Chapter 1 #2
He leaned his head back against the wall again, eyes on the ceiling. “And then someone tried to strong-arm one of our clubs. Not in a cute way.”
I blinked. “There’s a cute way to strong-arm a club?”
“No. But this was dumber than the usual way.”
My stomach dropped a little. “And you handled that too?”
“Obviously.”
Right. Obviously.
“Nikolai called about a dynasty contract that needed amending. After that, a meeting about weapons distribution. Then an enforcement run in Old Dock because some idiot lit a warehouse on fire trying to cook meth in a paint room—”
“That’s… specific.”
“It happens more often than you’d think.”
No. Actually. It didn’t.
Not in my world.
“And then. I had to track down someone who owed a syndicate six months of payments.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Did you… correct that?”
He gave me a small smile. “Yeah. He won’t miss another payment.”
Oh God, he absolutely killed someone today.
Vince didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “After that, I stopped by one of the towers because there were rumors of a problem with the electrical redundancies.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
And then he tipped his chin at the elevator ceiling.
“Guess those rumors were true.”
I swallowed, heart thudding a little too fast for entirely new reasons. He had just confessed, casually, to a crime buffet. Syndicate enforcement, counterfeit crackdowns, implied violence, probable murder, like it was a grocery list.
He probably shouldn’t have told me all that. Which meant only one thing for sure.
We’re going to die in.
He must think otherwise he wouldn’t have told me that. I exhaled slowly and stared straight ahead at the metal doors, trying not to visibly question every decision that led me here.
“You’re very quiet again.”
Of course I was.
I’d just learned the man calming me through a panic attack might’ve “corrected” multiple felonies before lunch.
I cleared my throat. “I’m… processing.”
“Processing what?”
“That your day was… eventful.”
Amusement flickered across his face.
“You asked.”
“Right,” I whispered. “My mistake.”
He didn’t stop smiling. And I didn’t stop wondering if he’d only told me because he fully expected the elevator cables to snap.
God help me if it didn’t.
He watched me for a moment, his gaze flicking up through the dim red light.
“What’s with the bow?”
I blinked. “The… bow?”
“In your hair. You always wear one.”
Always. The word hit a fraction too slowly. I reached up automatically, touching the black ribbon. “Oh. I—um. I think they look cute, I guess. They alway match my heels.”
His brow lifted. “Cute.”
“Yes, cute,” I muttered, sitting a little straighter.
“And it’s actually hard to get the right shade.
Everything looks different in sunlight than in artificial lighting, so half the time the bow looks off even if the heels are perfect.
And don’t get me started on fabric textures, some colors photograph too light, and others—”
I stopped mid-ramble.
He was listening, but I doubted he was emotionally invested in my bow-to-heel color-matching saga.
I cleared my throat. “You probably don’t care about any of that. Wait…” I frowned. “How did you know I wear bows? Plural. You said it like you’ve noticed before.”
His eyes didn’t move from mine. “You’re always in this building.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is, when half the men stop paying attention to their own meeting the second you walk in.”
My mouth opened. Closed.
Heat rushed straight to my face.
“I would remember meeting you,” I said softly. “Trust me, I would. And my father, he’s very insistent on keeping our business with the Crow Dynasty to as little possible. Not in an insulting way, just—”
“Thornes,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
My breath hitched. “Yes.”
His gaze sharpened. “And your name?”
“Oh. Madeline.” I can’t believe I hadn’t introduced myself, “But everyone calls me Maddy.”
His expression changed slightly. A slow inhale like he just learned something important.
“I don’t always wear bows,” I added.
His gaze dipped deliberately to my head, where my very large black bow held half my hair up while the rest fell over my shoulder.
“You do. And heels that are always ridiculously high.”
“High heels are an art,” I countered, offended on behalf of my collection. “None of them are ridiculous. I collect them.”
One corner of his mouth tugged up. “That so?”
“Yes,” I forgot for a second that he was a Crow and that I should probably behave with a smidge of self-preservation. “It’s like jewelry. Shoes are wearable sculptures.”
“Jewelry. Let me guess—”
“Yes,” I cut in, already turning toward him. “I collect that too.”
He didn’t laugh. He just waited, like he’d already decided he’d let me talk as long as I wanted. I lifted a hand to the necklace resting against my collarbone.
“Look at this one. It’s a work of art. Look at the drop, really look.”
He did. Well as good as he could look in red light. I moved a bit closer.
His gaze followed the fall of the pendant, then the cluster of tiny storm-cut diamonds woven into the chain pattern. His attention was focused, like my jewelry wasn’t an accessory but a problem he was solving.
