Chapter 1 - The Anatomy of a Threat and the Red Silk Mistake
“The two men near the north windows haven’t looked outside once,” Claire Bennett
said, keeping her voice low enough that it barely carried over the swelling
crescendo of the string quartet. Her fingers lightly grazed the stem of an
untouched flute of sparkling mineral water. “They arrived together. They’re
pretending they didn’t.”
Damian Cross did not turn his head. He didn’t need to. At six-foot-three,
standing in a tailored charcoal Brioni tuxedo that made every other man in the
Harbor Crown ballroom look like an unmade bed, he commanded the room simply by
occupying space.
His eyes shifted toward her, dark and unreadable. “What else?”
Claire took a quiet breath, her pulse hammering against her ribs like a trapped
bird. Two hours ago, she had been Claire the invisible nurse—the woman who wore
oversized ceil-blue scrubs, kept her thick walnut-brown hair pinned in a
utilitarian bun, and spent twelve-hour shifts stitching severed arteries in the
sub-basement clinic of Crosswell Development without ever looking Damian Cross
in the eye.
Now, she was trapped inside an unforgiving sheath of crimson silk that brushed
the tops of her heels, her bare shoulders exposed to the chill of the penthouse
gala’s air-conditioning, feeling Damian’s heavy, calloused hand resting
possessively against the small of her back. The heat of his palm burned straight
through the fabric, anchoring her to the marble floor.
“The catering captain,” Claire murmured, tilting her chin slightly as if sharing
an intimate joke with the most feared man in New England. “Third server from the
left, near the VIP dais. Watch his gait. He favors his right leg, but he isn’t
limping from an injury. He’s compensating for weight taped to his inner calf.
About two pounds. A Glock 19 or an SIG Sauer P320.”
Damian’s fingers twitched against her lower back. A millimeter of movement, but
to Claire, who had spent seven years reading micro-expressions in emergency
rooms, it was an earthquake.
“You learned that in the trauma bay?” Damian asked, his baritone rumbling
through her chest.
“You learn what a concealed holster looks like when gang members try to sneak
weapons into triage,” she replied evenly. “And the woman talking to Councilman
Hale isn’t his wife. She’s touching her ear every forty seconds. Not checking an
earring. Adjusting an earpiece.”
A ghost of a smile touched the sharp corner of Damian’s mouth, though his eyes
remained obsidian. “Two years, Bennett. Two years you’ve sat in my clinic,
quietly patching up men who took shrapnel in dockyard turf disputes, never
asking a single question, never making a demand.”
“I’m paid very well to be blind and deaf, Mr. Cross.”
“And yet tonight, you see everything.” He leaned down slightly, the faint scent
of cedarwood, expensive bourbon, and cold ocean air washing over her senses.
“Why did you wear that dress, Claire?”
Her throat tightened. It was the first time he had ever spoken her first name.
For twenty-four months, she had been Bennett or Nurse.
“The boutique on Newbury didn't have anything in black that fit off the rack,”
she lied, staring straight ahead at the glittering crowd of senators, real
estate tycoons, judges, and high-ranking mob lieutenants.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Damian whispered, his lips brushing the shell of her
ear. “You wore it because you wanted me to see you.”
Before Claire could counter the accusation, the hair on the nape of her neck
prickled. Her gaze snapped back to the dais.
The server with the limp had abandoned his tray of champagne flutes on a
high-top table. His right hand was dipping smoothly beneath the hem of his black
trousers. Across the perimeter, near the floor-to-ceiling glass windows
overlooking Boston Harbor, the two men Claire had clocked earlier were reaching
inside their dinner jackets in eerie synchronization.
“Damian,” she whispered, the formality stripped from her voice by pure instinct.
“Dais. Now.”
Everything fractured into violent, stuttering motion.
Damian didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look to confirm her warning. With the lethal,
predatory reflexes of a man who had survived three attempts on his life before
the age of thirty, he hooked his left arm around Claire’s waist, lifted her
completely off her feet, and lunged behind a massive Corinthian marble pillar
just as the first suppressed shot shattered a magnum of Dom Pérignon six inches
from Claire’s head.
The crack of crystal sounded like a miniature bomb. Screams ripped through the
room, high and hysterical, drowning out the string quartet as five hundred elite
guests scrambled for the exits like stampeding cattle.
Thwip. Thwip. Crack.
Two rounds gouged white wounds into the marble inches above Damian’s shoulder.
Marble dust rained down like chalk, coating the dark lapels of his jacket and
settling into Claire’s dark hair.
Damian had her pinned flush against the stone, shielding her entire body with
his own bulk. Claire could feel the heavy, thunderous cadence of his heart
against her collarbone. His right hand dipped beneath his jacket, emerging with
a sleek, matte-black customized Kimber 1911.
“Stay down,” Damian ordered, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of panic. “Keep
behind my shoulder.”
“There are three of them,” Claire gasped, her hands gripping the lapels of his
tuxedo for balance. “The server, the two at the window, and—”
A heavy submachine burst tore through the floral arrangement above them, sending
glass shards, white orchids, and splintered mahogany raining across the floor.
Across the room, Marcus, Damian’s chief of security, was returning fire with a
suppressed weapon, dragging a wounded state senator toward the service corridor.
But the shooters weren’t looking at Marcus. They weren't looking at the
politicians.
Their weapons were fixed with terrifying precision on the pillar where Damian
stood.
“They didn’t come to send a message,” Damian muttered, his jaw set like iron as
he leaned out, fired two rapid, deafening shots, and dropped the fake server
before the man could clear his weapon. “They came for an execution.”
Suddenly, the overhead chandeliers flickered, groaned, and died completely.
The ballroom plunged into pitch darkness, illuminated only by the frantic
flashing red emergency exit signs and the glittering lights of the harbor
outside. In the crimson gloom, Claire’s trained eyes picked up a shadow moving
along the service catwalk suspended twenty feet above their heads.
A red laser dot danced across the marble dust on the floor. It climbed up the
hem of her crimson dress. It tracked across her hip, her ribs, and settled
squarely between Damian’s shoulder blades.
May you like
“Damian, look up!” Claire screamed, throwing her arms around his neck to drag
him down.
A rifle blast shattered the dark above them, and Damian let out a low, guttural
grunt as his massive frame buckled hard against her.
