Chapter 2 - He did not require it.
“Remain with the vehicle,” he told Miles.
“Boss, there are at least 12 men inside.”
Dante was already crossing the rain-soaked pavement.
His suit adhered to his body as he moved with singular purpose.
The larger bouncer recovered first.
Tribal tattoos extended from his thick neck toward his jaw.
“Hey, you cannot park—”
Dante never slowed.
He entered the man’s guard, seized his throat and belt, and used the bouncer’s momentum to drive his head into the brick wall.
Bone struck stone beneath the thunder.
The man collapsed.
The second bouncer stopped with his hand halfway inside his jacket.
Recognition widened his eyes.
“Dante Gallo.”
“Where are the restrooms?”
It was not a question.
“Down the corridor. Left side.”
Dante passed him and entered through the club’s soundproof double doors.
Noise struck with physical force.
The air was filled with sweat, spilled gin, artificial fog, and hundreds of moving bodies illuminated by strobe lights.
Dante ignored everything.
He moved through the crowd and used his hands to throw people from his path.
Angry protests died when people saw the empty fury inside his eyes.
He reached the rear hallway.
The music became muted.
The women’s restroom door hung partly detached from its frame. Splintered wood surrounded the broken lock.
Dante stepped over the debris.
Flickering fluorescent lights revealed 3 stalls.
The first 2 were open.
The final door remained locked.
Derek stood before it holding a steel trash container above his head, preparing to strike the partition.
“Come outside.”
He grunted with effort.
“You are only making this embarrassing.”
“Put it down.”
Dante did not raise his voice.
The words cut through the room.
Derek froze.
He lowered the container and turned.
All color left his face when he saw Dante standing in the entrance, rainwater falling from his immaculate suit.
“Gallo.”
Derek stepped backward until he touched the stall door.
“This is not what it appears to be.”
His drunken confidence vanished.
“We were only having a drink. It was a misunderstanding.”
Dante approached slowly.
Water fell from his clothing onto the tiles.
“She told you to stop.”
“I did not touch her.”
Derek raised both hands.
“I swear. I only wanted to speak with her.”
He tried to smile.
“It was leverage. Business.”
“Business?”
Dante stopped approximately 2 feet away.
“Yes.”
Derek nodded rapidly.
“Only business.”
Dante’s fist moved without warning.
His knuckles struck the center of Derek’s face with the force of a piston.
Derek’s nose shattered.
Blood struck the beige wall.
He screamed and collapsed onto his knees with both hands over his face.
Dante seized his hair and pulled his head backward, exposing the throat.
Then he drove his knee upward into Derek’s jaw.
The bone broke with a sound that echoed between the tiles.
Derek became limp and fell into a mixture of dirty water and blood.
Dante stood over him.
The skin across his knuckles had split, but he felt no pain.
Only an empty silence remained.
He faced the final stall.
The monster receded beneath the suit and the expensive watch.
“Khloe.”
There was no response.
“It is me.”
Dante softened his voice.
“It is finished. He is unconscious.”
A shoe scraped against porcelain.
Then the lock moved.
The stall door opened slightly.
Dante pushed it farther.
Khloe stood on the toilet lid exactly as instructed.
She appeared impossibly small.
Her dark hair, normally secured with professional precision, fell around her face. Makeup was smeared beneath her eyes.
Both hands held the telephone against her chest.
When she saw Dante, the last of her composure disappeared.
She dropped the telephone into the toilet bowl, stepped down, and threw herself against him.
Dante caught her and moved backward half a step beneath the force.
Khloe wrapped both arms around his waist and buried her face inside his wet shirt.
She trembled so violently that the movement passed into his body.
Her fingers closed around his jacket as though nothing else in the world remained solid.
Dante froze.
He did not know how to comfort people.
He was unaccustomed to touch from anyone who did not want money, power, or his death.
For a long second, his hands remained suspended.
Then he lowered them carefully around her shoulders and drew her against his chest.
He placed her head beneath his chin.
Dante ignored the soaked clothing and the blood across his hands.
“I have you.”
His voice moved through his chest.
“You are safe.”
Khloe sobbed without sound.
“He knew my name.”
She gripped him more tightly.
“He knew about the office.”
“I know.”
Dante held her.
“It has been handled.”
His voice hardened.
“No one will look at you again.”
He remained with her until the trembling began to lessen.
The music outside continued, distant and irrelevant.
Inside the damaged bathroom, only Khloe’s breathing mattered.
Eventually, she withdrew.
Her eyes moved toward Derek’s unconscious body and then toward Dante’s injured knuckles.
She did not flinch.
From the small clutch bag she had somehow retained, Khloe removed a clean white handkerchief.
She took Dante’s hand and gently wiped away the blood.
“You destroyed your suit.”
Her voice was still rough, but some of its usual composure had returned.
Dante watched her.
Her dress was wrinkled and her eyes red, yet she was attempting to repair him.
The surge of affection inside his chest was more frightening than any weapon he had faced.
“I own others.”
Dante removed the jacket and placed it around Khloe’s shoulders.
The heavy fabric swallowed her smaller frame and carried the smells of rain and expensive cologne.
“Let us go home.”
He kept 1 hand at her lower back and guided her toward the exit, stepping over Derek without looking down.
The professional boundary that had separated them for 3 years no longer existed.
Dante knew Monday at the office would never be the same.