“The jeweler spent eighty hours weaving the lattice,” I couldn’t stop my excitement. “And see the curve? That tiny arc right there? That’s intentional. It matches the earrings.”
He reached out, and moved my hair to the side so he could see the earring properly. When his fingers brushed my cheek, I realized how close we’d gotten. My pulse fluttered embarrassingly loud in my ears.
I swallowed. “Do you… um… have a lot of those?”
His brow dipped. “A lot of what?”
“Tattoos.” I traced one of the lines of ink that curled over his knuckles.
“Basically my whole body.”
I winced. “That sounds painful.”
His breath deepened just slightly.
“I could never get a tattoo. Just the thought of it feels like medieval torture. And think of the fashion limitations. Everything would have to go around the tattoos. It’s a logistical nightmare.”
He huffed a quiet laugh under his breath.
My gaze dropped to the silver chain resting against his collarbone. It shone faintly under the red emergency light.
“Why do all Crows wear those?” I blurted, then immediately froze. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I get nosy when I panic. You can ask me questions instead. That’s probably safer.”
His eyes flicked down to where my legs were folded under me, knees pressed together through the slit of my dress as I tried very hard not to flash him.
“Can you even breathe in that dress?” he asked.
I glanced down at the black satin, skin-tight.
“No.”
His mouth twitched, the closest thing to a smile I’d seen in the last few minutes.
“We’re likely going to be stuck in here for a while.”
“Hours?” My heart lurched. “Wait. The air. Should we be preserving it? Should we take shallow breaths? Oh my God, I’ve been wasting air—”
“Madeline.”
I shut my mouth.
“We aren’t running out of air. There’s ventilation. The flow doesn’t stop just because the car does.” His voice was so calm.
I took a shaky breath in… then out. He waited until he was sure I believed him.
“You want my shirt?”
“What?”
He gestured at my dress. “We’re stuck in here for a while. That thing doesn’t look comfortable. We’re going to be sitting on this floor for a bit.”
My brain short-circuited at the idea of him taking off his shirt in the dim elevator with me.
“Oh—I’m fine,” I hugged my arms around myself. “Completely fine. Very comfortable. I could run a marathon. In this. Skin-tight. Dress.”
He didn’t bother hiding the disbelieving look he gave me.
“Right. You look very comfortable.”
“I am.”
He dragged his gaze down the length of me, taking in the too-tight bust, the way the fabric didn’t actually allow for real oxygen intake.
“Madeline. You can’t inhale fully.”
“I can inhale a little.”
“And we’ll be here for hours.”
I swallowed. “So you keep saying.”
“You don’t have to freeze in that thing. I’m offering my shirt, not asking you to cut yours off.”
Which somehow made it worse.
Or better.
Or unbearable.
I couldn’t decide.
“You’re fine,” he echoed my words back to me with quiet amusement. “But the dress doesn’t look like it is.”
I pressed my back into the cold wall, heat rushing up my neck. He just reached down and started unbuttoning it.
Ink covered both arms, wrapping from shoulder to wrist in dense black patterns that looked. His tank top stretched tight across his chest, outlining muscles I absolutely should not have been noticing.
He held the shirt out to me. “Take it.”
“Right.”
He didn’t look at me like it was strange. Just nodded once. “I’ll keep my eyes closed,”
I stood awkwardly, and absolutely used his shoulder for balance. “I believe you.”
My heel wobbled; his hand came up brushing the back of my calf to steady me. I stepped out of my heels. Pretended I didn’t feel his hand at all.
I peeled myself out of the dress, satin slid down. I grabbed his shirt like a lifeline and threaded it on.
It fell to mid-thigh.
His cologne hit me all at once.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “This is… really warm. And you smell…your cologne is… wow.”
“Buttons,” he still had his eyes shut. “Do them up.”
I fumbled with them, fingers shaking for reasons unrelated to panic this time. When I finally finished, I exhaled.
“Okay. You can open your eyes.”
He turned. His breathing changed. Just slightly, barely a shift. But I heard it.
He looked at me in his shirt, my hair falling from where the bow kept half of it up. For the first time tonight, he looked the one who needed air.
I sank down beside him again, tucking my legs carefully. The shirt slid over my shoulder, and I swore I felt his gaze linger there before he forced himself to look back at me.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t answer at first. Just nodded once, jaw clenched. I started to roll the sleeves down, occupying my hands. He watched for a moment.
“Sorry,” he reached over, and rolled down the other sleeve for me. “I should’ve done that.”