Chapter 1 - The breath against Victor’s jaw was warm, carrying the faint scent of cheap champagne and panic.
“Kiss me. They’re watching us.”
Victor froze.
The cold steel of the snub-nosed revolver pressed against his ribs beneath his tailored jacket was familiar. The woman trembling against his chest was not.
He did not know her name. He did not know how she had passed through his security. But when a faint red laser sight moved across the velvet drapery only inches behind her head, he understood 1 thing immediately.
She had just turned him into a human shield.
The Gold Room at the Beaumont Hotel smelled of expensive gin, melted wax, and threats no one intended to say aloud.
It was the kind of charity gala where the city’s elite competed to outbid one another in silent auctions while pretending their fortunes had never touched blood.
Victor hated these events.
He hated the stiff collar of the tuxedo.
He hated politicians with hollow smiles who owed him favors.
Most of all, he hated exposure.
Standing near the edge of the ballroom with a glass of sparkling water and a wedge of lime, Victor watched the crowd.
He was not a man who enjoyed attention.
At 38, he had inherited a deteriorating empire and spent the previous 5 years rebuilding it through quiet, ruthless efficiency.
He did not make headlines.
He made problems disappear.
Javier, his head of security, stood 10 ft away beside the ice sculpture, looking like a granite statue forced into a formal suit.
Javier caught Victor’s eye and gave the smallest possible shake of his head.
Clear.
Then the anomaly appeared.
She did not move through the ballroom like the socialites.
Her movements were abrupt and frantic. She collided with a waiter and left champagne splashed across the sleeve of a city alderman.
She wore a dark green slip dress that looked as though it had come directly from a store rack. Her dark curls had been twisted into a loose knot that suggested she had done it in the back seat of a taxi.
Victor began tracking her.
Instinct.
She kept searching the room.
The exits.
The balconies.
The faces around her.
She was being hunted.
Victor watched her focus on 2 heavyset men in dark overcoats near the coat check.
Eastern European muscle.
Not his.
Not local.
The woman’s breathing became visibly faster.
She looked around at the politicians, wealthy donors, businessmen, and people drinking champagne as if nothing in the world could reach them.
Then her eyes stopped on Victor.
He gave her nothing.
No smile.
No warmth.
Only the flat, dead-eyed stare that normally sent civilians in the opposite direction.
Instead, she came directly toward him.
She crossed the distance before Javier could interfere.
Her body struck Victor’s chest.
Both hands seized the lapels of his tuxedo jacket with surprising force.
She was small.
Her grip was not.
She smelled of rain, hotel soap, and fear.
She lifted her face until her mouth was almost touching his ear.
“Kiss me. They’re watching us.”
Victor’s muscles locked.
Training prepared him for a blade under the ribs.
There was no blade.
Only a terrified woman whose entire body was shaking.
Over her shoulder, Victor saw the men in overcoats moving through the crowd.
Their hands went inside their jackets.
Then his attention shifted above them.
The mezzanine.
A shadow moved.
A red dot appeared for a moment against the crimson curtains.
Sniper.
Victor did not think.
He reacted.
His glass hit the marble floor and shattered beneath the swell of the string quartet.
His hand closed around the back of the woman’s neck, fingers disappearing into the loose knot of her hair.
He pulled her hard against him and rotated their bodies until his back faced the mezzanine.
His body covered hers completely.
Then he kissed her.
There was nothing romantic about it.
It was tactical.
Hard.
Convincing.
His mouth pressed against hers while he forced her head backward just enough to conceal her face.
Her lips were cold and chapped.
She gasped against him.
For 1 second, her body resisted the contact she herself had demanded.
Relax.
Victor tightened his grip around her waist.
His eyes remained open.
He watched the mirrored pillar to his left.
The 2 men in overcoats had stopped.
They looked confused.
The broken glass had pulled attention toward Victor, and now half the room was watching the notoriously private, cold businessman kiss an unknown woman in the middle of a charity gala.
Javier was already moving.
He had read the shift in Victor’s posture.
His hand went to his earpiece as he signaled the perimeter team.
Victor broke the kiss.
He did not release her.
Instead, he lowered his face against the curve of her neck.
“Walk,” he growled.
His breath moved across her skin.
“Don’t look at them. Don’t look at anything. Walk with me.”
“I—”
“Shut up.”
His voice remained low.
“Smile. You’re my date, and we can’t wait to get to a hotel room. Move.”
His arm tightened around her waist until he was almost carrying her.
The red laser moved across the floor, searching.
Victor kept himself between her and the mezzanine as they headed toward the kitchen doors.
They pushed through the swinging metal panels and left the quartet, chandeliers, and expensive alcohol behind.
