Prologue #2
He flicks a glance toward the bartender. “I asked.”
Of course he had. After all, he also knew my drink. The man is nothing, if not determined.
“Ah.” I let my lips curve, even though my instincts are sharpening. “And what should I be careful about, Mr.…”
I leave the question hanging, an invitation for him to supply his name. Not surprisingly, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Broody doesn’t respond.
I’m not sure how, but he manages to lean in even closer, dominating my space without touching me anywhere but my wrist.
Then slowly, deliberately, he brushes his thumb over my fluttering pulse.
My breath catches in spite of myself.
“Fair warning, Valentina.” He inhales, like he’s tasting me. “I don’t share.”
A slow, delighted laugh spills out of me before I can stop it. Pure sin, my brothers would grumble. “I haven’t agreed to anything with you.”
He quirks his lips, annoyingly, enchantingly. “Yet.”
“That’s confident.”
“Would you bet against me?” His gaze drags down my body and back up, lingering like a physical touch. “Bet against us?”
Us?
I should shut this down. I should roll my eyes, toss out some dismissive line, walk back to my table, and let Santo snap the man’s neck the second he tries to follow me.
Instead, I tighten my fingers on the glass.
“What is it that turns you on, Valentina?” the stranger asks, smoothly plucking the drink from my hand and setting it on the bar, just out of reach.
I give him a slow once-over right back. He’s not the only one cataloguing and assessing.
“Confidence,” I say. “But not arrogance.”
“I’m guessing that’s a fine line?”
“Very.”
The bartender slides a tumbler of Bonds whiskey across to him. Then he takes a drink while looking at me as if he’s already stripped me out of this dress and pinned me to the nearest flat surface.
I tell myself I’m imagining it. That I’m not distracted. That the faint prickle along my spine is just attraction with teeth.
He pulls out his wallet and presents his black credit card, making me bristle. “I can pay for myself,” I tell him.
His free hand comes up, palm out, as if to soothe. “No offense meant.”
I don’t soften.
He holds my gaze, mouth curling in a way designed to reassure. “It would be my pleasure.”
My chin wants to go stubborn on principle, but my father did raise me to recognize a well-played move. And if this man thinks money gives him leverage over me, he’s going to be sorely disappointed.
“In that case,” I say, letting a cool smile unfurl, “thank you.”
“No strings attached.”
Hearing the lie, I laugh. I’ve spent my adulthood sifting truth from bullshit. No man like this, in a place like this, buys the daughter of Fabrizio Russo a drink with no strings attached.
And still, stupidly, recklessly, I want to see what he does next.
The bartender presents him with the payment terminal, and as he’s selecting a tip, a man slides in next to me on my far side, accidentally bumping the back of my chair.
Instinctively I turn, and he immediately apologizes.
I make the mistake of smiling, and he says he’s from Denver. It’s his first visit to Dallas, and he asks how we tolerate the heat and humidity.
“You get used to it.” With that, I turn my attention back to the stranger who bought me a drink.
He lifts his glass, angling it toward me. “To a memorable evening,” he proposes.
“You’re skating a fine line.” I smile.
“The one between confidence and arrogance?” He doesn’t sound remotely concerned.
My pulse is too loud.
With a challenging grin, I pick up my glass and clink the rim against his.
The cut crystal sings, clear and bright.
Then, aware of his gaze on mine, I take a steady sip.
The whiskey-forward drink settles into me with a pleasant warmth, familiar enough that I let my shoulders drop a fraction. He watches me like my reaction is the only thing happening in the room.
“How is it?”
“Wonderful.” Much better than the bottle of bubbles that Chiara had wanted.
“You look like you needed that,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.”
He waits.
“Long week.” The admission slips out before I can stop it.
His gaze warms—just a fraction. “Then let’s call this the start of a better one.”
I take another refreshing sip.
And just like that, everything tilts, like an elevator easing down a floor. A metallic curl threads down my tongue. My thoughts don’t stop, but they…lag, half a beat behind.
The rooftop soundscape blurs at the edges, the music dipping lower, distant, like someone’s turned the volume down in another room.
I frown and glance into the glass. The level’s barely changed.
Is it hitting me so hard because I’d had champagne first?
The city lights beyond the rooftop smudge at the edges, turning from crisp lines into smeared streaks of color. Gold and blue and red melt together like wet paint, but there’s a lazy, contented warmth uncurling in my chest that doesn’t match the sharp spike of alarm in my head.
I blink, hard. My lashes feel heavier than they should.
“Too strong?” he asks, voice a little too close.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, and the words come out smooth, not slurred. A half-octave softer, maybe. Like I’m humoring him.
Except I’m not fine. Something is…off.
My limbs feel light and heavy at the same time, as if my bones have been wrapped in cotton.
This isn’t the pleasant float of a good buzz. It’s more like someone’s slipped a filter over the world and forgot to tell me.
I shift, and I feel wobbly. His hand is there instantly, braced at the small of my back, steady, warm through the thin silk.
“Easy,” he murmurs, the word a sin and an order.
I straighten, mostly because his hand guides me to. My body follows his subtle pressure like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
My brain feels…slower, like I’m thinking through warm honey. A cold prickle slides down my spine. I know this sensation. I’ve seen women stumble out of private rooms in worse clubs than this with this exact glaze in their eyes.
No.
No.