As he led Khloe into the cold rain toward the waiting SUV, he understood that he did not want it to be.
The heater inside the SUV forced hot, dry air through the cabin, but Khloe continued shivering.
She sat in the rear seat beneath Dante’s jacket with her knees pressed together.
The collapse after the adrenaline left her hollow and cold.
Dante sat beside her without speaking or crowding her.
His body radiated heat.
Miles drove with both hands tight around the steering wheel.
The silence held the unspoken reality of the night.
A boss did not abandon an interrogation, assault a made member of a rival organization inside its own club, and begin a syndicate war over a secretary.
That violated every calculation of their world.
Khloe watched streetlights smear across the tinted glass.
“My apartment is on 84th.”
Her voice sounded damaged.
“We are not going there.”
Dante examined the rearview mirror.
She turned toward him.
Passing lights revealed a bruise developing along his cheekbone from a desperate strike Derek had landed before his jaw was broken.
“I need to go home. I have work tomorrow.”
The statement was absurd, but Khloe’s mind wanted spreadsheets, calendar invitations, and ordinary routines.
“Derek knows where you live.”
Dante looked at her.
“The Blakes know as well.”
His exhaustion was visible now that the violence had passed.
“By morning, they will know what happened.”
Dante’s tone became final.
“Your apartment is compromised. You remain with me until I correct this.”
Khloe wanted to argue.
The memory of Derek’s fist against the bathroom door prevented it.
She nodded and pulled Dante’s jacket more tightly around herself.
It smelled of wool, rain, and gunpowder.
It smelled safe.
Dante’s penthouse occupied the highest 2 floors of a downtown tower.
Khloe had managed its association fees and property taxes for 3 years but had never entered it.
She expected conspicuous criminal wealth—gold decoration, marble, and excessive displays.
Instead, the elevator opened into brutalist minimalism.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the storm, but the tinted glass was thick and bullet-resistant.
The furniture consisted of dark leather and steel.
There were no photographs or works of art.
The residence resembled an expensive waiting room more than a home.
“Miles.”
Dante removed his wet coat.
“Establish a perimeter.”
He ordered 2 men in the lobby and 2 inside the garage.
“Contact Donovan. Wake the crew. No one sleeps tonight.”
“Yes, boss.”
Miles raised his telephone as he entered the elevator.
The doors closed.
Dante faced Khloe.
The man who had broken Derek’s face less than 30 minutes earlier now appeared uncertain inside his own living room.
“A guest room is down the corridor.”
He gestured vaguely.
“The first door on the right. It has a private bathroom. Towels are inside the cabinet.”
Khloe looked at the dirty water falling from her shoes onto the hardwood and removed them.
“Thank you.”
She walked toward the hallway, her legs heavy.
At the doorway, Khloe stopped and looked back.
Dante remained where she had left him.
The cuts across his knuckles had opened again, allowing drops of blood to fall onto the floor.
The professional distance between them had become a crater.
Khloe knew she should enter the guest room, lock the door, and treat the night like an occupational crisis.
Then she remembered the warmth of Dante’s arms inside the bathroom.
She placed her clutch on a table and returned to him.
Dante became completely still.
Without speaking, Khloe took his wrist and led him into the kitchen.
Its island was a large slab of black granite.
She brought him to the sink and opened the faucet.
“Place your hands beneath the water.”
Dante obeyed.
Warm water carried the drying blood into the stainless-steel basin in pink currents.
Khloe found a dish towel that was clean but stiff from disuse.
She dried his scarred, calloused hands with meticulous care.
They were instruments of violence, yet he kept them relaxed beneath her touch.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
The answer was a lie.
Dante was not watching his hands.
He was looking at her bowed head.
“You should not have come.”
Khloe kept her attention on the towel.
“You endangered your business and territory for me.”
Dante stepped forward.
The space between them vanished.
With 1 injured finger beneath her chin, he raised her face.
“There is no business without you.”
The certainty in his voice moved through her.
“I would burn the entire city to the ground before allowing anyone to touch you.”
Dante held her eyes.
“Do you understand?”
Khloe saw no hesitation or regret.
Only a possessive devotion she had failed to recognize for 3 years.
“I understand.”
Dante’s thumb removed a mark of mascara from her cheek.
The touch was almost weightless, entirely at odds with what his hands had done inside the nightclub.
“Shower.”
He stepped away.
“Lock the door and attempt to sleep.”
Cold air entered the distance between them.
Khloe nodded and returned to the guest room with her heart beating in a new and dangerous rhythm.
Morning appeared over the city like a bruise.
The storm had passed, leaving a sky the color of dirty iron.
Khloe woke inside the guest room beneath sheets so soft they seemed liquid.
She wore 1 of Dante’s T-shirts, which reached the middle of her thighs.
For 3 seconds, she stared at the white ceiling without understanding where she was.
Then the club returned to her—the breaking door, blood across tile, and Dante’s arms closing around her.
Khloe sat upright as her chest tightened.
She inhaled and forced the panic back into the compartment where she placed everything she could not afford to feel.
She was Khloe Bishop.
She organized disorder.
She did not surrender to it.
Inside the guest dresser, she found sweatpants several sizes too large. Khloe rolled the waist 3 times and tightened the drawstring as far as possible.
May you like
After washing her face and forcing her hair into an untidy knot, she entered the corridor.
Low voices had replaced the penthouse’s silence.
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