2. Roman
ROMAN
The night reeks of money and rot.
Even from this distance, the stink of perfume and greed is enough to make me sick. Manhattan has a way of pretending. It has a way of cloaking its filth in gold trim and red carpet. It uses fancy words like philanthropy and charity as if that can hide it for what it really fucking is.
Evil.
I melt into a dark spot between two lamp posts, hands in my pockets, and head down. The city makes me anonymous. There are cameras above the entrance and security drudges stationed by the valets.
But none of them see me.
It’s a gift, my favorite one, in fact—to become negative space until only my intention has weight.
Outside, the gala banner gleefully tells its lie: Proceeds will go to victim rehabilitation.
But I know better.
I know the man who is supposed to speak tonight.
James MacDougal.
Councilman.
Bratva collaborator.
Monster.
I lean against a shadowed column across the street, a smoking cigarette dangling from my fingers. I don’t inhale anymore. I just like the smell, burning tobacco and fallen ashes, the occasional singe of flesh when the shaft is left too long to the flame.
It reminds me of the prison cells back in Russia. Of concrete, blood, and sweat. Of men who didn’t make it out. Of men who didn’t deserve to leave.
While I study the thinning herd, something snags in my vision.
And I can’t look away.
Dark hair drawn tight over her slender neck, arms crossed over a flowing dress. I catch her in profile as she tilts her chin to the wind, jaw hard and perfect. Her spine is so rigid that I want to bite it.
She rolls an earring between her thumb and finger, like she’s reaching for something she lost.
Unlike the others, she isn’t trying to be seen. She’s enduring it like a punishment.
My interest is instant and total. It’s not just the hips, the exposed collarbone, the way she stands as if bracing for an aftershock. It’s the disgust she wears on her face for the party, and for the pigs eating up the slop Pavel Starkov feeds them.
That single look tells me everything I need to know about her.
Then, she turns sharply, and her gaze meets mine.
Her eyes are too big and doe-like to belong to someone so clearly lethal.
And the moment our eyes lock, a bolt of lightning rushes down my spine. Her gaze feels like an invitation. To stalk, to claim.
For a moment, we’re alone together in the corridor between headlights. And everything freezes. As if time itself knows better than to interrupt.
I’ve seen a lot of eyes before. Eyes that pleaded. Eyes that begged. Eyes that lied. But hers? They meet mine like she’s not afraid to look.
She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t smile. She simply sees.
Then, a pair of suits crosses between us, and a savage need to be closer thrums through me. Working the edge of the sidewalk, I weave through the crowd, past a driver hunched over his phone and a pair of girls bending down to fix their shoes.
But I keep her in the edge of my vision, and settle into a corner close enough to hear without being seen.
“Detective Cantiano,” a voice rings out and she looks back to the doors of the gala, where someone else calls her name.
I can’t hear their next few words, but I don’t care to.
Cantiano .
I run the name through my mind, taste it on my lips to see how it feels, and caress it on my tongue. Over and over and over again.
“… thought someone was watching me,” she says.
Her voice is smoke and steel. Tired but sharp. And all I want is to hear it—warm and alive—around my ear.
Detective Cantiano’s friend says something and she smiles. My heart stutters at the sight of it. Even here, at this distance, I want to taste that smile.
I imagine her mouth against mine as tiny moans punch from her throat for me to swallow. I want to feel her hands wrapped around me while my hands tighten around her throat.
But I don’t want to just kiss her lips or devour her moans.
I want to possess her in every way a woman can be possessed. Again and again and again until both of us are broken and spent.
The fantasy is bright but gone in a heartbeat, replaced by the cold reminder of why I’m here.
MacDougal.
The councilman with his anti-trafficking crusade that covers his real work: laundering city contracts for Pavel Starkov and the rest of the Starkov Bratva, funneled through a dozen shell companies and twice as many girls.
The press calls him a reformer. The girls call him worse things, if they live long enough to be asked.
I imagine his surprise and panic when he realizes that for once, the night was made for taking him instead of his for the taking.
And then I hear—no, not just hear, see —something from the object of my obsession
“Some days, I think about doing it myself.” And she draws a line across her throat.
There’s longing behind her words. It’s sharp and it hungers. I feel the weight of her rage like a brick in my own fucking fist. And my heart thrills at this.
It’s not every day I find someone just like me.
I lean closer, wanting to see her one more time in profile. She is beautiful, yes, but also furious, and I want both in equal measure. I wonder what she’ll look like when she finally screams my name.
My phone hums in my pocket. I slip it out, thumb over the cracked screen and see the text from Rosa:
The girl is safe. He’s all yours.
A dark smile crosses my face.
There will be another time for Detective Cantiano.
But for now, there’s work to be done.