Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

1. Giselle

GISELLE

Someone is watching me. I can feel it like a knife to the throat.

Every New Yorker has a sixth sense for being watched, and mine’s been surgically enhanced by six years with the NYPD. I turn my head around to search for the source.

There!

Across the avenue, standing between two garbage cans and a skeletal streetlight, is a massive man in a suit so black that it swallows the air around him.

He stands just outside of the soft yellow light spilling from the street lamp overhead. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t shift his weight. There’s not a hint of motion from him as he stares at me.

He might as well be a statue for all I know.

Except for his eyes.

Bright and uncomfortably blue.

Not sky, not sea. More like a glacier. Something solid, silent, and patient. He’s not looking at the gala, or the banners, or the celebrities still posing for the dregs of the press.

He’s looking at me.

I freeze and stare back like a deer about to bolt.

I should look away, but his gaze demands my attention. Commands me to look back at him just as intensely as he’s looking at me. With every moment that passes, a darkly delicious shiver runs down my spine and I can feel his blue gaze drill into mine.

Then, two young men in suits jostle each other as they walk in front of him. And when they pass, he’s gone.

Not just moved.

Gone.

As if he’d never been there at all.

I scan up and down the block and find no hint of him.

Slowly, the breath I’d been holding tumbles from my mouth.

My hands relax from the fists that had formed instinctively and reach up to rotate Serena's earrings—silver and cheap, with three stones missing on the right—until the jagged edge sits flush against my skin.

The pain is small, sharp, and controlled.

My kind of pain.

In the window of the black SUV idling at the curb, I catch a glimpse of my profile. Dark hair pulled back tight. Even with my teeth clenched, I present a softer version to my sister’s cut-glass jaw. Blinking, I quickly look away.

They say people stay alive in your memories. But that’s a lie. I see Serena every time I look at myself.

She’s still dead.

And when I look across the street again, the man is still gone.

But I can feel that piercing blue gaze lingering around here.

“Get a grip, Giselle,” I whisper and force myself to look back at the garish gold on the banners strung between the double columns at the entrance bearing Councilman James MacDougal’s name.

He was a no-show for his own speech.

Go figure.

Knowing him, he’s probably got his newest intern—a girl half his age on a good day—face-down on his desk. One hand between her legs, the other holding her in place while she pleads with him to be gentle.

I flick the edge of my earring, welcoming the light edge of pain slowly burning its way through my growing anger at the thought. My rage is a physical thing: everything tightens.

My other hand finds my service weapon, hidden under the generous folds of my gauzy navy dress. It’s the only thing that makes me feel safe.

Because I’m going to be honest with you. Right now, I don’t feel safe. I feel like a moth pinned up behind glass. From the way my skin tingles, those piercing blue eyes are still watching me.

I know it.

“Detective Cantiano!” My best friend Ida finally emerges, her petite shape framed by the crystal glare of the lobby. “I should’ve known you’d be out here.”

She doesn’t wave, and she should be too far away for me to see how her gaze softens. But I do, or at least I know her well enough for my mind to imagine it.

Unlike me, she’s chosen to be in a pantsuit so sharp I can cut my wrist on the crease. With a measured, almost lazy stride, she joins my side and flashes her trademark smile—all innocence and radiance that has disarmed more than its fair share of juries and men.

But I know underneath that sweet smile is a lawyer who’ll pick you apart with just a few words before you even realize what the hell happened.

In her hand is a flute of a pale, once-bubbly wine. As I accept it from her, I glance back over my shoulder again.

Something tells me those blue eyes weren’t just looking at me.

They were looking for me.

“What’s up?” she asks when she notices my eyes flicking across the street.

I try to play it off. “Nothing. I just thought someone was watching me.”

“From the gala?”

I shake my head. “No, a stranger.”

I don’t tell her about the blue eyes. They feel like a secret I’m supposed to keep. I like to think I can tell Ida anything, but in truth that’s a joke. Even my best friend only sees an inch of what I hide beneath the surface.

“Or someone checking you out.” Her sweet smile widens. “God forbid you admit that you’re beautiful. News flash, Giselle, gorgeous women turn heads.”

As if I didn’t know that, better than nearly anyone.

I snort and try to change the topic. “You’re late.”

“Fashionably,” she corrects.

“MacDougal didn’t show, by the way.” I lean against the stone balustrade, reach an open palm towards her. “Pony up.”

“Bleeding me dry, Cantiano.” She pulls a crisp five-dollar bill from her clutch and crumples it just slightly before depositing it in my hand. “His office is claiming stomach flu. And the mayor will cover for him, as usual. They need his vote on that housing bill.”

I nod and scan the street again.

