Chapter 8 #2
Let every man who saw her on that stage understand the correction.
Let every buyer, broker, associate, and parasite take the lesson with them: whatever they think Maya Reeves is, whatever they believe I paid for, whatever ugliness this performance requires, touching her without permission costs more than they can afford.
Outside, the humid night wraps around us. The valet sees my face and nearly trips getting the car. Omar appears near the curb as if the shadows alone produced him. His gaze moves from me to Maya, then to her wrist.
“Handled?” he asks.
“Not nearly enough for my liking.”
His eyes cut toward the club entrance. “Name?”
“Alistair Voss.”
“I’ll find him.”
“No. Not yet.”
Omar stops instantly. He hears what Maya doesn’t yet understand. No doesn’t mean mercy. It means not now. It means I want the man to live in utter fear before I decide how much pain I want to inflict on him for his misstep.
“Later,” I say.
Omar accepts it with a single nod, though I can tell he doesn’t like it.
I put Maya in the car before she can ask what I mean, following, the door closes us inside the dark.
The driver pulls away before traffic clears.
He has worked for me long enough to know when unsolicited questions are dangerous.
With one last glance in the rear-view mirror, he presses a button, and the privacy partition rises.
It doesn’t fully click into place before Maya turns on me.
“What the hell was that?”
I settle back against the seat. “Be more specific. What was what?”
“You pulled a gun on that man in the middle of a private club.”
“Yes.”
“With Leon twenty feet away.”
“Leon was farther than that.”
“That is not the point.”
“It is one point.”
Her eyes flash. Beautiful. Murderous. Mine to irritate for at least the next five days. “Are you insane?”
“No,” I say. “I am exact — efficient if you will.”
“Exact?” She laughs once, sharp and furious. “That was your exact choice? Put a gun under your jacket because some drunk asshole touched my wrist?”
“Alistair Voss was not drunk, not tonight, at least. Though he is an asshole.”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“He is cruel when sober. Careless when offended. And utterly cowardly when afraid.”
“Oh, good. I’m so glad we preserved the intelligence value of your public felony,” She quips irritably.
My mouth twitches toward a smile. She notices and looks like she wants to slap me.
“You’re angry,” I say.
“You think?” she says with exasperation.
“At me?”
“No, Stefano, I’m furious at the valet.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“Ah, well that’s good at least.”
That stops her for half a second. “Good?”
“Better anger than fear.”
“I wasn’t afraid of him.”
“I know.”
“Then why interfere?”
“Because he touched you.”
Her face contorts into an inquisitive grimace. One I’ve never seen on her before.
“That makes you sound unhinged.”
I look at her wrist. The anger in me sharpens again, quiet and vicious. The mark is small. A temporary pressure line, already fading under the dim light.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she says quickly, rubbing her wrist absently.
Liar.
I catch her wrist before she can hide the flex of her fingers.
She resists for half a breath, then lets me turn her hand palm-up beneath the light.
Her pulse is fast against my thumb. Not from Alistair now.
From me. From the argument. From whatever thing has been growing between us since she looked at me on that stage.
There is no bruise.
“You don’t pull a gun every time someone touches me,” she says.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maya.” Her name quiets her, enough to make her hear me.
“You wanted me to play the role,” she says. “You told me to stay in cover. You told me not to improvise. That was me doing the job.”
“That was you allowing a man to put his hands on you because you thought enduring it made you useful.”
“It did make me useful. He was talking.”
“He was escalating.”
“I had it handled.”
“Yes.”
“Then why—”
“Because I didn’t like watching it.”
The truth lands between us with more force than the gun did.
I could have chosen my words more carefully.
Said something strategic, instead of honest. Something about optics, reputation, maintaining the fiction that I am possessive enough to kill over a purchased woman.
But the truth is, I didn’t like watching it.
Maya stares at me as if I have handed her a weapon and she is deciding which end cuts deepest.
The car moves through Miami traffic, lights dragging gold and red across her face.
She looks too composed in the black dress.
Too sharp. Too much like a woman who would rather be furious than admit she understands the difference between a man who wants to own her and a man who will destroy anyone else for touching her.
Both are dangerous, and I know which one I am.
“You don’t get to not like it,” she says.
My thumb pauses against her wrist.
“You don’t get to act like that was about me when you’re the one who put me in that room. You left me there. You made me bait.”
“Yes.”
I will not insult her by denying the truth, no matter how much I hate myself for it in this moment.