21. Twenty-One #2
Arrow cut through the mob straight to a raised dais at the center of the room where a vintage grand piano waited for a pianist who would never arrive.
On cue, a spotlight clicked on, splashing us both in the wash of white and gold.
I braced myself as he drew me close enough for a kiss, but he only pecked my cheek, letting the city’s Peeping Toms document the proprietary smear of his lips against my skin.
I willed myself not to flinch at the flashbulbs.
I wanted them to see how well I could play my role, not as Arrow Romanov’s little bride, not as the scapegoat daughter, but as the wolf they never saw coming.
I stood at his side, chin up, sapphire eyes unmoving even when the governor and three state senators turned to assess the spectacle.
I felt their pulses tighten, and fancied I could spit and hit a dozen men who’d once called for my father’s head.
For the first half hour, the party was pure theater. Servers in white gloves glided by with magnums of champagne—real, French, pre-sanctioned stock. I sipped at my flute, and let Arrow do the rounds, while I watched the city’s elite catalog my vulnerabilities.
Everyone pretended not to see the necklace, but I could feel their eyes hovering over the A at my throat. I let it hang there boldly, and matched every suspicious glance with my own.
The chief of police’s daughter sat in a cluster to the right—lips overly plump with filler, laugh trailing one beat behind the conversation. When she caught sight of me, she rolled her eyes, then looked away.
Arrow moved through the crowd with royal assurance, never breaking contact with me for more than a few seconds.
Under the practiced charm, I caught the tension in the flex of his jaw, in the way his left hand always hovered a finger’s length from my waist, like he had to confirm every minute I was still beside him.
He shook the hands of men who’d signed the death warrants for half the room, kissed the cheeks of women who knew exactly how to ruin a name in three moves.
I parried the questions—Are you so happy, Harlowe?
Your father must be so proud, darling—by downing my next three pours of Laurent-Perrier and flashing a smile as sharp and void as shellac.
Even yet, there’d be the subtle comments.
“Wow, a Virelli, collared by a Romanov—didn’t see that coming,” someone murmured close enough for me to hear.
I swallowed hard and found Arrow’s eyes on me, watchful. His hand slid to my lower back as he leaned in close.
“Smile, malen’kaya gadyuka,”* he whispered against my ear. “Let them see how well you wear my brand.”
I bared my teeth in what could generously be called a smile. “You’re enjoying this? Collaring a Virelli bitch?”
His smile was dark with satisfaction. “You’ve yet to see how much I can enjoy it. But there’s beauty in your resistance.”
Before I could respond, a tall man with silver-streaked hair approached us, his smile too wide.
“Arrow Romanov,” he said, extending his hand. “And this must be the famous Harlowe Virelli. The rumors don’t do you justice, my dear.”
His grip tightened on my waist. “Senator Caldwell. I wasn’t sure you’d make it tonight.”
The Senator’s gaze lingered on my throat. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. The merger of two dynasties? It’s historic.” He turned his attention to me. “Your father and I have done business together for many years, Miss Virelli. He never mentioned how . . . captivating his daughter is.”
“My father doesn’t discuss me with his business associates,” I said coldly. “He’s too busy selling me to the highest bidder.”
The Senator’s eyes widened slightly, but his politician’s smile never faltered. “Well, I must say, the arrangement seems to be working out beautifully for all involved.”
Arrow’s thumb pressed into my spine—a silent warning. “Senator, if you’ll excuse us, I believe it’s almost time for the announcement.”
The Senator nodded, his gaze lingering on me a moment too long before he melted back into the crowd.
Arrow’s breath brushed my ear. “Play nice. These people aren’t your friends, but they’re not all enemies either.”
“Are you sure about that?” I watched several pairs of eyes track our movements across the room. “Because from where I’m standing, this feels like walking into a den of wolves wearing a meat dress.”
A genuine laugh escaped him, low and warm against my skin. “You’re the most dangerous thing in this room, Harlowe. Remember that.”
We did a full circuit.
My father sat forking caviar onto a line of toast points, eyes glimmering with mischief or warning. He saluted me with the tip of his knife.
Next to him, an elder Romanov who looked embalmed—lips deader than the cod on his plate, muttered something in Russian that made the young wife at his side nearly choke on her amuse-bouche.
Arrow leaned in, breathed, and whispered, “Smile harder for the man who sold you.”
