Chapter 14
Fourteen
Time feels distorted.
As though I’m existing outside of myself. As though life happens around me but never to me.
In front of me is our full-length mirror. Reflecting someone back at me.
I’m not so sure that woman is even me.
It isn’t that the dress fits me perfectly. Because it does. I’m small, sure. Short like Mama. But curvy from my daddy’s side.
It isn’t that at all.
What strikes me when I look in the mirror is that I could live this life.
And the thought immediately floods me with guilt.
My daddy didn’t work his ass off as a lawyer for me to just hand myself over to a serial killer. And yet? Isn’t this what I’ve worked my ass off for?
This life.
I wanted all my life to walk in his footsteps. To evolve into a woman he’d feel pride in. And yet all I feel when I look in that mirror is disappointment mixed in with everything I’ve always wanted.
I get to mingle with politicians tonight. With the lawyers who back them. With women who got to the top on their intellect and sharp wit.
Not because I earned it.
Because I got an invite from the newest playboy politician.
My phone buzzes from the dresser.
I don’t look at it. Don’t want to break whatever spell is keeping me upright in this mirror.
Alex glances at the screen as she passes. Her jaw tightens.
“Marcus?” I ask.
“Who else.” She doesn’t read it to me. Just sets the phone face-down and goes back to gathering supplies.
Alex already did my makeup. A perfect smoky eye. One that highlights my dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. And she did my hair. Half up with a perfect swoop. Curled just so.
And not even the way my skin looks against the silky material can make me feel better about that text.
“Found the wax.” Alex comes out of the bathroom with the small tin. I might have Mama’s hair but sometimes I get those little curls that won’t behave.
I swallow my emotions. Breathe slowly. Turn to face her. “Well?”
“Stunning.” She rubs the wax between her palms before smoothing down my hair. Again. She already did it once. She’s just... taking care of me.
My phone buzzes again.
Alex’s hands pause in my hair. We both look at the dresser.
“Leave it,” she says.
I leave it.
But I can feel it there. Buzzing. Waiting. Him, reaching through the screen, already impatient.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, grabbing a shawl and placing it over my shoulders.
“Can we walk and talk?”
Alex hums at me. Knows my deflection for what it is.
Together we lock up the apartment and head downstairs. Me in my dress. Alex in sweats and a hoodie because she’s driving me in Nikko’s sedan and then parking in an alley.
To wait.
To worry.
Neither of us says it out loud.
The cold hits us the second we step outside. Me in silk and heels. Alex in layers that actually make sense for February.
But I’m not thinking about that.
I’m thinking about how my body doesn’t want to get in that car. How every step toward this fundraiser feels like walking toward something I can’t come back from.
Alex unlocks Nikko’s sedan. We climb in. She starts the engine, cranks the heat.
It isn’t until the car is warm and my brain comes back online that I confide in her.
“I feel like I don’t belong there.”
“What?” She glances over at me while pulling onto the street. “Why?”
“I didn’t earn it.” I shrug, fighting the emotions bubbling up from my throat.
The words need to come out and yet they feel stuck.
“I’m going there because Marcus sees this as a date.
Not because someone acknowledged my work.
I’m going because Dom and Marcus have me between a rock and a hard place. ”
Silence.
Alex’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“Bullshit,” she finally says.
“Alex—”
“Okay, yes.” She cuts me off. “Marcus is a predator and Dom is a monster and this whole situation is fucked six ways to Sunday. But you?” She glances at me.
Really looks at me before turning back to the road.
“You’ve earned everything you have. Five years of late nights.
Five years of being the best paralegal in that firm.
Five years of Dom relying on you for every single thing that matters. ”
“That’s not—”
“You think Marcus picked you because you’re pretty?” She snorts. “He picked you because Dom talks about you. Because you’re competent and sharp and you scare powerful men. That’s why he wants you on his arm. Not because you’re arm candy. Because having you there makes him look better.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
My phone buzzes.
With shaking fingers I pull it out of my clutch.
Marcus: On my way.
Then, immediately:
Marcus: Be ready. I want us to arrive together.
The serpent at the base of my spine stirs. Not fully awake. Just... aware.