The kitchen was chaos.
Chefs shouted.
Pans struck metal surfaces.
Servers crossed narrow spaces with trays held above their shoulders.
Victor did not slow.
He pulled the woman past a bewildered sous-chef and continued toward the rear.
“Where are we going?” she asked, breathless.
“To find out why someone is trying to put a bullet in my head.”
Victor shoved through a steel fire door leading to the loading dock.
The door slammed behind them.
The alley outside was freezing.
Chicago wind drove sleet between the brick walls. Rain struck their faces almost horizontally. The air smelled of diesel and wet garbage.
Victor drove the woman backward against the brick.
His forearm came across her collarbone and pinned her in place.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs.
“Who sent you?”
She grabbed his arm.
Trying to move it was like pushing a steel beam.
“Nobody. Nobody sent me. Let me go.”
“You bypassed my security. You used me as a shield against a sniper. And you expect me to believe nobody sent you?”
Victor leaned closer.
Rain ran through his hair.
He did not blink.
“Give me a name now, or I leave you here for those men to finish the job.”
“I don’t know who they are.”
Her voice broke.
The panic was real.
Tears mixed with rain on her face.
“I don’t know who you are.”
Victor went still.
Everyone in his world knew who he was.
“You don’t know who I am.”
“No.”
She shook her head so hard that her hair came loose and stuck to her neck.
“I was hiding by the coat check. I saw them looking for me. Everyone else was talking and laughing, and then I saw you.”
Victor said nothing.
“You looked like the scariest man in the room.”
Her breathing was becoming ragged as the adrenaline began to fail.
“Nobody was standing near you. I thought if I was with you, they wouldn’t dare shoot.”
Victor stared.
The audacity of it was almost absurd.
She had not chosen him because she knew he was Victor Rossi, head of one of the city’s most dangerous syndicates.
She had chosen him because he looked like a monster.
And she needed a monster to keep the wolves back.
Something close to a cynical laugh moved in his throat.
Victor released some of the pressure against her collarbone and stepped back half a pace.
He still blocked the alley.
“What’s your name?”
His voice had changed.
Less threat.
More analysis.
“Khloe.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
Her soaked green dress clung to her skin.
“Khloe Bennett.”
“Well, Khloe Bennett, you just crashed an assassination attempt.”
Victor pulled out his phone.
“The problem is, I don’t know if they were shooting at you, or if you interrupted a hit intended for me.”
The fire door opened behind them.
Javier stepped into the alley with a suppressed handgun held close to his chest.
He swept the area in seconds, then lowered the weapon slightly.
“2 bodies in the coat check,” he reported. “Throats cut. The men in the overcoats are gone. Sniper position on the mezzanine was abandoned. We found a bipod and a cigarette butt.”
Victor processed it immediately.
The men near the coat check had not been the principal threat.
They had been flushing the target into view.
“Falcone?” Victor asked.
Javier shook his head.
“Messier. Professional, but not local. They were hunting.”
His attention shifted toward Khloe.
“Who’s the girl?”
“A complication.”
Khloe pressed herself against the wall.
Her eyes remained on Javier’s gun.
She was a civilian.
Terrified.
Untrained.
And now inside a conflict Victor did not understand.
The rational decision would have been to walk away.
Let the city take her.
It was not his problem.
But Victor’s world depended on leverage, information, and control.
Khloe Bennett was the only piece on the board he did not understand.
Victor despised blind spots.
“Bring the car.”
Javier’s jaw tightened.
“Boss, protocol—”
“Bring the car.”
The order ended the conversation.
Javier disappeared back through the doorway.
Victor removed his tuxedo jacket.
Cold rain immediately soaked through his white shirt.
He placed the jacket over Khloe’s shoulders.
It nearly swallowed her.
“Walk.”
He gestured toward the mouth of the alley where an armored black sedan was approaching.
“I’m not getting into a car with you.”
Khloe stepped backward.
Her shoulders touched brick again.
“You have a man with a gun. You’re talking about assassinations. I just want to go home.”
“The people hunting you know where home is.”
Victor said it quietly.
“They know your face. They know you survived. If you leave this alley by yourself, you’ll be dead before sunrise.”
He stepped closer.
This time without force.
“You chose the scariest man in the room because you wanted to live.”
He opened the rear door.
“Get in.”
Khloe looked at the dark interior.
Then at the empty street.
Then at the rain.
She pulled Victor’s jacket more tightly around herself.
It smelled of cedar, expensive cologne, and gunpowder.
Finally, she climbed inside.
Victor entered behind her and shut the door.
May you like
The armored car sealed them away from the storm.
The drive was silent.
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