21. Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
HARLOWE
The dress was already on the bed when I emerged from the shower, steaming and pink, hair still soaked, leaving stripes down my back.
The designer waited in the hallway, cardboard box by her feet, a handmade pin cushion shaped like a tomato.
Arrow must have provided every measurement and psychological profile in advance.
She was petite, with acid-blonde hair, center-parted, and clipped back. She greeted me by name, then sized me up with a glance and said, “Shall we?”
It wasn’t black, more a crimson red, like vermillion.
The fabric was softer than skin, and slit to the thigh.
I wanted to hate it—I did hate it—but there it was, perfect and absurd.
Romanov blood in a Virelli hull. The deep V neckline mocked modesty, and the back gaped open, leaving a trail of bare skin from my spine to my ass.
The tailor dabbed a finger along the edge of my bruise, muttering about makeup shades and color correcting, as she lined my hazel eyes with a smoky copper eyeshadow and thick winged eyeliner.
The lip stain matched the color of my dress, before she started in with the needles—a hem taped here, a thread cinched there, until I stood in front of the full-length mirror looking unmistakably like a woman about to commit war by other means.
“Red’s your color.” Her tone was clinical and detached.
She yanked one of the straps tight, cinching my waist so the dress molded to my bones. She smoothed the fabric over my hips.
“You’ll cause a scene.”
I swallowed the urge to ask if she’d ever custom-fit a dress for a corpse. She pinned one lock of my hair behind my ear, leaving the rest in loose curls cascading down my back—exposing the cut on my neck and the constellation of finger marks around my throat.
Spiked black heels finished the look. Then the tailor stepped back, appraising the result.
“A little more blood and you’d be a Botticelli painting.”
Her accent made the words sound like a hex.
Arrow appeared in the doorway as she packed up, hands in his pockets, looking me over like an auction lot about to go to the highest bidder. He didn’t bother hiding the heat in his eyes.
“Beautiful,” he said without irony. The word was a weapon.
His eyes traced the outline of the dress like a physical touch, lingering on the bruises that decorated my throat like a necklace. The possessiveness in his gaze made my skin prickle with awareness.
“You look like you’re attending a funeral,” I said.
“I am.” His voice was soft. “The death of Harlowe Virelli and the birth of Harlowe Romanov.”
I rolled my eyes to hide the shiver that ran down my spine. “Poetic.”
He stepped into the room, and the tailor quickly gathered her things, sensing the shift. She mumbled something about not messing up my makeup and scurried out, closing the door behind her.
Arrow moved toward me with that predatory grace that seemed to be embedded in his DNA. Black suit fitted perfectly to broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The only splash of color was a crimson tie that matched my dress exactly.
“Planning ahead?” I nodded at it.
“Always.” He circled me slowly, taking in every detail. When he reached my back, his fingers brushed lightly over the exposed skin of my spine. “The press will be there tonight—everyone who matters in this city.”
“And I’m supposed to smile and pretend I’m madly in love with you?”
He stopped in front of me, eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
“You’ll stand by my side and let them see what they’ve been whispering about for weeks.
The last Virelli, claimed by a Romanov.” His thumb traced the edge of my jaw, lingering at the corner of my mouth.
“Tonight is about power. About showing the world that the old rules still apply.”
I wanted to slap his hand away, but something in me froze at his touch. Something treacherous that responded to the way his fingers traced my skin like it was already his property. I hated that part of myself more than I hated him.
“I have no desire to be a prop in whatever fucked-up Romanov power play this is,” I said, though my voice lacked conviction.
His eyes darkened. “No, moya prekrasnaya gadyuka,* you’re much more than that. You’re the prize.” He stepped closer, body heat radiating against my bare back. “The one thing every powerful man in this city knows I have that they don’t.”
“A hostage, you mean.”
Arrow laughed, a low sound that vibrated through me. “A queen.” His hand moved to my throat, fingertips brushing over the marks Natalya’s knife had left. “Tonight, we show them that the future of this city belongs to us.”
“There is no ‘us,’” I insisted, but the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
He turned me to face him, hands firm on my shoulders. “There will be. After tonight, after the wedding, there will only be us.” His thumb traced the edge of my collarbone. “The last Romanov and the last Virelli. The beginning of a new dynasty.”