To Ida, I must look like I’m just gazing out absent-mindedly. But I’m looking for something specific. A pair of blue eyes that have somehow already burrowed their way into my mind, and nothing short of a miracle is going to dig them out.

Most of the partygoers have filtered away into town cars or taxis. A young woman in a sequined slip dress smokes furiously beneath a streetlight. I hope her ride is on its way.

My mind imagines the same man who’d been staring at me is still out there, his focus having shifted to her.

Somehow, I know that’s not the case.

“Double or nothing?” I ask.

Ida cocks her head. “On what?”

“Who gets killed next.”

She shivers slightly as the wind cuts between us, and I shudder with her as the cold air wraps around my exposed ankles. But I’m not cold.

If anything, between the gala and the blue-eyed man, I feel slightly feverish.

“Not tonight, Giselle.” She sighs. “It’s been a long week.”

“Three bodies in three weeks.”

I know she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I can’t help myself. Violence is the only thing that makes me feel anything. Talking about it is a way of teasing myself, the closest I’ll ever get to a release.

“Every one of them with the same MO. It’s a pattern.”

“Maybe you should quit.” Ida doesn’t look at me this time. “Have a normal job. Take actual vacations. Join a book club. Drink on weeknights without worrying about witness statements in the morning.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I deadpan as I take a sip of the flattening wine.

But I’m still thinking about murders. And I’m still thinking about what MacDougal must be doing right now. The anger hums through my nervous system.

Someone should intercept his car tonight , I think. Pick him up when he’s too drunk to tell it’s not his driver. Take him to a dark warehouse and hurt him the way he hurts all those young women unlucky enough to cross his path.

Usually, I stop myself when thoughts like that creep in. Lately, I’ve gotten less vigilant about my fantasies. I guess I’m running out of the energy it takes to suppress them.

“You ever wonder what it’d be like if MacDougal just vanished?” I ask.

I shouldn’t be saying it out loud, but I do. At least I’m not asking if she ever thinks of MacDougal being hung by his ankles and bled like the pig he is. My ribcage tightens around my heart.

She snorts. “The city would just replace him with someone fatter and meaner. Maybe a guy who drinks blood instead of scotch.”

“Fucking Teflon Mac.” My laugh is short, bitter, and brittle. “Got his fingers in everything from dirty money to underage girls. And somehow nothing sticks to him.”

“I know,” she says, eyes and voice soft.

The tension between what I want and what I can have makes my head pound. I’d do anything for it. But it’ll never happen.

“Some days, I think about doing it myself.” I draw my thumb across my neck in a line. I’m testing, the way I always do, whether she’s capable of getting tired of it. Of me.

“Giselle,” Ida starts. “What’s the point of talking about something like that? You’re not a vigilante and?—”

“Try telling that to the families of the girls he’s hurt.”

A streak of headlights sweeps up the avenue, illuminating us like a camera flash. It’s not our car. It slows in front of the girl in the street. She crushes her cigarette and leans to open the passenger-side door.

My heartrate increases slightly as I watch her get in. I would give anything to know who she is, who’s driving the car, and how she knows them.

More importantly, I want to know that she’ll be safe.

That she won’t turn out like Serena.

Does she know what I know about this restless and greedy city? How it hungers for the next beautiful thing to ruin?

My guilt tells me that I’m the one who’s hungry. I’m the one who’s ruined.

Ida finishes her drink in a single, elegant tilt, sets the empty flute on the balustrade. She follows my gaze as the girl slips into the car.

“You know most people live long and normal lives, right? Your perspective on the odds is skewed.”

If it was anyone else saying that, I’d be angry. What most people experience is irrelevant to me. I’ve seen what happens to the rest of us.

But Ida knows that already, and she’s faced her own share of suffering.

She’s not saying that what happened to Serena was unimportant. She’s trying to tell me that there’s a chance for me to be happy—or even just content—despite it. She’s said it before, and she’ll say it again. Maybe someday it will even work.

But not tonight.

At least it distracted me from obsessing over MacDougal. For a minute. My body is still taut and buzzing with anger, lusting after justice, but the fog of my thoughts has cleared a bit.

But then the only thing cutting through the fog is a pair of piercing blue eyes.

Staring at me from somewhere I can’t see.

Haunting me.

Hunting me.

“Did you see that woman in the gold dress?” Ida tries to shift the mood. “The one with the mayor’s chief of staff?”

I force a smile. “The one practically made of highlighter?”

“That same one.” Ida grins, satisfied with her deflection. “She’s been with him at every event this season. Probably running a long con.”

“If she is, I hope she gets paid in advance. The city’s broke.”

Our car finally pulls up, the lights haloing the exhaust. I search the streets one last time for those blue eyes.

But all that’s left of him is the throb of a memory and a lingering unease.

And the knowledge that he is still somewhere, close enough to watch me.