Chapter 2 - The Corridor of Whispers
The freight elevator shaft behind the ballroom was cold, smelling of old brick, damp plaster, and the metallic tang of heavy machinery.
I didn't wait for Daniel to finish his toast. The second he turned his back to address the frozen crowd, I slipped through the service double doors, hitched the heavy skirt of my black-and-white event coordinator uniform up to my knees, and bolted down the service corridor toward the loading docks.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Idiot. Stupid, reckless idiot.
I had broken every rule Vincent Marchetti had drilled into me since I was eight years old. Observe from the shadows. Never leave a footprint. Let them tear each other apart.
Instead, I had leaped into the center of a mafia boss's crosshairs just to save his life.
My cell phone vibrated violently against my thigh.
I yanked it from the hidden pocket of my skirt, pressing it to my ear as I shoved open the heavy metal exit door into the freezing Manhattan night.
"Talk," I snapped.
"Emily?" My father’s voice came through the encrypted line, sharp, cold, and carrying the icy authority of a man who controlled half the shipping lanes in the Atlantic. "What in God's name just happened at the Ashford estate? My scout in the security detail says the primary target’s glass was contaminated with potassium cyanide, and you were the one who knocked it out of his hand."
I leaned my back against the brick wall of the alley, closing my eyes as the sleet melted against my hair.
"Katherine Porter switched the glasses," I reported, my breath pluming into white clouds in the freezing air. "She tried to poison him. If I hadn't intervened, Daniel Ashford would have been dead before the string quartet finished the second movement."
A heavy, irritated sigh hissed through the phone.
"I didn't send you there to play guardian angel, Emily," Vincent said, his tone dropping into a dangerous register. "Daniel Ashford’s death would have triggered an immediate turf war between the Ashford syndicate and our ports. It would have created the exact vacuum we've been waiting two years to exploit."
"And it would have blown our cover wide open," I fired back, the adrenaline finally turning into white-hot anger. "The police would have dismantled the entire catering staff, seized our background files, and traced the catering company straight back to our front corp in Queens. You want Ashford dead? Fine. But you do it when we control the fallout, not when a senator's daughter decides to get sloppy with rat poison!"
Silence stretched across the line.
My father was a calculating monster, but he wasn't stupid. He knew I was right. If the feds had raided the Ashford mansion following an assassination on our payroll, our entire New York operation would have unraveled in forty-eight hours.
"You're staying too close to him, Emily," my father said quietly. "The girl who forgets her mission is the girl who ends up in a shallow grave behind the warehouses."
"I haven't forgotten anything," I said, my voice hardening into ice. "I know who he is. I know what his family did to ours."
"Then finish the job," Vincent commanded. "Find out where he keeps the maritime inspection ledgers. And then... get out before he figures out who you really are."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
I lowered the phone, staring down at the dark screen as my reflection stared back at me—pale, exhausted, and terrifyingly vulnerable.
"You're a hard woman to find, Miss McBride."
The voice came from the shadows of the alley entrance, six feet behind my left shoulder.
My entire body went rigid. I didn't need to turn around to recognize the scent of cedarwood, whiskey, and raw power.
I slowly turned around.
Daniel Ashford stood leaning against the brick wall, his tuxedo jacket gone, his white shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In his right hand, he held a sleek, black Glock 19, the barrel pointed lazily toward the wet asphalt, though his eyes were locked onto my face with absolute, unblinking intensity.
"How did you find me?" I asked, my fingers curling into my palms inside my pockets.
"You left your clipboard on the service table," Daniel said, stepping out from the shadows, his leather shoes making no sound against the wet pavement. "And more importantly... my head of security checked the catering agency's registration. There is no Emily McBride registered in the state of New York. But there is an active file on a girl named Emily Marchetti... the daughter of the man who’s been trying to choke my shipping lines out of the harbor for the last five years."
The world seemed to drop three floors.
My lungs emptied of air. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to draw the concealed blade strapped to my left thigh, but I knew—with the terrifying certainty of a predator recognizing a superior force—that if I moved an inch, Daniel would put a bullet through my shoulder before my hand even cleared the fabric.
"So," Daniel whispered, closing the distance between us until he was standing so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest.
May you like
He reached out, his warm, calloused fingers catching a lock of my dark hair, winding the strands slowly around his index finger.
"Are you going to kill me, Emily?" he asked, his dark eyes burning into mine with an intoxicating, terrifying mix of fury and desire. "Or are you going to invite me inside?"
