Chapter 2
That was the currency of Gabriel Rossi’s world.
When she returned to the main hall, Gabriel stood at the foot of the grand staircase wearing a dark navy suit.
“Get dressed.”
He handed her a matte-black garment bag.
“We leave in an hour.”
“Where are we going?”
“The opera.”
Chloe looked at the bag.
“I don’t know anything about opera.”
“You don’t need to listen to the fat lady sing. You need to watch the men in the private boxes.”
Gabriel adjusted his cuffs.
“Carmine Falcone is in town. He’s pushing for territory in the Southside. He requested a sit-down in public. I want you in the room.”
1 hour later, Chloe stood in front of the mirror in her modest bedroom.
The dress Gabriel had provided was not flashy.
It was a dark, bruised plum, made of heavy silk that moved like water from her shoulders to the floor.
It did not demand attention.
It whispered wealth.
Camouflage.
The ride to the opera house was suffocatingly quiet.
Gabriel sat in the rear of a new armored Maybach, watching the city through tinted windows.
The new driver was built like a wall and said nothing.
After 20 minutes, Gabriel broke the silence.
“Jensen had a wire transfer pending.”
He did not turn away from the window.
“$50,000 from 1 of Carmine’s shell companies. You were right.”
Chloe stared at her hands.
“I didn’t want to be.”
“Wanting has nothing to do with survival. You see cracks in the foundation. Most people just admire the house.”
Gabriel finally looked at her.
Streetlights moved over his face in sharp bands of light and shadow.
“Tonight I need you to find the cracks in Carmine.”
The opera house was a cavern of red velvet and gold leaf.
Chloe felt the weight of its wealth immediately.
Men in tuxedos.
Women wearing diamonds worth enough to pay her sister’s medical expenses 10 times over.
They entered Gabriel’s private box.
Carmine was already waiting.
He was older, deeply tanned, with silver hair and a smile that looked carved into his face by a scalpel.
2 massive bodyguards stood near the heavy velvet curtains.
“Gabriel.”
Carmine rose and spread his arms.
“And who is this lovely creature?”
“My associate,” Gabriel replied.
He did not offer Chloe’s name.
He did not shake Carmine’s hand.
He took the armchair closest to the balcony.
Chloe positioned herself behind him and slightly to the left, disappearing into the shadows.
Below them, the overture began with a swelling collision of violins and brass.
The music was loud enough to provide perfect cover for conversation.
Carmine began discussing business.
Shipping routes.
Union bribes.
Territorial boundaries.
A hostile takeover disguised as civilized negotiation.
Gabriel listened without revealing anything.
Chloe stopped listening to the words.
She watched Carmine.
He was too relaxed for a man attempting to extort Gabriel Rossi.
His champagne glass remained steady.
His breathing was controlled.
He did not appear afraid.
So Chloe shifted her attention to the bodyguards.
The man on the left watched Gabriel continuously.
Standard muscle.
Waiting for trouble.
The bodyguard on the right was lean, with a previously broken nose.
He was not watching Gabriel.
He was watching his own wristwatch.
Every 3 minutes.
A quick glance.
His jaw remained tight.
His weight shifted repeatedly from 1 foot to the other.
He was waiting for something.
Chloe looked beyond him to the velvet curtains separating the box from the public corridor.
A narrow line of hallway light was visible beneath the fabric.
A shadow passed over it.
Someone was standing immediately outside.
Below, the music accelerated toward a crescendo.
The man with the broken nose checked his watch again.
10 seconds.
Chloe did not think.
She moved.
She stepped forward, grabbed the back of Gabriel’s chair, and leaned down until her mouth was less than an inch from his ear.
“Curtain,” she hissed. “Now.”
Gabriel did not ask why.
He did not look back.
In 1 explosive motion, he kicked the low marble coffee table into Carmine’s shins, launched himself from his chair, and tackled Chloe to the floor.
A fraction of a second later, the heavy wooden door splintered inward.
Automatic gunfire filled the private box.
Gabriel’s chair erupted into fragments exactly where his chest had been.
As he fell, Gabriel drew the handgun from his shoulder holster and twisted over Chloe’s body to shield her.
He fired twice blindly toward the doorway.
A body struck the carpet.
The opera continued below, a booming tragic chorus drowning out the screams from nearby boxes.
Gabriel rose to his knees.
1 hand remained firmly against the back of Chloe’s head, keeping her flat against the floor.
He aimed toward the corridor.
The hallway was empty except for the bleeding gunmen.
Carmine lay on the floor clutching his injured shins and shouting.
His bodyguards had drawn their weapons.
Both looked stunned.
Gabriel slowly stood and trained his gun on the lean man with the broken nose.
“You checked your watch.”
The bodyguard began to raise his weapon.
Gabriel fired once.
The man dropped.
Then Gabriel aimed at Carmine.
The older man’s face lost all color.
He raised both hands.
“Gabriel, I swear to God, I didn’t know.”
“Get out of my city by sunrise,” Gabriel said softly, “or I won’t just kill you. I’ll erase you.”
He did not wait for a reply.
Gabriel grabbed Chloe by the arm and pulled her upright.
Her legs shook so badly she could hardly stand.
His grip held her.
“Walk.”
They left the box, stepping over bodies in the corridor.
Chloe struggled to breathe.
Cordite and blood filled her throat with a metallic taste.
She had never heard gunfire from that distance.
The ringing in her ears felt permanent.
