabbed a bronze bookend and pulled it downward.
A mechanical groan came from behind the wall.
The entire shelf opened.
Behind it was a narrow steel-lined passage.
“The server room.”
Vincent pointed toward it.
“It’s reinforced.”
“We lock it down, cut network access from inside, and wait for Frank to clear the building.”
He grabbed Khloe’s hand.
The grip was desperate.
Almost painful.
They entered the hidden passage as Vincent’s office doors collapsed behind them.
The server room was a vault.
Freezing.
Loud.
Rows of hard drives blinked beneath the endless hum of cooling fans.
Thick steel walls surrounded them.
Soundproof.
Bulletproof.
Vincent shut the reinforced door and spun the locking wheel.
Several deadbolts slid into place.
They were sealed inside.
Vincent leaned back against the steel door.
Then slowly lowered himself to the floor.
He closed his eyes.
Khloe stood in the center of the room shaking from the cold and fading adrenaline.
Her hands were cut.
Dust covered her clothes.
Then she looked toward Vincent.
His charcoal jacket was ruined.
Something darker than dust spread through the left sleeve.
Blood.
“Vincent.”
Her composure finally broke.
“You’re bleeding.”
He opened his eyes and glanced toward his arm.
“Ricochet off the doorframe.”
“Caught the bicep.”
“It’s not an artery.”
Vincent attempted to stand.
His boots slipped.
Pain crossed his face.
Khloe moved immediately.
She dropped beside him.
Pulled the jacket away from his shoulders.
“Don’t move.”
Vincent looked surprised by her tone.
Then leaned his head back.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Khloe ignored the sarcasm.
She unbuttoned his shirt.
Blood from her scraped hands marked the white fabric.
The bullet had torn a jagged path through his upper arm.
Blood ran slowly toward his elbow.
Khloe looked around.
No first-aid kit.
Only metal racks.
A desk.
A terminal.
Then she reached beneath her gray skirt.
She caught the hem of the white cotton slip underneath.
Tore away a long strip.
Folded it.
Pressed it hard against the wound.
Vincent groaned.
His eyes shut.
The back of his head struck the door.
His uninjured hand grabbed Khloe’s hip with bruising force.
“Keep pressure.”
“Don’t let up.”
“I’m sorry.”
Khloe’s face was inches from his.
“I know it hurts.”
“It’s fine.”
He opened his eyes.
No mask remained.
Only exhaustion.
Pain.
And something rawer.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Vincent said.
“I should have fired you that morning.”
“Sent you away.”
“I didn’t want to go.”
The answer came without preparation.
Khloe pressed harder against the wound.
Vincent’s hand loosened at her hip.
Then moved slowly along her waist to her ribs.
His palm felt hot through the thin blouse.
“I ruin everything, Khloe.”
“Everything I touch turns into violence or ash.”
“My father made sure of it.”
“This life is a sickness.”
“It spreads.”
“I’m already infected, Vincent.”
Khloe’s voice hardened.
“I brought you the harbor files.”
“I stood beside you at the gala.”
“I’m sitting in a server room while Irish hitmen shoot up my desk.”
“You don’t get to push me away so you can feel better about yourself.”
“Not anymore.”
Vincent stared at her.
The calculating man she knew seemed to disappear.
In his place was only a wounded man on a steel floor looking toward the 1 person who still seemed real to him.
He lifted his hand into her dust-covered hair.
Then pulled her down.
The kiss was not gentle.
It was impact.
Fear.
Copper.
Relief.
A desperate insistence that both of them were still alive.
Khloe caught his shoulders while keeping clear of the wound.
Vincent kissed her like a drowning man reaching solid ground.
The world beyond the vault stopped mattering.
Gunfire in the building became distant background noise.
When Vincent finally pulled away, both of them were breathing hard.
He rested his forehead against hers.
“If we get out of this room, you don’t go back to the bullpen.”
“You don’t stay an assistant.”
“You stay with me.”
“You understand?”
“You stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
A heavy pounding struck the steel door.
Vincent’s face changed immediately.
He reached for the gun on the floor.
Pulled Khloe behind him.
“Boss!”
Frank’s muffled voice came through the metal.
“It’s Frank.”
“The floor is clear.”
“They’re running down the fire escapes.”
Vincent lowered the weapon.
Tension left his shoulders.
He looked back toward Khloe.
“Time to go to work.”
They did not leave the server room immediately.
Vincent instructed Frank to lock down the building and secure every elevator.
Then he pulled himself upright using the metal desk.
He pointed toward the terminal.
“Log in.”
Khloe sat.
Her hands still shook.
Her slip was torn.
But her mind had become frighteningly focused.
She entered her administrative credentials.
The monitor lit the room in pale blue.
“Declan thinks this is a street war,” Vincent said.
“He thinks hiring men to shoot up an office is power.”
“We’re going to show him what actual power looks like.”
Vincent leaned across her shoulder.
“Pull up the routing protocols for the Southside railyards.”
Khloe moved through the logistical software she had spent 2 years learning.
“Got it.”
“They have 6 shipments of smuggled electronics arriving tonight from Montreal.”
“Reroute them.”
“How?”
“Flag the containers as hazardous biological waste in the federal database.”
“The government seizes them at the border.”
“Declan loses $4 million in product by midnight.”
Khloe executed the command.
“Now open the shell-company ledgers.”
Vincent’s voice had lost any trace of mercy.
May you like
“O’Callahan launders cash through Delaware businesses.”
“You have the account numbers.”
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