Chapter 1 #2
Secondly, my attention is suddenly pulled from Vaughn to a similar, yet more familiar face.
My throat works and my brow furrows as I watch Val slip noiselessly into the banquet hall through a side door, nodding once to the two guards glancing his way before immediately pulling his shiny black mask over his face.
The fuck is he doing here?
I mean, his brother is the head of the Obsidian Syndicate and the host of tonight’s…whatever-the-fuck this is. But Val isn’t involved in his brother’s underworld dealings, as far as I’m aware.
He’s no mobster. He’s a professional ballet dancer, like Evelina. A famously wild partier who, according to my sister, is as known for his sexual conquests—of both men and women—as he is for his talents as a dancer. Possibly more.
He rides motorcycles, smokes, dresses like a 70’s punk icon in black leather jackets, ripped jeans and rock t-shirts, wears his hair longish and shaggy, and basically thumbs his nose at any and all authority.
The times we’ve crossed paths, usually via my sister, he’s mostly annoyed the fuck out of me.
Mostly.
The black spark flickers inside me. But I refuse to let my sickness take hold. Not now. Not ever. Definitely not while I’m trying to get what I came for tonight.
I retreat around the back of the pillar and slip the flask out to take another sip of control.
“Please join me in welcoming our esteemed guest and my good friend, Signor Cosimo Sangrini.”
I glance back around the side of the pillar as muted applause welcomes a man to the stage that truly needs no introduction. Not to this crowd.
Cosimo Sangrini is the thirtieth—I'm not kidding—Sangrini to helm his family’s underworld banking empire, one that stretches all the way back to the fucking Crusades, when the Sangrini family bankrolled the Knights Templar in their conquests.
Today, the Sangrini family is one of those hidden powers I was talking about: one you see and whose influence you feel daily, you just have no idea that you do.
And in the world in which my family operates, cozying up to Cosimo is like an actor becoming besties with Steven fucking Spielberg, or a cardinal getting tight with the Pope.
The problem—and the reason I’m here tonight—is that the Nikitin Bratva obviously isn't the only underworld empire to understand that.
Case in point, tonight’s banquet involving the who’s-who of the criminal underbelly, hosted by Vaughn at his evil Bond villain mountain retreat.
Cosimo Sangrini is in his late thirties.
Like Vaughn, he’s a good-looking, well-dressed man who breathes raw power.
His black hair is slicked back and his flinty, steel-colored eyes scan the room as a slight smile—more a smirk—touches his too-perfect lips.
He dips his chin graciously to the crowd and then gives Vaughn another calculating smile.
My ring clicks away, snapping pic after pic of the two of them shaking hands up there on the dais.
I smile grimly.
I know what this evening is about. I know why Vaughn’s rolled out the red carpet for his "esteemed guest". But that’s a discussion I’ll have with my father after I show him these images.
I glance down at the crowd as I make my way through the shadows of the mezzanine, looking for a better vantage point from which to shoot and to see if I can pick up anything with the hidden microphone that's also concealed in my ring.
Finally, I slide into a shadowy alcove looking right down onto the dais from the side.
There's a slight scuff of footsteps that gives the guy's presence away a millisecond before he grabs me. But it’s not enough time for me to react before the fucker wraps a strong arm around my neck, spins me around, and shoves me into a dark hall that splits off from the mezzanine.
I grit my teeth and ram an elbow back, catching him in the ribs. A triumphant grin spreads over my face when I hear the satisfying “ughngh” of pain. But it fades when he suddenly grabs both my wrists and yanks them behind my back.
I choke out a breathless grunt as he pins me, hard, forcing my arms back at an odd angle that keeps my cheek flat to the stone wall of the dark hallway.
Whoever the guy is, he’s fucking strong.
I go to shove away again, throwing my elbows back and trying to stomp on his foot. But he’s too fucking fast, and suddenly, the world lurches sideways as my legs are knocked clean out from under me.
Shit.
In half a second, the motherfucker’s rolled me over his shoulder like a goddamn wrestler, then slammed me to the ground on my back.
I try to scramble to my feet, but his entire weight immediately comes down on my sternum as he plants himself on my lower chest, his muscled thighs either side of my torso.
I take a vain swing at him before he grabs my wrists and shoves my hands back, pinning them above my head to the polished stone floor.
An alien, destructive force wrenches, writhes, and twists through my body.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me. I’m six-four, two hundred and forty pounds of lean muscle, and I’ve been fighting and training since I was six.
Nobody surprises me, drops me, and pins me down.
Not ever.
And yet…here we are.
I grit my teeth, hissing as I flex my muscles uselessly, trying to shove the fucker off me.
But we’re about the same size, and his grip isn’t loosening one bit as he looms over me.
Piercing, ice-blue eyes slice into me like knives through the eyeholes of his mask.
Eviscerating me. Cutting me open and dissecting me, scooping out all the dirty little secrets.
Seeing all the poison and corrupt blood inside me.
I snarl, pushing against him as his weight settles onto me, his large, tattooed hands effortlessly keeping my wrists pinned to the floor.
He leans down lower. Those all-consuming, frozen, ice-blue eyes stab right into me.
Freezing me to the spot.
Shattering my strength.
“You,” he growls in a low, almost sultry tone that sends a foreign and yet familiar sensation creeping up my spine.
My breath catches as he quickly brings his face another six inches toward mine. The low light from the hall behind us catches in his eyes, making them look like twin oceans on fire.
“You don’t belong here…Roman.”