Chapter 2 - The Grand Ballroom
The Plaza Hotel’s grand ballroom on Michigan Avenue was a sensory assault of crystal chandeliers, champagne flutes, string quartets, and the low, collective hum of Chicago’s wealthiest hypocrites laughing over canapés.
I stood near a towering marble pillar in my midnight-blue silk dress, feeling dangerously exposed. The gown clung to my curves in a way my usual gray suits never allowed, the silk shimmering under the blinding light of the chandeliers.
Across the room, Vincent Costa stood beside State Senator Harrison, holding a glass of amber scotch, looking completely relaxed and at home in his tailored black tuxedo.
Yet, even while laughing at the senator's joke, Vincent’s eyes flicked across the room with clockwork precision every five seconds—a tactical scan of every door, every exit, and every face in the crowd.
"He's looking at you again."
I turned my head. Leo, one of Vincent’s primary security enforcers who had been assigned to blend in near the dessert table, was leaning against a pillar, nursing a club soda.
I forced my expression to remain neutral. "No, Leo. He’s scanning the room for security vectors."
Leo shook his head, a faint, knowing smirk playing on his lips. "He scans the room every few seconds, Mave. But when his eyes cross this side of the ballroom, they linger on you for two seconds longer than anyone else. I've worked for him for eight years. Boss doesn't look at files the way he looks at you."
"I am his secretary, Leo," I said firmly, adjusting the strap of my gown. "Nothing more. My job is logistics."
"Right," Leo muttered dryly. "And I'm a choir boy."
I ignored him, looking back toward the center of the room. But as I turned, my gaze caught something that made the air freeze in my lungs.
Standing near the heavy mahogany double doors at the far end of the ballroom was a man who didn't belong.
He wore an expensive designer tuxedo, but it sat awkwardly on his broad shoulders, as if he had borrowed it for the evening. He held no champagne glass. He spoke to no one. He checked no watch.
He had a jagged, white scar running from his left eyebrow up into his hairline.
And his eyes—cold, dead, and entirely fixated—were locked directly onto me.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I blinked, looking down at my digital tablet to check the guest list QR code scanner. I scrolled through the corporate registry.
Not on the list.
I looked back toward the doors. The scar-faced man took a slow, deliberate step forward into the crowd.
I looked for Leo, but he had slipped away toward the kitchen service entrance to check a perimeter report.
Then, I looked toward Vincent.
The instant Vincent’s eyes shifted and landed on the stranger near the door, his entire posture transformed. The polite, diplomatic smile vanished from his face in a fraction of a second. His jaw tightened until the muscles flexed visibly beneath his skin. His broad shoulders squared.
And his right hand drifted down, resting casually but purposefully against the hidden holster beneath his left lapel.
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit.
May you like
The stranger smiled—a slow, mocking twist of his lips.
Then he started walking toward me.