They reached the Maybach before the first police sirens began to rise through the city.
The penthouse was silent when they returned.
It was the kind of silence that seemed to be holding its breath.
Gabriel had said nothing during the drive home.
The moment they entered his private quarters, he poured 2 glasses of Scotch.
He gave 1 to Chloe.
She took it with shaking hands.
When she drank, the glass rattled against her teeth.
The alcohol burned, but it gave her something physical to concentrate on.
Gabriel removed his jacket and threw it onto the leather sofa.
Then he drew his handgun, removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, and placed the weapon on the glass coffee table with a heavy click.
He sank onto the sofa and covered his face with his hands.
Chloe remained near the doorway.
The plum silk of her dress felt cold and heavy against her body.
As the adrenaline drained away, it left behind profound exhaustion.
“You saved my life,” Gabriel said into his hands.
His voice sounded muffled.
Tired.
“Again.”
“I only looked at his watch.”
“You saw the trap before it closed.”
Gabriel lifted his head.
The shadows beneath his eyes looked darker in the low light.
“Most people would have frozen. You moved.”
“I was terrified.”
“Fear is biological, Chloe. It keeps you alive. Panic kills you. You didn’t panic.”
He tapped the leather cushion beside him.
An invitation.
Chloe hesitated.
The boundaries between them were becoming difficult to distinguish after what they had survived.
She was his employee.
He was a cartel boss.
But in the quiet room, they were also 2 people who had not died that night.
She walked over and sat on the far edge of the sofa, maintaining distance.
Gabriel leaned his head against the leather and closed his eyes.
“I used to sleep. 5, 6 years ago, I’d put my head on a pillow and the world would turn off. Now I close my eyes and calculate who profits from my death.”
“Carmine profits.”
“Carmine is an idiot,” Gabriel said quietly. “He didn’t plan that hit. He doesn’t have the stomach or the logistics. He was bait. Somebody used his meeting to get shooters through the door.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Gabriel opened his eyes and looked at her.
“That’s the problem with this throne. The line of people waiting with knives is wrapped around the block.”
He studied Chloe.
Her hair had come loose during the attack and now fell in disordered waves around her shoulders. Her makeup was smudged.
She looked small in the vast room.
Entirely misplaced among marble, weapons, and blood.
“I should let you go,” Gabriel said, his voice roughening. “I should give you a severance check big enough to clear your sister’s debts, buy you a house in the suburbs, and never speak to you again. Being close to me is a death sentence.”
Chloe looked at her hands.
She remembered Jensen’s body.
The opera house.
Blood in the corridor.
She should leave.
She should pack a bag and disappear that night.
“You need me.”
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Arrogant.
Insane.
True.
Gabriel’s eyes darkened.
The room seemed to tighten around them.
He shifted closer.
He did not touch her, but his proximity had weight.
Gunpowder remained on his skin beneath the expensive cologne.
“Yes,” he murmured.
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth.
“I do.”
“Then I stay.”
“Do you understand what you’re agreeing to?”
Gabriel lifted his hand and gently wiped soot from her cheek.
The touch was painfully tender for a man who had shot 2 people only hours earlier.
“There is no going back to the laundry room. You’re in the inner circle now. They’ll learn your name. They’ll look for your weaknesses because they can use them to reach me.”
“Then I won’t have any weaknesses.”
Gabriel laughed softly.
“Everyone has a weakness.”
His hand moved down the line of her jaw.
A violent shiver moved through Chloe.
It was not fear.
It was something more dangerous.
Something she had buried since the first morning she tied his Windsor.
“I’m going to shower,” Gabriel said abruptly.
He stood.
The sudden distance seemed necessary to both of them.
Chloe watched him move toward the bathroom.
Before he entered, she stopped him.
“Gabriel.”
He turned slightly.
“Your tie.”
He looked down.
The black silk tie had been loosened during the attack and now hung crookedly.
Chloe stood and crossed the room.
She stopped in front of him.
Instead of tightening the knot, she took the narrow end and pulled the tie free from his collar.
She folded the silk over her arm.
“It was crooked,” she whispered.
Gabriel stared at her.
A muscle moved in his jaw.
He said nothing.
Then he turned and disappeared into the bathroom.
The door closed.
Chloe remained alone, the silk heavy against her skin, understanding that she had crossed a line she could never uncross.
The change in their relationship was subtle but absolute.
Chloe was no longer required to stand silently in corners.
When Gabriel met his capos in the cigar lounge, she sat at the table.
She rarely spoke.
She did not need to.
The men quickly learned that if the quiet woman with dark eyes stared at them for too long, Gabriel began asking questions that sometimes ended with a shovel in the woods.
They became afraid of Chloe.
Not because she was violent.
Because she was a mirror reflecting their lies.
With power came paranoia.
3 weeks after the opera house, the failed assassination had fractured the unstable truce holding the city together.
The streets grew dangerous.
2 of Gabriel’s lower-level distributors were found dead inside a shipping container.
A warehouse in the East End was firebombed.
Gabriel retaliated.
He was ruthless.
Calculating.
Cold.
Chloe watched him dismantle a rival organization with the precision of a surgeon.
He was a monster.
She knew that.
But she also knew the man who woke at 3:00 a.m. drenched in sweat and paced the floor because the ghosts of the men he had ordered killed seemed to crowd his bedroom.
She made him tea.
May you like
She sat on the edge of his bed and spoke about meaningless things.
The weather.