I stepped back, needing distance from his touch, from the way it made my skin tingle with anticipation rather than revulsion. “I’m not going to help you play king.”
“You already are.”
He was right; I was already playing his game by standing here in this bloodred dress, allowing myself to be paraded in front of Manhattan’s elite.
“Am I allowed to eat at this function, or is it only for show?” I asked.
The dress cut so sharply at my ribs it felt like a corset. I could barely breathe, let alone plot mischief.
Arrow’s mouth curved into that irresistible smile. “Eat, drink, humiliate me if you want. Just remember which name you’re doing it under.”
He straightened the edge of the collar, his knuckles grazing the almost-healed bite on my jaw with proprietary intent, then stepped away. “We’re leaving in five.”
In the mirror, I saw what they’d always wanted—a weapon dressed in Romanov red, willing and on display.
The ride to the event was a production—an armored SUV led by more armored vehicles and, surprise, more armored vehicles bringing up the rear. Ivan navigated each intersection like a sweep team clearing rooms, while Arrow sat with his thighs spread, watching me.
I watched the night slide past in a whorl of neon and sleet. Every block we passed belonged to families now either dead, exiled, or plotting their return. I used to imagine the Romanov-Virelli feud as a kind of ancient, generational chess game, but in Arrow’s presence, it was clear.
It was a knife fight, and most of the knives were already inside the survivors.
I’d expected discomfort, a reckoning of nerves, but as the convoy lurched toward its destination, I found myself weirdly calm.
Maybe it was trauma’s aftershock, or maybe it was just knowing that tonight, for the first time, there’d be too many witnesses for anyone to put a bullet in my skull without the city watching.
Arrow offered a flask. “For your nerves.”
I drank the vodka, savoring the burn. “You don’t think I’ll embarrass you?”
He grinned, perfectly straight white teeth stark in the light. “Turn around.”
I hesitated, then did, arching my back slowly so the dress sang against my skin.
“Hold your hair up.”
His fingers traced the arch of my spine, skating over the open back of the dress, pausing at my neck, before removing the collar. In its place, he fastened a gold chain around my throat. A single charm hung heavy on my chest—a bloodred A.
“You understand what this is.”
I looked at it in the dark window, refracted in a chain of infinity, and felt my pulse hammer hard against the links. “Subtle.”
Arrow’s fingers lingered one more moment, thumb brushing gently over the sharp edge of my jaw. “Better than a leash.”
Releasing my hair, he fixed his gaze on the window.
The SUV pulled up in front of the Estate Hotel, which had been closed for a “private event” since dusk. Paparazzi and onlookers crowded behind velvet ropes held taut by Arrow’s men, their faces mobbing the perimeter.
The Estate was a glossy monstrosity hydrated nightly with billionaire tears, and the phalanx of security outside funneled them into the entryway.
Paparazzi milled at the ropes, eyes like sharks’ teeth, cameras bristling for the first rumor of blood in the water.
Arrow stepped out, adjusted his cufflinks, and held his hand out for me as if we’d been choreographing this moment for decades.
I took it, stepping down in my skintight dress, heels plunging into the frosted curb.
His grip was tight on my hand—not just for show. Bodyguards occupied every square of concrete, and I realized with icy, foreign clarity that Arrow and I were the only two people who’d be allowed to leave alive if shit went sour.
Inside, the air was thick with perfume and power. Every surface mirrored, every gesture designed for capture. Every face a study in predation dressed up as etiquette.
Arrow’s grip on my hand was firm and possessive as he led me through the lobby. I caught more than one camera flash, felt the stab of thirty rival gazes slicing down the line of my dress, cataloguing every weakness, and every bruise.
The ballroom was a fishbowl of political heavies and old-family scions, the kind of blue-bloods who were always one bankruptcy away from a headline. I recognized half the faces, either from bloodlines or police blotters.
As I crossed the threshold, the whole room turned, first in curiosity and then in awe. He’d made no secret that I was the prize for tonight—a rare bird, plumage fresh and dripping.
I let them stare, refusing to drop my gaze or shrink behind Arrow’s largesse. I wanted to burn every eye out of every head that looked at my brand, my body, as if it were a painting with an auction-house estimate already tacked to the frame.