Chapter 14 #2
That's when I spot him. Late forties, Italian suit that screams hedge fund money, hair slicked back with too much product.
Probably launders for the Colombians. He's been at the bar for an hour, working through expensive scotch.
His eyes have been on Daphne for the last fifteen minutes, and now he's making his move.
He stands. Adjusts his jacket. Walks toward her table like he has any fucking right.
I'm moving before the decision forms, crossing the room in seven seconds. Not running, never running, but fast enough that Adrian reads it, steps aside mid-conversation with some senator's wife. Through the gaps between tables, past the dance floor where couples worth billions sway together.
He's at her table now, leaning down slightly, that presumptuous smile men like him perfect in boardrooms and brothels. I catch fragments: "…noticed you from the bar… absolutely stunning… honor of a dance…"
I stop behind her chair, slightly to her right. My right hand grips the chairback hard enough that I hear wood creak in protest.
He looks up. Sees me.
The calculation happens in a quarter-second.
My height, the scar bisecting my left eyebrow, the mass of me, the way I'm looking at him like I'm deciding whether to break his neck here or in the alley.
His face changes. That primitive recognition when prey realizes it's been stalked by something apex.
I say nothing. Don't need to. My silence carries nine years of Delgado violence, bodies I've buried, men who've disappeared for less than what he's attempting.
He sees it all in my face. How I'd take his reaching hand first, use his committed drink hand against him, four steps to the bar, Adrian six steps left, clear floor for what would take maybe thirty seconds.
"I… forgive me, I didn't realize…" He backs away without finishing, nearly tripping over his own expensive shoes.
Heads to the bar, drops a hundred without waiting for change, exits through the back service door.
The route of a man who knows he's touched what belongs to the Delgado family and wants to disappear before the bill comes due.
Adrian materializes beside us, smoothing everything with practiced warmth that masks steel.
His hand touches my arm briefly. Brotherly, but also a signal.
He reads what I'm about to do, knows the monster under my suit is about to handle family business.
Pulls the chair beside Daphne closer, sits, continues talking to her about the Siren's performance like he's been there all evening, like violence isn't about to happen forty feet away.
I release the chairback. Walk away.
Seven seconds back across the floor. Logan's already standing by the time I reach the service door, positioning himself to block sightlines from the cabaret. He knows my face, knows what happens next. The family protects its own justice.
The corridor is narrow, stucco walls that have seen plenty of blood, single bulb overhead casting harsh shadows. Italian Suit is halfway down, walking fast but trying not to look like he's running.
I reach him in five strides, my left hand closing around his neck from behind before he knows I'm there.
Drive him chest-first into the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
His hands come up, palms flat against stucco, bracing.
The glass he was still carrying, scotch he paid forty dollars for, shatters on the floor.
I drive three calculated punches into him. Right kidney, right ribs, left ribs. Each one precise enough to hurt for days but not hospitalize. He can't breathe through the third one, making sounds that aren't quite words. I don't let him fall.
Quick turn of his neck, face against the opposite wall now. My right knuckles connect once with the side of his mouth, splitting his lip like overripe fruit. Blood decorates the stucco. His knees buckle. I hold him up by the neck, feeling his pulse rabbit against my palm.
I lean close to his ear, my voice low enough that he has to strain to hear through the pain. "You looked at something that belongs to the Delgados. Come back, it gets worse. Tell anyone, the Miami canals get a new decoration."
He nods against the wall, blood from his mouth dripping onto his suit.
I let go. He slides down to a crouch, breathing in short gasps that probably feel like knives in his ribs. Not unconscious, not dying. But he'll remember this every time he breathes for the next week.
Back through the service door. Logan closes it behind me without a word. Two of our soldiers are already moving toward the corridor. Logan's signaled them. They'll get Italian Suit into a cab, make sure he forgets La Sirena's address. Standard cleanup for family business. No questions, no traces.
Five and a half minutes total. I cross back to Daphne's table where Adrian's been holding court, making my absence invisible to anyone watching.
