Chapter 5
Distribution Logistics and International Shipments
Itried to appear unshaken while internally cataloging every exit point in the gallery. There were four: the main entrance, the emergency door by the bathrooms, the staff entrance, and, if desperate enough, the skylight twelve feet above us. My money was on the emergency door. Less crowded.
I forced my face into a mask of polite disinterest, even as my pulse hammered in the hollow of my throat. This wasn’t happening. This man shouldn’t be here, in this gallery, in front of a canvas he’d painted that looked disturbingly like my dad.
“I’m Blitz.” He extended his hand toward me. “The hack artist responsible for making people want to buy more shit.”
“Neve North.” I stuck out my hand, matching his confident posture despite the storm of questions battering my mind.
His palm met mine, and the world tilted sideways.
Heat. Not a gentle kind, but a blazing shock of it racing up my arm, chasing away the perpetual chill in my fingertips. My skin tingled where our hands connected, the sensation almost electrical but impossibly pleasant.
Blitz’s eyes widened a fraction, his gaze dropping to our joined hands, then back to my face. Did he feel it too?
I yanked my hand back, curling my fingers into a fist to trap the lingering warmth.
“North.” He repeated my last name like it meant something beyond a cardinal direction. “Where are you from?”
The question felt loaded, like a test I hadn’t studied for. “Los Angeles.”
“Before that.”
My brain short-circuited. Why would he care? Why was I suddenly struggling to remember my standard answer?
“I’ve always lived here.” Why did my mouth suddenly feel so dry?
Blitz’s stare was unnerving, like he was trying to read something written on my soul.
“And your parents? Where are they from?”
“The Arctic Circle,” Mia interjected with a laugh, completely misreading the room. “Her dad studies polar ice caps or glaciers or something equally frigid. The apple couldn’t have fallen farther from the frozen tree.”
I shot her a look that could have crystallized the champagne in her glass.
Blitz tilted his head, his gaze flickering from my face to the painting, then back again. “Your parents work in the Arctic? That’s... interesting.”
The word ‘interesting’ sounded dangerous in his mouth, like a match striking against sandpaper.
I was about to deflect when a shadow shifted at the edge of my vision, and the room’s temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees.
A second man materialized beside Blitz. He was tall, solid, built like someone who could bench press a small car without breaking a sweat.
He had deep brown skin, short hair, and steel-blue eyes that took in everything without revealing a damn thing.
I hadn’t heard him approach, which was unsettling given his size.
He was from that night too. One of the men who’d followed Mike when he’d fled the patio.
He didn’t speak, just stood there like a wall of granite beside Blitz, studying me with the quiet focus of someone piecing together a puzzle mid-collapse.
“Cole.” Blitz acknowledged him with a nod. “This is Neve North.”
Cole inclined his head slightly, the gesture almost formal. His eyes never left mine, and something in their depths made my skin prickle with goosebumps.
“Nice to finally meet you.” His voice was deep, the words measured like he rationed them by the syllable.
Mia shifted beside me. “Right. Anyway, we should probably circulate. So many art patrons to charm, so little champagne to go around.” She hooked her elbow around mine, ready to lead me away.
“Already leaving?” Another voice wove through the crowd, warm and rich like honey.
A third man approached our increasingly uncomfortable gathering, his red curls a shockingly bright contrast to the gallery’s stark white walls and the muted tones of everyone’s cocktail attire. His smile was radiant and almost out of place among the contemplative expressions of the art crowd.
It felt like I’d inhaled the entire winter scene around us. Did I legit have nine stalkers?
“I’m Kip.” The redhead extended his hand toward me, his green eyes filled with a warmth that seemed impossible to fake.
Freckles dusted the bridge of his nose and the tops of his pink cheeks, escaping beneath his short beard.
His entire demeanor was like a golden retriever who’d learned to walk upright and put on a suit.
I didn’t take his hand. My fingers were already tingling again, and I didn’t need another electrical shock in front of witnesses.
“Your painting is extraordinary, Blitz.” Kip directed his comment to Blitz, but his eyes stayed fixed on me, like I was the real artwork in the room. “The way you’ve captured the light... it’s as if you’ve been there, isn’t it?”
“Been where?”
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to me with perfect synchronicity. None of them answered.
“Neve...” Kip finally broke the silence, my name sitting in his mouth like he was tasting it. “Named after the snow.”
My stomach performed a series of gymnastic feats.
“I think it’s probably an old family name or something.” Mia waved her hand dismissively. “You know how parents are, grabbing random grandparent names off the family tree.”
I stared at Mia, not sure whether to be grateful for the lie or offended she’d fabricated my naming story so easily.
