Chapter 2 - The Wolf at the Table
The man standing before them was Julian Vance.
He was thirty-two, heir to the northern rail corridors, and possessed the sort of sharp, aristocratic cruelty that came from never having suffered a single consequence in his life. His tuxedo was Italian velvet, midnight black, and his pale eyes carried the flat, calculating gleam of a man who measured everything in leverage and flesh.
Julian’s gaze swept over Roman with casual indifference before dropping straight to Khloe. It lingered on the diamond choker nestled against the hollow of her throat, traced the curve of her collarbone, and finally locked onto the bare swell of her hip where Roman’s fingers dug into the silk.
“I didn't think you had an appetite for luxury, Roman,” Julian said, swirling a glass of amber scotch. His tone was light, but his eyes never left Khloe’s mouth. “You usually attend these functions alone, looking like an executioner waiting for his shift to begin. Introduce us.”
Roman’s hand did not budge from the small of Khloe’s back. If anything, his fingers pressed harder, burning through the thin fabric until she could feel the rough calluses of his palm against her skin.
“You don't need an introduction, Vance,” Roman said. His voice was steady, dropping an octave into that low, dangerous register that preceded gunfire in abandoned warehouses. “You have business on the northern docks. Talk about the shipping manifests, or move along.”
Julian smiled, a slow, predatory baring of teeth. He took half a step closer, close enough that Khloe could smell the cloying scent of bergamot and expensive tobacco rolling off his jacket.
“Business can wait. The music is playing, the champagne is vintage, and you’re hoarding a masterpiece in the corner like a miser with a stolen coin.” Julian tilted his head, speaking directly to Khloe for the first time. “What’s your name, sweetheart? Did he pull you out of an opera house, or did you fall from somewhere higher?”
Khloe’s breath hitched. Her instincts—honed through twenty-six years of poverty and two years of surviving Roman Caster’s volatile temper—screamed at her to shrink, to look at her shoes, to vanish behind the safety of thick tortoiseshell frames and frayed wool. But she wasn't wearing wool. She was wearing midnight-blue silk that felt like liquid fire, and the man holding her was radiating a murderous heat that made the hair on her arms stand up.
“Her name is not your concern,” Roman cut in, his shoulders squaring.
“I was asking the lady,” Julian murmured, his gaze dropping to the high slit on Khloe’s left thigh. “Unless she’s mute. Is she mute, Roman? A silent ornament to match your charming personality?”
Khloe swallowed the knot in her throat. She felt Roman’s muscles coil, his left hand twitching toward the inner lining of his jacket where his custom piece was undoubtedly holstered. If Roman drew a weapon here, in the middle of the Castellani ballroom under the surveillance of three dozen syndicate capos, the fragile truce that kept the city from burning would detonate before midnight.
She couldn't let him shoot someone. Not because she cared about Julian Vance, but because if Roman went to prison or ended up in a pine box, the health insurance keeping her mother alive would vanish before sunrise.
Khloe lifted her chin. The burning contact lenses in her eyes made her vision razor-sharp.
“My name is Khloe,” she said, her voice quiet, perfectly measured, and devoid of the terror rattling her ribs. “And Mr. Caster is correct. We are here on business, Mr. Vance. If your attention is so easily diverted by evening wear, I have to wonder how the northern rail lines managed to lose four freight cars outside Syracuse last Tuesday.”
The silence that followed was instant and suffocating.
Julian’s smile froze. The patronizing smirk wiped clean off his face, replaced by a sudden, ugly rigidity. Those four lost freight cars were a catastrophic logistical failure that Vance had spent forty-eight hours bribing port inspectors to cover up.
Beside her, Roman went entirely still.
He looked down at Khloe, his ocean-cold eyes widening by a fraction of an inch. In the office, she spoke in monosyllables. She gave him flight numbers, typed meeting summaries, and scurried out of his perimeter like a mouse avoiding an owl. He had never heard her cut a man's legs out from under him with a single sentence.
Julian let out a dry, humorless laugh, though his knuckles whitened around his crystal glass. “Sharp tongue. Dangerous trait in a pretty thing, Roman. You ought to keep her on a shorter leash.”
“Her leash isn't the one you need to worry about,” Roman said, stepping forward so that his broad chest completely blocked Julian’s view of Khloe’s dress. The air between the two men turned freezing cold. “Walk away, Julian. While you still have your teeth.”
Julian stared at Roman for three long, agonizing seconds, weighing the odds. Finally, he gave a mocking half-bow, his eyes flicking once more toward the sliver of blue silk visible behind Roman’s shoulder.
“I’ll see you at the high-stakes table, Caster,” Julian whispered. “Bring the girl. Let’s see if her luck matches her mouth.”
He melted back into the milling crowd of tuxedos and diamond-draped wives.
The moment Julian was out of earshot, Roman spun Khloe around. He backed her two steps into the alcove behind the weeping ice sculpture, trapping her between his massive frame and the marble wall.
His hands came down on either side of her head, bracing against the cold stone. His tuxedo was immaculate, but the pulse pounding at the base of his throat was wild, frantic.
“What was that?” Roman growled, his face inches from hers.
Khloe pressed her back against the marble, shivering as the damp chill of the ice touched her bare shoulders. “I... I read the incident report on the rail lines yesterday morning, Mr. Caster. You asked me to file it under active vulnerabilities.”
“I didn't ask how you knew about the freight cars,” Roman hissed, his gaze dropping to her mouth, to the dark-red lipstick he had never seen her wear. “I asked why you opened your mouth to a viper like Julian Vance.”
“He was provoking you,” she whispered, her voice trembling now that the adrenaline was draining. “You were going to touch your weapon. If you draw on him here—”
“Let me worry about who I shoot!” Roman’s voice cracked like a whip in the narrow alcove. He leaned in closer, his heavy scent of cedarwood, gunpowder, and clean linen drowning out the ballroom. “Do you have any idea what you look like right now, Khloe? Do you have any concept of what those men are thinking?”
“You bought the dress,” she countered, a sudden spark of defiance breaking through her fear. Her hands came up, pressing against the firm, unyielding wall of his chest to keep him from crushing her. “You ordered me to wear it! You said if I wasn't in the car by six, I was fired!”
Roman froze. Her palms were flat against his shirt, right over his heart, feeling the heavy, uneven thudding against his ribs.
He looked down at her hands. Small, pale, completely unadorned.
He had bought the dress. He had picked out the backless silk, the red-soled stilettos, the diamond choker. He had done it out of spite, intending to parade an awkward, terrified girl in front of his peers to mock their vanity.
He hadn't expected the silk to fit her like a second skin. He hadn't expected the swan-like curve of her neck, the dark tumble of hair, or the fierce, protective intelligence that lived behind those thick glasses he had always ignored.
He hadn't planned on wanting to tear the throat out of every man who looked at her.
“I made a mistake,” Roman murmured, his voice suddenly thick, gravelly, and entirely stripped of mockery.
Khloe swallowed, her fingers twitching against his chest. “A mistake, sir?”
Roman reached out, his knuckles slowly, impossibly gently grazing the side of her jaw, following the line down to the pulse leaping frantically beneath her skin.
“A catastrophic one,” he whispered.
May you like
Before Khloe could process the sudden shift in the air, the heavy bronze bell near the entrance chimed three times. The doors to the private salon were opening.
Don Castellani was calling the room to order.