“What?” Alex asks. She saw my face change.
“He’s on his way. He wants to arrive together.” I pause. “You think he’s on his way to the apartment?”
“Good.” Her jaw tightens. “Let him wait. Let him wonder where you are.”
I type back: Running a few minutes late. See you there.
Send.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Marcus: I’m at your apartment.
I don’t respond. Just watch the dots disappear. No third message. Just that—petulant, entitled, a child denied his toy.
“He’s pissed,” I say. “Apparently he’s at the apartment.”
“Good,” Alex says again. “Now he’s off-balance. Use that.”
We drive in silence for a few blocks. Past Dilworth Park. Past City Hall lit up against the dark sky. Past all the landmarks I know, all the streets I’ve walked, now leading me toward something that feels like a trap.
“You’ve got this,” Alex says.
Her hands are white-knuckling the steering wheel now. We’re on Broad Street. Close.
“I don’t feel like I’ve got this,” I admit.
“You don’t have to feel it. You just have to do it.” She pulls over half a block from The Bellevue. Parks. Turns to face me fully. “You negotiate your way out of being glued to his side. Then you work the room. Gather intel. Names, connections, who talks to whom. All of it.”
“Alex—”
“I’m here.” She cuts me off, voice tight. “Even when I’m pissed at you, I’m here. Because that’s what we do. What we’ve always done.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“Text me if you need an extraction. I’ll fake an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“The kind involving your fake dead dad coming back to life.” She’s not joking. But there’s almost a smile. Almost. “I’ll figure it out. Just text.”
“Your location’s on?”
She holds up her phone. Shows me the map. A blue dot that’s me, sitting in this car. “Yeah. Keep yours on too. All night.” She taps my screen. “I’ll be watching. If that dot goes anywhere it shouldn’t—anywhere private, anywhere I can’t get to you—”
“You’ll do something reckless.”
“I’ll do something necessary.” She’s not joking. “Don’t let him take you anywhere alone, Dylan. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Dandelions?”
“Dandelions.”
She squeezes my hand. Hard. Quick. Then releases.
“Thank me by coming back with enough evidence to bury him.” Her voice drops. Serious. “And Dylan? When you feel something tonight—anything—don’t question it. Just trust it. Okay?”
She’s asking me to do the thing we fought about. To listen to intuition without demanding proof first.
“Okay,” I say. And mean it.
She nods once. Final. Then gestures toward the entrance half a block away. “Now go. You’re fashionably late. That’s good. Let him wonder.”
I climb out. The February cold hits my bare shoulders like a slap.
The dress shifts with each step, the high slit doing exactly what Marcus designed it to do.
But I’m not thinking about that.
I’m thinking about evidence. About the game we’re playing tonight. About the women before me who wore dresses Mariana pinned and didn’t make it out.
The Bellevue’s entrance is all marble and gold. Old Philadelphia money dripping from every surface. The kind of building that makes you feel small on purpose.
I don’t feel small.
I feel like prey walking into a lion’s den with a tape recorder in her clutch.
“Name?” A woman asks at the door. Clipboard. Headset. Professional smile.
“Dylan Wells.”
She scans the list. Marks something. “Go on through.”
A small piece of me had hoped my name wouldn’t be there. That this was all a mistake. That I could turn around and go home and pretend none of this was happening.
But my name is on the list.
Because Marcus put it there.
The doorman opens the door with a professional smile. I walk through like I belong.
Walk like you deserve the space you’re in.
Mom’s voice. My mantra. Tonight’s armor.
The lobby opens into a ballroom glittering with chandeliers and champagne and people who look like they were born knowing how to hold a wine glass. Politicians. Lawyers. Donors with checkbooks bigger than my annual salary.
And somewhere in this city, a serial killer is driving here to meet me.
I take a breath. Smooth my dress. Lift my chin.
Marcus wanted to arrive together. He’s not here yet.
That means I have time.
Maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. Enough to work the room before he finds me. Before I become his accessory instead of my own person.
I scan the crowd. Looking for allies. Looking for anyone who might know what he really is.
Time to hunt.