My heart slams against my ribs, thunder in a too-small cage.
I lift my gaze, searching for my men.
Santo is exactly where I expect, standing near the railing, scanning the crowd.
“Hey,” the stranger says softly, cutting across the scattered thought. “Valentina. Look at me.”
My lips part. The name I meant to say evaporates. My eyes snap back to his like he’s a magnet and I’m made of filings.
“You okay?” he asks, tone threaded with concern that would sound real to anyone who doesn’t know better.
“As I told you. Long week.”
The answer is too easy. Too smooth. Like my mouth’s on autopilot while the rest of me bangs on the inside of my skull, screaming.
He’s clear. Sharp. Unblurred.
Of course he is.
I know, with the cold, sinking certainty I usually reserve for body identification, exactly what’s happening.
He did this.
Slipped something into my drink.
My fingers tighten on my glass. I try to pick it up, to let it fall, to make a scene, to shatter crystal on stone and force my men to look—
“Careful.” He closes his hand over mine, steadying me before I can follow through. To anyone watching, his gesture might seem attentive. Maybe flirtatious.
He eases the glass from my grip like it’s nothing. Like I’m nothing.
The music muffles further. The hum of voices stretches and warps.
I look in the mirror behind the bar. My eyes are too wide, too unblinking.
The skyline is a smear of neon and glass. The part of me that assesses risk, that inventories exits, keeps trying to rise, but it keeps slipping, sliding away on the same warm, inevitable tide that makes my shoulders relax.
“Valentina?” he asks again, lower now. “You with me?”
I want to yell no. Want to scream that you drugged me, you bastard.
What comes out is, “Yeah. I’m good.”
The lie is as easy as breathing.
He smiles then, slow and satisfied, and I hate that it looks good on him. “Do me a favor?” He angles his body so his mouth is near my ear, and his hand is still a warm brand at my back. “Your friends are watching. Turn around. Show them you’re okay.”
Some buried instinct tries to dig its heels in. Don’t. Don’t you dare.
Instead, my body does what he wants as he puts a hand on my seat and turns it slightly so that I’m facing the grinning women at the party table.
My smile snaps into place like a mask I’ve worn a thousand times.
Before I can stop myself, I lift my hand and curve my fingers into a ridiculous little heart.
They shriek and laugh like I knew they would.
One of them wolf whistles. Another cups her hands around her mouth and shouts something about me being “bad” and “going home with the hot one.”
Perfect cover. My stomach rolls. My cheeks feel hot. I can’t tell if it’s the drug or the fury.
“That’s my good girl,” he murmurs, too low for anyone else to hear. The words slide down my spine like ice.
He stands and offers a hand, one I’m compelled to accept.
When I’m upright, my ankles wobble, and he tightens his grip. “Now let your men know you’re leaving with me.”
My men?
I try to blink.
He knows I have security. Just who the hell are you?
“Do as you’re told, Valentina.”
I’m incapable of anything else.
I force my gaze past his shoulder, toward my men. Santo is moving now, frowning, starting toward us. Still, he’s too far. Everything is too far.
“Tell him you’re fine and that you’re going back to my room. Room 2317.” His voice has been sanded down to something smooth and coaxing. “Everything is fine. You’ll let him know when you’re ready to leave.”
Everything is fine.
Rage spikes again, bright and sharp…
Nothing is fine.
Then the emotion dulls, smothered under the heavy warmth spreading through my veins. My feet carry me toward Santo before I’ve finished deciding to move.
“I’m going with him.” To my horror, the words are clear, not slurred at all. I even add a little laugh, the sound bubbly and wrong in my own ears.
Santo frowns a little.
“Room 2317,” I repeat dutifully. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to go home.”
He scans me, eyes narrowing, cataloguing: no visible struggle, no tears, no fear on my face, no stumble he can justify stepping in over. Just his boss’s daughter, steady on her stilettos with a powerful man at her back and a rooftop full of witnesses.
“Signorina?” The question is a last check. A last chance.
“I’m good,” I reassure him. I lift my hand in a lazy little wave that feels like it belongs to someone else. “I’ll have my phone.”
He hesitates, just for a beat. Then training, protocol, optics—whatever it is—wins. He nods once and falls back, reclaiming his post by the railing.
Then the awful man who is doing this to me has my tiny purse over one shoulder and his fingers flexed against my back. To anyone watching, it probably looks like he’s being protective of his drunk date.
Except I’m not drunk. I’m compromised. And I just helped him do it.
“Let’s get you away from here.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll walk toward the exit.” He dips his head, lips near my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “Easy, princess.”
That name. That tone.
The word princess sounds different now. It’s not a gentle tease. He knows I’m a Mafia princess. And his tone is a fierce claim. Does he have any idea how much trouble he’s bought himself?
Panic surges, huge and useless, slamming into the drug dragging me under.
The rooftop tilts again as his hand directs my steps.
My body is obedient, as if we’ve done this a hundred times.
People part for us without really seeing, the music and laughter smearing into one long, distant sound.
I want to dig my heels in. I want to claw my way out of my own skin. Instead, I let him steer me toward the stairwell door, my head tipping briefly against his shoulder as if I chose it.
Who are you?
I feel suddenly, terrifyingly small as my body keeps moving, as the world turns to molasses and the stranger holds me perfectly, impossibly steady.
And what the hell are you planning to do to me?