Chapter 2 - The Fire Across the Room
The air inside Adrian Cross’s ballroom smelled of expensive dry-aged beef, crushed mint from the cocktail bar, and the sharp, electric current of tension that accompanies a room full of apex predators.
I didn't cower under the weight of a hundred staring eyes. I lifted my chin, smoothed the clinging silk of my red dress over my hips, and walked toward the center of the room with the measured, unhurried grace of a woman who had nothing left to lose.
Adrian didn't wait for me to reach him. He detached himself from the marble pillar, his tall, broad-shouldered frame cutting through the crowd as easily as a ship through ice. Up close, his gray eyes were sharp, intelligent, and entirely calculating.
"Claire Russo," Adrian murmured, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that carried easily over the low hum of the string quartet. "Or should I still call you Claire Hart? Word travels fast in this city, but a woman walking into my house wearing a dress her husband hates travels even faster."
I stopped two feet from him, holding his gaze without a flicker of hesitation. "You have good intelligence sources, Mr. Cross."
"I have eyes," Adrian corrected gently, taking a slow sip of his scotch. "And right now, every single pair of eyes in this room is wondering what kind of game Dominic Russo's neglected wife is playing by walking into his bitterest enemy's home uninvited."
"I'm not playing a game," I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, icy register. "I'm simply exploring what life looks like outside a cage."
A dark, appreciative spark flickered in Adrian's gray eyes. He didn't look at me with the greasy, entitled hunger of the men my father used to trade with; he looked at me the way a general looks at a talented lieutenant who has just switched sides on the battlefield.
"A cage," he repeated, tasting the word. "Is that what Dominic built for you?"
"He built a fortress," I corrected. "And tonight, he told me he never wanted the tenant."
Before Adrian could reply, the heavy double doors at the entrance of the ballroom banged open with a force that made the crystal chandelier overhead sway.
The music stopped instantly.
The chatter of two hundred guests evaporated into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the cold Chicago sleet, was Dominic Russo.
He hadn't bothered to put on an overcoat. He wore his bespoke charcoal three-piece suit, his vest unbuttoned at the top, his dark hair slightly ruffled by the wind. But it was his face that made the room freeze—a mask of absolute, volcanic fury so terrifying that several prominent city politicians stepped backward into the shadows.
His slate-gray eyes swept across the ballroom, bypassing the socialites, ignoring the politicians, and locking onto me with the unerring precision of a heat-seeking missile.
Beside me, Adrian didn't flinch. He simply shifted his weight, setting his glass down on a passing waiter’s tray, and took half a step forward to stand protectively at my side.
"Well," Adrian muttered, a dry, dangerous edge to his voice. "It appears your husband's work schedule just cleared up."
Dominic started walking.
The crowd parted before him like water before the bow of an iron ship. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. Everyone in Chicago knew that when Dominic Russo walked with that specific, measured stride, someone was about to die.
He stopped five feet from where Adrian and I stood.
May you like
The air between us felt thick enough to chew—charged with an electromagnetic violence that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"Claire," Dominic said. His voice was dangerously soft, a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. "We are going home."
