Chapter 5
The meeting had been going smoothly enough. Though it was boring, as usual.
Drago was predictable. He always had been.
Forty years in this business and the man still thought gold chains constituted a negotiation strategy.
I had already decided the outcome before I walked into the room.
I always did. I was never one for long negotiations, they were a waste of time when the conclusion was already written. Drago just hadn't been told yet.
He kept rambling. Territory disputes. Some small thug encroaching on the eastern docks and causing trouble. The usual noise.
I let him talk. It cost me nothing to let a man believe he was being heard.
Then the door opened.
The room stilled instantly. Every head turned.
My men had good instincts. I had picked and trained every single one of them personally, and their instincts had kept them alive long enough to stand in this room.
Romano's hand disappeared inside his jacket in the same breath the hinges moved.
Drago's men shifted. The air pulled tight the way it always did before something happened. I didn't move.
She stood in the doorway.
Wine red dress. Fitted - the kind that suggested she hadn't chosen it carelessly, even in whatever state she was currently in.
It followed her figure with an honesty that the rest of the room probably didn't deserve.
Her heels were slightly uneven, one shifted a fraction off balance.
Her hair was down, dark and loose, like an afterthought or a decision made in front of a mirror with something to prove.
She blinked at the room. Not with fear. With the particular unfocused concentration of someone operating almost entirely on alcohol. She looked at the rows of armed men lining either wall the way someone might look at furniture they hadn't expected to find rearranged.
Mildly surprising. Quickly accepted.
Her gaze moved from Drago to Romano at my side. Then it found me. She looked me over. Unhurried. Top to bottom and back again, with the kind of slow assessment usually reserved for people who had no idea they should be afraid. Then the corner of her mouth curved.
Like she approved.
The audacity of this woman.
Romano's hand tightened around the gun he was reaching for. Drago's men followed his lead, hands moving, bodies shifting into position. As if Romano needed backup. Specially dealing with a situation as absurd as this.
My fingers moved once against the armrest signalling them to stop. Everything stilled.
I wanted to see what this creature intended to do next.
She crossed the room. Slowly, swaying slightly on every third step but never quite losing her direction - like something in her had locked onto a destination and refused to let the alcohol talk her out of it.
She moved past the armed men on either side without a glance. Past Drago, who was staring with his mouth slightly open. Past Romano, who I could feel radiating silent outrage from my left. And then she stopped in front of me.
She looked down at me the way no one in this room, in any room, in recent memory had looked at me. Like I was something she had selected. Something she had decided on.
She sat herself directly in my lap.
Both palms came to rest flat against my chest, and she looked me dead in the eyes with the absolute certainty of someone who had no idea what they had just done.
She was prettier than the situation deserved.
Up close, I could see it more clearly - the slight gloss of too much whiskey in her eyes, the lipstick that was almost perfect, the way she was holding herself together with nothing but stubbornness and spite.
There was something bruised in her expression.
Something burning underneath all the reckless bravado that had carried her across this room and into my lap.
"You'll do," she said. And shifted to get comfortable, like she was settling in for the evening.
A scoff left me before I decided to allow it.
The silence that followed was the most expensive silence this room had ever produced.
Drago stared. His men stared. My men developed a sudden intense interest in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere that wasn't the direction of their employer. Because none of them wanted to be caught with the wrong expression on their face.
Good.
I looked down at her. She looked back up at me. Completely unafraid. Completely, catastrophically unaware.
I thought of a kitten I once had. I was young then - young enough that softness was still something I could afford without it being used against me.
The animal had lost its way and wandered into the estate's backyard.
I took it in before my father could have it removed.
It was small. Grey. Timid for exactly three days before it decided timid was beneath it.
After that it sauntered through my room like it owned the floorboards.
Claimed my bed. My space. Climbed into my lap without invitation and settled there with the absolute conviction that I existed for its comfort.
It looked at me the way this woman was looking at me now - like danger was a concept that simply hadn't occurred to it yet.
It left when it grew older. Slipped out one morning and didn't come back. Nothing had shown that particular brand of fearless, oblivious insolence since. No one looked at me like that anymore.
I glanced up slowly. Across the room. At no one in particular.
But every single one of my men understood with perfect clarity. Not a word. Not a sound. Not a twitch.
Even Drago had forgotten how to breathe.
I looked back down at the girl in my lap. At those wide glassy eyes looking up at me, still waiting, still completely certain she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
"Kitten" The name came before I decided on it.
She blinked. I held her gaze for exactly one moment longer than necessary.
"Wrong room."