Chapter 3 - The Crimson Ballroom
The grand ballroom of the Drake Hotel was a sea of black ties, diamonds, and blood-money elegance on the night of the winter solstice gala.
The wedding was three months away, but tonight was the official engagement ball—a mandatory gathering of the city’s criminal elite, celebrating the alliance between Caruso and Vance.
I stood near the rear service entrance, holding an encrypted clipboard, wearing a high-necked navy velvet gown that disguised the slight, five-month swell of my pregnancy. My feet ached with a bone-deep throb, my lower back burning from eight hours of coordinating private security perimeters, but my posture remained military-straight.
On the raised dais at the center of the ballroom, Dominic sat beside Genevieve Vance like a medieval warlord.
He wore a bespoke black tuxedo with a velvet lapel, looking breathtakingly cruel and magnificent. Genevieve was draped in silver silk, laughing loudly, tipping champagne into her mouth, leaning into Dominic’s shoulder with exaggerated possession whenever a photographer approached.
Dominic’s gaze, however, was not on his fiancée.
Every three minutes, his cold gray eyes swept across the six hundred guests, cutting through the smoke and the crystal chandeliers, locking squarely onto me standing near the service doors.
Beside me, Julian Thorne materialized from the crowd, holding two glasses of sparkling mineral water. He wore an ivory dinner jacket that made his broad shoulders look even wider, his hazel eyes warm as he handed me a glass.
“You’ve been on your feet since four, Clara,” Julian whispered, stepping close enough that his shoulder shielded me from the glare of the room. “Drink the water. I have a car waiting behind the loading dock. Let me take you home.”
“I have to verify the departure manifests for the Detroit delegation at eleven,” I murmured, taking a slow sip. “Dominic will notice if I leave early.”
“Let him notice,” Julian said, his jaw tightening into hard, protective lines. “He’sparading that snake around the room while you’re carrying—"
He stopped himself, lowering his voice into a fierce, urgent rasp.
“You shouldn't be in this room tonight, Clara. The Bertinelli family didn't send flowers. Their capos are sitting at table nine, and they haven't touched their dinner. Something is off.”
Before I could answer, the heavy double doors of the main entrance burst open.
It didn't begin with a warning.
It began with the deafening, concussive roar of three flashbang grenades detonating simultaneously across the parquet dance floor.
A wall of white-hot light and concussive pressure blew through the ballroom, shattering five crystal chandeliers into a deadly rain of falling glass. Screams tore through the hall as thirty armed men in black tactical gear and balaclavas breached the exits, automatic weapons coughing suppressed, rhythmic bursts of gunfire into the ceiling.
“CARUSO!” a voice boomed through a tactical bullhorn. “THE NORTH HARBOR IS CLOSED!”
Panic erupted like an oil fire. Six hundred socialites trampled each other toward the narrow service corridors, overturning banquet tables and shattering thousands of champagne flutes.
On the dais, Dominic was on his feet in half a second, drawing a customized semi-automatic pistol from beneath his tuxedo jacket, returning fire with lethal, surgical precision.
Genevieve screamed—a high, hysterical wail—collapsing onto the floor behind the velvet sofa, clutching Dominic’s trousers with frantic, clawing hands.
“Dominic! Save me! Don't leave me!”
Across the smoke-filled ballroom, fifty feet away, a stray ricochet struck the concrete pillar three inches from my head.
The shockwave knocked me off my feet. I fell hard against the marble floor, my hip slamming into the sharp edge of an overturned silver chafing dish.
A blinding, jagged bolt of agony exploded through my lower abdomen.
I gasped, curling into a protective ball around my stomach, my hands clutching my belly as a warm, terrifying wetness began to soak through the lining of my navy velvet gown.
“Clara!” Julian’s voice roared through the gunfire.
I looked up through the drifting smoke and tear gas.
Dominic was thirty feet away, standing over Genevieve. He had two choices: the emergency fire exit directly behind the stage, which led to his armored limousine, or the open crossfire of the ballroom floor where I lay bleeding on the marble.
His gray eyes locked onto mine through the haze.
He saw me on the floor. He saw my hands clutching my stomach. He saw the crimson stain spreading across the navy silk beneath my thighs.
For a single, agonizing second, the universe stood still.
Then Genevieve shrieked, wrapping her arms around his knees, sobbing hysterically: “Dominic, please! They're coming for me! Get me out!”
Dominic broke eye contact.
He reached down, hoisted Genevieve into his arms, threw his body over hers like a human shield, and sprinted through the reinforced fire exit, slamming the heavy steel door shut behind them.
He left me on the floor.
He chose the mistress.
The pain in my abdomen tore through my consciousness like an electric saw. My vision tunneled into blackness, the roar of automatic gunfire fading into a high-pitched, hollow ringing in my ears.
Then, strong, shaking arms scooped me off the bloody marble.
Julian lifted me against his chest, his ivory jacket instantly soaking through with my blood. He didn't use a fire exit; he charged straight through the service kitchen, his body shielding mine as two of his personal security men fired continuous, suppressive bursts into the pursuing gunmen.
“Stay with me, Clara!” Julian yelled, his voice cracking with a raw, unadulterated terror I had never heard in a man before. “Look at me! Don't close your eyes! Look at my face!”
I looked up into his hazel eyes, swimming with tears, his jaw set in a savage, desperate determination.
May you like
“My baby...” I choked out, blood tasting like copper on my tongue. “Julian... save my baby...”
“I will,” Julian sobbed, kicking open the rear loading dock doors into the freezing Chicago rain. “I swear to you on my life, Clara, I will save you both!”