“Family names have power.” Cole’s voice was low, his eyes never leaving my face. “They connect us to who we really are. They’re the magic of tradition.”
Magic. The word echoed in my head as my cheeks burned and my fingers froze. I shoved them deeper into my dress pockets, feeling the seams strain under the pressure.
“So, you three know each other well?” My question came out more like an accusation.
“We’re practically brothers.” Kip’s smile was so genuine it hurt to look at. “We’ve known each other forever. You could say we work together.”
“On what? Art?” I glanced back at the painting that would surely be part of my nightmares later when I went to sleep.
“That, and we’re hoping to get into distribution logistics and international shipments if things go well here.” Cole’s expression remained perfectly neutral.
Something about the way they spoke with vagueness and the subtle glances they exchanged made my skin crawl.
“Look at the time!” I glanced at my bare wrist, where a watch would have been if I wore one. “We should probably... art... mingle... with people...”
“Absolutely.” Mia started to pull me away. “Big potential buyers just arrived.”
“I need air.” I pulled away from Mia’s grip and bolted, not caring how it looked.
The weight of three sets of eyes tracked me, and I forced myself not to run.
What the hell was happening? And why did I suddenly feel like I was a painting being studied, examined, and completely exposed?
I chugged the overpriced vodka soda like it might wash away the memory of the three men at the gallery staring at me like I was a long-lost artifact they’d finally tracked down.
The bass pounded through the floor of Vortex, downtown’s newest attempt at exclusivity, vibrating up through my heels and into my chest where it competed with my still-hammering heart.
“You need to relax.” Mia pressed another drink into my hand, her voice barely audible over the crush of bodies and synthetic beats. “You practically sprinted out of the gallery.”
I accepted the glass, taking a smaller sip this time. “I needed air.”
Mia’s gallery colleagues clustered around us, discussing art with way too much enthusiasm. I nodded when appropriate, focusing on the burn of alcohol rather than the nonsensical evening I’d survived.
“Want to dance?” Mia was already swaying to the music.
The prospect of voluntarily entering the sweaty mass of bodies seemed about as appealing as a root canal, but remaining stationary made me too accessible for conversation and gave my mind too much room to wander.
“Fine.” I downed the rest of my drink, letting the alcohol blur the edges of my anxiety. “One song.”
The moment my foot hit the dance floor, goosebumps erupted across my arms. I scanned the room, trying to keep my movements casual even as the hair on my neck stood at attention.
He stood tall and rigid against the far wall, fair-skinned and sharp in a dark button-down, his honey-blond hair neatly trimmed. He didn’t even pretend to be interested in anything but me. His gray eyes cut through the dancing bodies between us like they didn’t exist.
I knew him. Not his name, but his face. He’d been at Sinclair’s that night, one of the nine.
I turned, hoping to slip between the wall of dancers, only to lock eyes with another man at the bar.
He lounged casually against the counter, light golden skin catching the glow of the overhead lights, his black hair falling across one eye like it knew exactly what it was doing.
His dark brown eyes sparked with amusement and a challenge.
He raised his glass in a toast, his smile spreading slowly across his face.
Another one from Sinclair’s.
The buzzing under my skin intensified, no longer uncomfortable but... familiar. Like something dormant waking up.
Mia was already dancing with someone, so I pushed through the crowd, desperate to get to the bathroom. My breath came in quick gasps as I navigated the press of bodies. I needed a minute to collect myself.
The air grew thick around me, heavy with something I couldn’t name. Other clubgoers seemed to part unconsciously, creating a path I hadn’t asked for. Ahead, the bathroom door beckoned to me with safety, privacy, and escape.
I reached for the door only to realize the buzzing had stopped.
In its place, a weight settled in my chest, pulling me backward toward the dance floor like an invisible thread connecting me to those men.
It was so much worse than the fear I had been feeling.
It was as if my body knew them even if my mind didn’t.
The music seemed to recede, the crowd’s energy dimming against the pounding awareness of two sets of eyes tracking my movements. One pair, precise and calculating, the other wild and challenging.
I yanked open the bathroom door, slipping inside where the bass became a dull thud and the air was mercifully empty of whatever the hell was happening to me. Bracing my hands against the counter, I stared at my reflection. My cheeks were flushed, and my eyes were too bright.
Coincidences didn’t exist, not at this frequency. Not when those men looked at me like that. Not when something inside me recognized them right back.
I splashed cold water on my face, trying to bring myself back to baseline. Just a girl. In a bathroom. Probably just drunk.
I reached for a paper towel and froze. My reflection didn’t match me.
She was standing exactly where I was, but her hair was white, her eyes glowed blue, and she wore a deep red coat with white fur trim. A Santa hat sat perfectly tilted on her head.
She smiled.
I screamed.