I caught his meaning instantly. His breath was minty, but his words drew blood. I bared my teeth and let my hand rest lightly on the inside of his elbow, a gesture so practiced in the families that even infants learned it before their first solid food.
He led me to where my father stood with the caviar knife in hand, showing his age in the thickening jowls and phony bonhomie, but still so alive that he scared me more than any Romanov ever could.
Giovanni watched us, eyes calculating, even from across the room. For all his faults, he was a master at reading a situation, assessing how firmly Arrow had me under his control.
“Arrow Romanov,” he said, opening his arms like a favorite uncle, his accent softening the name into something silkier. “And my beautiful daughter. Don’t you both look ready to rule the city?”
My father leaned in to kiss my cheek, but Arrow’s hand on my hip steered me subtly aside, so the kiss landed somewhere by my ear—a fatherly air-kiss, almost sweet, if you didn’t know the history.
Giovanni’s eyes catalogued my body, the dress, and the necklace at my throat. Noted but didn’t remark, like a mortician ticking the last details before dressing the corpse for viewing. “I hardly recognized you, Bella.* He’s pumping you full of iron-rich blood up at the manor?”
I smiled. “I got a taste for it from you, Father.”*
My Italian was as sharp as his, and he caught the hairy edge of insult, but he beamed anyway.
“Always such a wit, daughter. Arrow, tell me, how do you keep her in line? Electric prod? Or more of a pharmacological approach, hm?”
Arrow only smiled, and the ripple in his jaw told me he was gnashing down on something worse. “She keeps herself, Giovanni. You raised her well.”
A beat, then another. The ‘Oh, you think so?’ registered in Giovanni’s eyes, before he broke the wall of parentheses with a wolfish laugh.
“Well, she gets that from her mother,” he said.
Two men trading handshakes made of glass. My father let his gaze settle on the crimson A again, and for a heartbeat, I thought he’d rip it off my neck with his bare teeth. He reached for a flute, clinked it against Arrow’s, then caught my thumb in his fist, hard enough for the knuckle to pop.
He leaned in. “You’re a quick learner, Bambina,”* my father whispered, breath hot against my ear. “I’m glad to see you’ve finally accepted your place. The Romanovs have always been good at . . . breaking things.”
The flash of teeth in my father’s smile was chemical, and so quick, I almost doubted it had happened.
“Congratulations to the happy couple,” he said, and then to me, “You look stunning in Romanov colors, Bella.”*
I lifted my glass to him, made the world’s most delicate middle finger with my ring finger, and drank half of it. Arrow watched the exchange, eyes trained on the perimeter, and said nothing until my father drifted away into a sea of legal rivals and silent enemies.
The room suddenly felt too hot, the dress too tight. I drained my champagne glass and immediately snagged another from a passing waiter. Arrow watched me with amusement as I gulped half of it down.
“What did he say to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He processed this, a twitch at the corner of his eye, a crack in the seamless facade.
I wanted to add something, shove a stick in his spokes, but then the mayor’s wife floated over—a teenage queen with nails lacquered to chemical razors, and poured her body between us with the desperation of a drowning woman reaching the last raft.
“I simply must congratulate you both!” she squealed, eyes flickering over my dress. “All of Manhattan is obsessed—Virelli and Romanov, finally united.” She pinched my elbow too hard, whispering, “Do you adore him? I’d say he’s a catch, but I’m told it’s more like a snare.”
Her laughter was obnoxious. I saw her watching Arrow, the way a dying animal watches the slow turn of a hunter’s gun. He disengaged her with one hand, the barest touch at her wrist, and she went pliant, drawn to the next circle of important men like iron to a lodestone.
“Your enemies multiply in spring, don’t they?” I murmured at him, grabbing another champagne flute as a waiter’s tray passed. “Behold the mating ritual of the Upper East.”
“Vivienne Costas.” He smirked, an arctic-gray gaze fixed on the crowd as he scanned for threats. “Her husband is three months from indictment, so she’s lining up new alliances.” He turned to me, tracking the arch of my shoulder. “Sound familiar?”
“I’m not shopping for a better man,” I shot back, swirling the glass so it sloshed over the lip. “Just casing the scene.”
He grinned, nearly playful. “You’re the only one in this room who isn’t for sale, Harlowe.
That’s why they all want to watch what happens to you.
” His fingers traced my spine—subtle, proprietary, neither comforting nor threatening—and with the other, he reclaimed the neck of my champagne and lifted it to his mouth, draining the last in a single, swallowing gulp.