Chapter 3 - The Gala Where Champagne Tasted Like Iron and the Walls Started Bleeding
The Grand Ballroom of the Drake Hotel was a sea of black silk, tailored tuxedos,
and crystal chandeliers that scattered diamond-bright reflections across three
hundred of Chicago’s most influential elite.
I stood near the edge of the mezzanine railing, clutching a glass of champagne
that had long since gone flat, feeling entirely like a trespasser in a foreign
kingdom.
I was wearing an emerald green floor-length silk gown that had arrived at my
apartment the previous afternoon in an unmarked black garment bag. It fit so
flawlessly that someone had clearly tailored it to the exact measurements from
my hospital personnel file. My hair was swept up, exposing the long line of my
neck, and around my throat rested a simple platinum chain with a single teardrop
emerald.
Kieran had not asked me to come as a decorative date.
"Marcus will be there," Kieran had told me in his penthouse office the night
before, after Garrett’s warning had forced my hand. "The entire syndicate board
will be watching. If you hide, they smell weakness. If you stand beside me, they
know you are untouchable under my name."
Now, Kieran was standing twenty feet away, surrounded by three city aldermen and
a federal judge. He wore a custom midnight-blue tuxedo that made him look like a
reigning sovereign holding court. Every person who approached him did so with a
subtle dip of their chin, a cautious lowering of their voices, hanging on his
every word.
Yet, despite the crowd pressing around him, Kieran’s eyes drifted toward me
every few minutes. Whenever our gazes locked across the crowded room, the severe
line of his mouth softened by a fraction of a millimeter.
"He looks at you like you're the only thing in this room that isn't for sale," a
low voice murmured beside me.
I turned to see Garrett Voss slipping through the crowd. Unlike the rest of the
men in formal attire, Garrett looked rumpled, his bowtie slightly askew, a glass
of amber scotch resting in his uninjured hand.
"You told me to run," I said under my breath, watching Kieran out of the corner
of my eye. "And yet here I am."
"Here you are," Garrett echoed, taking a sip from his glass. "Walking straight
into the dragon's den with emeralds around your neck. You have courage, Nurse
Hartley. Or a death wish. I haven't decided which."
"Did you tell Kieran about the tracker?" I asked.
Garrett’s jaw tightened. He swirled the ice in his glass. "If I tell Kieran that
Marcus put a tracker on your car, Kieran executes him in the alley behind the
Palmer House tonight. And if he does that before the docks contract is ratified
on Monday, the entire southern faction breaks away. A street war starts in five
neighborhoods simultaneously."
I felt a chill wash over my skin despite the warmth of the ballroom. "So you let
Marcus walk around this room?"
Garrett nodded toward the far corner of the mezzanine.
Standing by the heavy velvet drapes was a man in his late forties with a shaved
head, a thick neck, and a scar that ran from the corner of his left eye down
into his collar. He wasn't drinking. He wasn't talking to the socialites. He was
watching Kieran with the cold, calculating eyes of a predator timing its strike.
"That's Marcus," Garrett whispered. "He's built alliances with Lorenzo Thorne
behind Kieran's back. He thinks our family has run this city for too long."
Across the room, Kieran finished his conversation with the judge. He turned, his
gaze cutting straight through the crowd until it locked onto me. He began
walking across the polished hardwood floor, the sea of wealthy guests parting
effortlessly before him.
"Here comes the king," Garrett muttered, stepping back into the shadow of a
marble pillar. "Watch your back tonight, Mila."
Kieran stopped directly in front of me. The faint scent of his
cologne—sandalwood, bergamot, and pure rain—instantly steadied the wild flutter
in my chest.
"Are you all right?" he asked softly, his eyes scanning my face with surgical
precision. "You look pale."
"I'm fine," I lied, forcing a small smile. "Just not used to
four-thousand-dollar dresses and rooms full of people who look like they own
senators."
"They don't own them," Kieran replied dryly. "They just lease them."
He offered his arm. I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow, feeling the
dense, coiled strength of the muscle beneath the fine wool. He led me away from
the noise of the main ballroom toward the private VIP elevator bank on the
hotel's lower level.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Home," Kieran said. "You've fulfilled your obligation. Noah is with Mrs.
Kowalski—under four of my personal security guards outside your door—and you've
been on your feet since seven this morning."
We stepped into the private elevator. The brass doors slid shut, cutting off the
jazz orchestra and the clinking glasses of the gala above. In the mirror-lined
box, our reflection stood out starkly: the powerful mob boss in his dark tuxedo,
and the exhausted nurse who had somehow become his center of gravity.
Kieran turned to me, his hands resting lightly on my hips. He pulled me gently
toward him until my chest rested against his.
"You were magnificent tonight," he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of my
collarbone just above the emerald necklace. "Every man in that room was
wondering what miracle occurred to bring you here."
"I'm not a miracle, Kieran," I whispered, looking up into the stormy gray of his
eyes. "I'm terrified."
His expression darkened with sudden, fierce protectiveness. "I told you. No one
touches you."
The elevator chimed, the doors sliding open into the dim, subterranean concrete
of the private underground valet parking structure.
The air down here was cold, smelling of gasoline and damp stone. Kieran's
armored Suburban was parked thirty feet away, its engine already purring quietly
in the shadows.
Kieran stepped out first, keeping his body positioned half an inch in front of
mine, his hand resting securely on the small of my back.
We took five steps into the garage when the heavy iron fire door on the eastern
wall blew open with a deafening CRACK.
Two men in black tactical gear and ski masks stepped into the aisle,
semi-automatic rifles raised directly at our chests.
"Kieran!" I screamed.
May you like
Before the sound had even cleared my lips, Kieran moved with terrifying, inhuman
speed. He didn't duck. He didn't run. He threw his entire body over mine,
slamming me violently to the concrete floor behind the thick tire of a parked
Rolls-Royce, covering my head and spine with the full weight of his muscular
frame.
Then the concrete erupted into gunfire.
