Chapter 2 - The Scent of Blood and Smoke
The private terrace overlooking the dark expanse of Long Island Sound was twenty degrees colder than the ballroom, but Khloe barely felt the chill. The adrenaline roaring through her veins had turned her blood into liquid fire.
Roman stood at the stone balustrade, his tuxedo jacket unbuttoned, holding a crystal tumbler of neat bourbon in his right hand. He was breathing heavily, his broad chest rising and falling beneath his starched shirt. He hadn't touched the drink. He stared out into the pitch-black water as if searching for an enemy fleet.
Khloe stood three feet behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, trying to stop the violent trembling in her knees.
"You broke his wrist," she whispered, her voice cracking against the sound of the crashing waves below. "Mr. Caster... he's the son of Don Valente. You broke his wrist in front of three hundred people."
Roman turned around slowly.
In the faint, blue moonlight filtering through the clouds, his face looked carved from ancient basalt. The cold, indifferent facade of the executive had shattered completely, leaving only the raw, untamed monster who ruled the city’s underworld.
"I should have broken his neck," Roman said, his voice low, guttural, and trembling with restrained violence.
"Why?" Khloe stepped forward, anger finally fracturing the paralyzing terror that had held her captive all evening. "Why do you care?! Yesterday I was an invisible piece of furniture! You brought me here as a joke! You wanted to mock them with the girl in the orthopedic shoes, didn't you?!"
Roman froze. His grip on the crystal glass tightened until the heavy glass groaned.
"You think this was a joke?" he asked, taking a slow, menacing step toward her.
"I know it was!" Khloe cried out, gesturing down at the liquid-blue silk clinging to her curves. "You bought me a dress meant for a high-priced courtesan! You wanted them to laugh at me! But they didn't laugh, did they? And now you're furious because you couldn't control the room!"
Roman crossed the distance between them in two strides.
Before she could retreat, his free hand came up, his large, calloused palm cupping the side of her neck, his thumb resting directly over her racing pulse point. The heat of his skin was overwhelming, scorching through the cold night air. He didn't squeeze, but the grip was an iron cage, tilting her chin up until her wide, amber-flecked eyes were forced to drown in the stormy gray of his.
"You think I'm furious at them?" Roman whispered, his face inches from hers, his breath smelling of bourbon and cold smoke. "I'm furious at myself, Khloe."
Khloe’s breath hitched in her throat. "What?"
"I sat across from you for two years," Roman growled, his thumb tracing the soft curve of her jawline with an agonizing, tender ferocity that made her knees buckle. "Two years, five days a week, eight hours a day. I watched you pour my coffee, file my wiretaps, and take my abuse. And I was stupid enough, blind enough, to believe you were safe behind those sweaters."
His gaze dropped to her red lips, lingered for an eternity, and rose back to her eyes with a hunger so naked, so primal, that it took the air straight from her lungs.
"You are not safe, Khloe. Not in that dress. Not in this house. And especially not with me."
Before she could speak, before her spinning mind could process the terrifying gravity of his confession, the heavy French doors of the terrace clicked open.
Mikhail, Roman’s chief enforcer, stepped onto the terrace, his hand resting on the butt of the suppressed semi-automatic pistol beneath his coat. His scarred face was grim.
"Boss," Mikhail said, his voice flat. "Don Valente just called an emergency council in the library. He brought six capos from the Five Families. They're demanding Miss Hayes be handed over to the family court for adjudication over the assault on Dante."
Roman didn't remove his hand from Khloe’s neck. He kept his thumb resting against her fluttering pulse for three more seconds, his eyes boring into hers, before slowly, reluctantly letting his fingers slide away from her skin.
"Handed over?" Roman asked, turning his head slightly toward Mikhail, his voice dropping into that chilling, clinical register that signaled mass casualties.
"Dante claims she provoked him," Mikhail replied. "He claims she’s an unregistered civilian operating without family protection, which gives any capo the right of first claim under the nineteen-ninety-four charter."
Khloe gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Right of first claim. She had typed those legal briefs during her first month at the firm. Under the ancient syndicate laws, an unprotected woman involved in an honor dispute between families could be claimed as property by the offended party.
Roman turned fully around.
He reached out, took the crystal tumbler from the balustrade, and downed the double shot of bourbon in a single, smooth motion. He set the empty glass down, walked over to Khloe, and reached inside his tuxedo jacket.
He didn't pull out a weapon.
He pulled out a heavy, velvet-lined jeweler’s box.
He flipped it open with his thumb.
Inside lay an antique platinum ring set with an unblemished, six-carat emerald-cut diamond, flanked by two raw, unpolished black sapphires—the historic signet ring of the Caster family, which had belonged to Roman’s grandmother.
"Give me your left hand, Khloe," Roman commanded.
May you like
Khloe backed up half a step, her back hitting the stone railing. "Mr. Caster... what are you doing?"
"They want to claim an unprotected secretary," Roman whispered, his gray eyes locking onto hers like twin gun barrels. "I'm going to show them they're looking at the future queen of the Eastern Seaboard. Hand. Now."
