Chapter 4 - The Whispers in the Powder Room
By the time the third shoe was completed, Khloe had taken two point two million dollars off the table.
She had stripped Julian Vance of his chips, his pride, and his composure. The young rail heir had abandoned his seat in a blind fury forty minutes earlier, his face the color of spoiled milk as he retreated toward the private bar to drown his humiliation in double scotches.
Khloe pushed her chips toward the center, signaling the dealer that she was stepping away.
“Cashing out?” Sal Moretti asked, his voice dripping with sleaze as he watched her rise from the leather chair. The high slit of the blue silk flared, offering another brief, tantalizing glimpse of her thigh. “You’re walking away while the heat is good, sweetheart.”
“The statistical probability of a downward regression increases after seventy-two hands, Mr. Moretti,” Khloe said coolly, smoothing the skirt with practiced grace. “I prefer to leave when the math is on my side.”
Moretti blinked, entirely out of his depth.
Roman stepped forward, tossing a fifty-thousand-dollar plaque to the dealer as a gratuity. He took Khloe’s elbow, his grip possessive, unyielding.
“I need five minutes, Mr. Caster,” Khloe whispered, leaning into his side so only he could hear. Her head was pounding, the contact lenses felt like sandpaper against her corneas, and her ribs ached from the sheer stress of sitting under the gaze of twenty killers. “The ladies' room. Please.”
Roman looked down at her. The harsh lines of his jaw softened by a microscopic degree. He saw the faint tremor in her hands, the exhaustion shadowing the hollows beneath her eyes.
“Five minutes,” he agreed, his voice a low rumble. “I’ll be standing outside the hallway doors. Don't speak to anyone. Don't take a drink from anyone. If someone touches you, scream, and I’ll put a bullet through the wall.”
“Yes, sir,” she breathed, genuinely grateful for the psychotic perimeter he maintained around her.
The ladies' powder room was a sprawling sanctuary of pink Italian marble, gilded mirrors, and velvet fainting couches. Soft jazz played through hidden ceiling speakers, masking the harsh, ugly realities of the men waiting outside.
Khloe locked herself in a private stall, collapsed onto the seat, and dropped her face into her hands.
She was hyperventilating.
Two point two million dollars. She had just gambled away the equivalent of twenty lifetimes of her salary with Roman Caster’s hand clamped onto her bare shoulder. Her heart was beating so violently she thought her ribs might crack under the pressure.
She reached into her tiny evening clutch, pulled out a bottle of lubricating eye drops, and flooded her burning eyes. Then she stared at the little plastic case containing her heavy tortoiseshell glasses.
She wanted to put them on. She wanted to pull her beige, oversized wool cardigan out of thin air, wrap it around her naked back, and hide until the sun came up.
You have my life, Roman had said to her in his office when he threatened her job.
No, she thought, a cold shiver racing down her spine. He owns my labor. He doesn't own my life.
She stood, smoothed the impossible dress, unlocked the stall door, and walked over to the bank of marble sinks to splash cold water on her wrists.
That was when the heavy mahogany door to the powder room swung open.
Two women stepped inside, leaving a trail of expensive perfume and sharp, mocking laughter in their wake.
One was Sophia Valente, the twenty-four-year-old daughter of the North Side don, draped in white fox fur and dripping with emeralds. The other was a high-end syndicate mistress whose face had appeared in every society tabloid in the tri-state area.
They didn't notice Khloe standing near the shadow of the private stalls. They walked straight to the vanity mirror, pulling out gold lipstick cases.
“Did you see what Roman Caster dragged in tonight?” Sophia sneered, lining her lips with plum pencil. “I almost choked on my champagne. Midnight-blue silk on a girl who clearly bought her posture at a discount outlet.”
“Everyone’s talking about her,” the mistress replied, checking her hair. “They say she’s his secretary. Some quiet little mouse who usually wears clothes from a charity bin.”
Sophia laughed, a cruel, tinkling sound. “A secretary? God, Roman really has lost his mind. My father said he was just trying to insult the commission by bringing an ugly duckling to the ball. But then she sat at the cards and took Julian’s money.”
“Julian’s an idiot,” the mistress said dismissively. “He thinks with whatever is in his trousers. But mark my words, that girl isn't surviving the night.”
Khloe froze. Her hands remained suspended over the marble sink, water dripping from her fingertips into the drain.
“What do you mean?” Sophia asked, blotting her lips with a tissue.
“I heard Sal Moretti talking to Julian by the terrace,” the mistress whispered, leaning closer to Sophia’s ear. “They’re furious about the cards. Julian feels disgraced. Moretti told him that once the gala ends and Roman steps out to the parking pavilion to meet with Castellani, they’re going to intercept the girl’s car. They don't care about Roman’s temper anymore. A creature like that... they think they can break her in a weekend and send the pieces back to Caster’s office in a cardboard box.”
A cold, icy dread seized Khloe’s lungs, turning her blood to slush.
They weren't just looking at her with lust. They were looking at her as collateral. As an easy, unprotected target to bleed Roman Caster of his pride and his territorial dominance.
Sophia shrugged, adjusting her fur stole. “Serves him right for bringing a civilian into the wolf den. If you dress a sheep in silk, it’s still just dinner.”
The two women gathered their purses, checked their reflections one last time, and glided out of the room, the heavy door sealing shut behind them with a muffled click.
Khloe stood alone in front of the mirror.
Her face in the gilded glass was stark white, her dark-red lips looking like a fresh wound.
She wasn't an executive assistant anymore. She wasn't an invisible girl hiding behind a spreadsheet and scuffed orthotic loafers.
Roman had pulled her out of the shadows to prove a point to his enemies, and in doing so, he had painted a massive, blood-red target on her back.
She turned on the brass faucet, dried her hands on an Egyptian cotton towel, and gripped the edge of the marble basin until her knuckles ached.
They think I’m an easy target, she thought, her brown eyes narrowing in the glass, a sudden, burning rage overtaking the paralyzing fear. They think because I sit behind a desk, I’m defenseless.
She reached into her clutch, pulled out the heavy gold Montblanc pen Roman had given her for her one-year work anniversary—a solid brass instrument with a tapered steel nib designed to withstand three hundred pounds of pressure.
May you like
She slid the pen into the concealed garter beneath her midnight-blue silk, right against her inner thigh.
Then she pushed open the bathroom door and stepped back out into the line of fire.