We exchange a look. His eyes flick to my right hand where the knuckles are scraped, then back up.
A smile plays at his mouth, the kind that says he approves.
He stands, melts back into the crowd to continue his reign.
I take the seat beside Daphne, my cock half-hard from the violence, from defending what's mine.
She doesn't speak. Hasn't looked at me since the man approached.
But her right hand moves across the table corner, and my breath catches.
Her fingertips find the back of my right hand, trace the skinned knuckles where they met his teeth.
Two small breaks in the skin, pinheads of dried blood.
She doesn't look, doesn't need to. She knows exactly what those marks mean.
Holds the contact for two seconds, her skin on my damaged skin, before returning her hand to her lap.
The not-asking is everything. She knows what I did. She touched the hand that did it. She's choosing not to refuse me, and fuck if that doesn't make me want to take her right here on this table.
My right hand comes up to her bare back. Palm flat against her skin, and Christ, she's warm. Not a caress. A claiming. The room sees it. Marisol's table sees it. The same hand that just drew blood now marking her as mine in front of Miami's underworld.
She doesn't flinch from me. She never has. Her breath shifts slightly under my palm, a tiny catch that goes straight to my cock, but she keeps watching the Siren sing. The room watches her accept my bloodied hand on her bare skin, watches her choose the monster.
Forty seconds pass like forty years. The Siren finishes her song. Applause erupts, covering what just happened. The violence, the return, the claim. I remove my hand only when the applause begins, already missing her heat.
The Siren's last song begins. Slow, sensual, the kind that makes hundred-thousand-dollar deals get made in dark corners. Couples drift toward the dance floor. Others head to the bar for final champagne.
I extend my hand to Daphne. She turns from the stage, looks first at my hand with its scraped knuckles, evidence of violence for her, then up at my face. Those dark eyes hold mine for a beat that rewrites my DNA. Then she places her hand in mine.
The dance floor is half-full of Miami's elite.
We find space near the center, and I'm hyperaware that we're about to become the room's focus.
My right hand goes to her bare lower back where the gown ends, and fuck, touching her skin is like touching live electricity.
Left hand holds her right, trying not to grip too tight.
Her left hand on my shoulder burns through the suit. Six inches between our bodies.
We move. I'm not a dancer. Learned the basics at some Delgado wedding years ago where everyone was too drunk to notice I had no rhythm.
But she is. She makes me look better than I am, following my clumsy lead with the grace of someone who could dance through gunfire.
The Siren's voice wraps around us like silk.
Daphne looks at my face. Really looks, not sliding past like the world does, not flinching from the scar or the broken nose or the violence written in every line.
Her dark eyes steady on mine like she's seeing through to something that might be worth saving.
I look back. The mutual gaze we've been building toward since that first morning when she dropped her performance and let me see the real Daphne.
She steps closer, closing six inches to three, and her breasts brush against my chest through silk and wool. My cock goes fully hard, and there's no hiding it at this distance. Her hair grazes my jaw. She smells like heaven.
My palm presses against her bare back, and I fight not to slide it lower, to grab her ass in front of everyone and show them exactly how much I own her. She responds by pressing closer, and I know she feels my cock against her stomach, know she's choosing not to pull away.
I think about the decision five nights ago.
That I'm keeping her. How this dance is part of a permanent arrangement she doesn't know about.
The public claim is only half the truth.
Underneath runs possession that will outlast the Pentagon announcement, outlast her father's calls, outlast everything except death.
The song ends. Applause for the Siren. I release Daphne slowly, already plotting how to get her alone, how to finally take what I've been denying myself.
We leave the floor together, my hand on her lower back again because I can't stop touching her.
Past Adrian's approving nod, Logan and Wren's careful acknowledgment that speaks volumes, Isa's usual glare from behind the bar, Marisol's deliberately turned shoulder that hurts more than I'll admit.
Through the staff door. Up the service stairs while my mind runs through everything I want to do to her.
The apartment door closes behind us.