Chapter 2

From inside: her name, carried on her father’s timbre without the courtesy of volume control. “Sasha!”

She exhaled, squared her shoulders, and turned toward the doors.

When she pulled one open, the ballroom’s heat rolled over her like a living thing. The music had moved on again, violins trilling to impress a room that was only half-listening. Waiters drifted like chess pawns in white jackets; jewels blinked at ears and throats like small, useless traffic lights. Lenny DeLuca cut through a crowd of well-wishers as if their compliments were smoke. He caught Sasha’s gaze across the room and made a small motion with his chin—come.

She moved as gracefully as her heels allowed, collecting the version of her face that worked here: more smile than teeth, more eyes than truth. Men stepped aside just enough to make the illusion that she was choosing her path.

“Where did you disappear to?” her father asked when she reached him, his voice pitched low enough for intimacy and high enough for warning. Up close, he smelled like cedar and a particular liquor that only old men drink to prove something.

“Getting air,” she said. “It was stuffy.”

“It is business,” Lenny corrected softly. “Business is supposed to be stuffy. Keeps out the unserious.” His gaze glanced over her shoulder, measuring the room and finding it still his. “Mazzo’s looking for you.”

Of course he was. Mazzo Marino had the hungry patience of a cat at a mouse hole.

Sasha kept her tone pleasant. “Then he’ll find me, Papa.”

Lenny’s mouth pressed into a line that looked like love when wives were watching. “You’ll make it easier.”

She let her face soften, not for him but for the performance they both understood. “As you wish.”

He grunted approval. “There’s my good girl.” He brushed a kiss near her temple, a benediction and a brand, then pivoted back to his circle. “Casale! You still trying to sell me those docks? Come on, I’m not a charity—if you want to donate, donate to St. Lucy’s.”

Laughter, thick and male, rose like heat.

Sasha made herself smaller and slid free of the knot of men, the way she’d learned to when she was younger—turn at the last second, avoid the hands, become a shadow in a bright dress. She picked up a glass of wine from a passing tray; the stem sweated against her palm. In the corner near the windows, a cluster of wives compared heel heights like weapons. She considered joining them, then didn’t.

Mazzo found her near an arrangement of white lilies big enough to bury someone under. “There you are,” he said, relief and possession threaded through his smile. He did an exaggerated glance around. “Thought you’d run off.”

“And miss the fun?” Sasha asked, letting the edge of her voice be silk instead of blade.

He chuckled. “You’re funny.” His eyes dropped, traveled, rose. “And breathtaking. Your father has taste.”

The compliment hit her like a cold hand on the back of the neck. Your father has taste. As if she were a painting Lenny had selected and hung. As if she were something to be admired for what she meant to another man.

Sasha sipped the wine so she wouldn’t answer.

Mazzo leaned against the windowsill, close enough that she could see his cuff links—gold M’s that caught the chandelier glow. “Big talk tonight,” he said, voice lowering to the intimate hum of gossip traded in bed or back seats. “You hear it yet?”

She arched a brow. “You’ll have to be more specific. Men love the sound of their own big talk.”

He grinned at the dig, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Maretti news.”

“I try to keep my ears clean,” she said.

“Then let me dirty them.” He tilted his head, theater in the gesture. “Oldest boy’s dead. Keeps all the idiots busy making predictions. Leaves the crown for the younger one. Nico.” He tasted the name like it was a wine he meant to buy by the case. “The room’s split. Half say he’ll come for blood. Half say he’s smarter than that.”

“And you?” she asked, because the part she played demanded questions.

“I say it doesn’t matter,” he said, pleased with himself. “Because whatever he does, we’ll be waiting on the other side of the move.” He placed one finger on the rim of her wine glass and spun it gently so the condensation smeared in a bright ring. “Change is good for business if you’re the one making it.”

Her smile didn’t change, but something in her chest did, a small shutter closing. “How fortunate for you,” she murmured.

He was still watching her, gauging not the words but the obedience under them. “You’re not curious?”

“About another man’s tragedy?” she said. “No.”

“It’s not tragedy,” Mazzo said, shrugging, “it’s weather. You don’t cry when it rains. You pick the right shoes.”

Sasha set her glass on a passing tray. “Then let’s hope you wore leather.”

He laughed again and reached for her hand, imitating old-world charm he hadn’t earned. She let him have her fingers for a second, then rescued them gently and smoothed her skirt where his touch felt like lint. The lilies behind her breathed out another wave of sweetness that made her want to sneeze.

On the stage, the conductor lifted his baton and nodded to the pianist. Notes tripped into the air like champagne bubbles. Another dance. Another orbit around the sun of her father’s approval. Sasha considered the balcony again, the honest air waiting just on the other side of a door.

But she had heard enough of outside for one evening. A dead man in another house, a newly crowned wolf-boy with a reputation for quiet teeth, wives mapping grief that might soon be theirs. All of it familiar. All of it the same story in a different suit.

“Dance with me,” Mazzo urged, offering his arm as if this were a choice. “Your father would like to see it.”

There it was—truth, unperfumed.

She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and let him lead her toward the floor, the smile she wore now expertly stitched in place. As they found their space among the other couples, she looked up at the chandeliers and wondered if anyone ever counted the crystals. If you could number something that glittered, if you could name each shard, would it become less beautiful or more yours?

Mazzo’s hand settled at her waist—too confident, too soon. The music swelled, and they moved, and Sasha let her body do what it had learned: step, turn, step, pretend. She held her chin at the angle that made her look obedient but never small. Her brown eyes tracked the room, not for danger but for exits.

The gossip about Nico Maretti folded itself into a neat square in the back of her mind and slid into a drawer. Maybe tomorrow her father would call a meeting and say the city’s weather had changed. Maybe Mazzo would use rain as an excuse to buy a bigger umbrella. Maybe the priests at St. Cecilia’s would sleep in crisp black and dream of days without eulogies.

Tonight, it was a song and a smile and shoes that pinched. Tonight, Sasha DeLuca scoffed at politics because they were old shoes, old songs, old smiles. She let them be what they were and kept the only thing she could still claim—her private refusal to care.

The pianist reached for the final flourish. The conductor’s hand carved a last arc through the air. Applause rose like heat again, loud and hollow, a storm in a chandeliered room. Mazzo dipped his head toward hers as if they shared a secret.

Sasha lifted her face just enough that he would think the same.

Then she walked off the floor before he could seal the illusion with a kiss, straight-backed and unhurried, cutting through the room like a woman who knew exactly where she was going. She didn’t—yet. But moving with intention was its own kind of power, and she would hold that as long as she could.

At the edge of the crowd she paused, considering the balcony doors one last time. She pictured the night air waiting there, threaded with whispers about men and their crowns.

No. Not tonight.

She stepped deeper into the gala instead, letting the music and light swallow her whole. The city could change its weather without her blessing. Let the men plot their storms. She would not stand in the rain and call it news.

*

The ballroom still pulsed with golden light, chandeliers trembling with music and laughter. Sasha had been drifting between conversations, her glass of water long since forgotten on some tray, when a sudden prickle raced the length of her spine. It was the feeling of being watched—not casually, not idly, but seen.

Her brown eyes lifted, and across the wide stretch of the ballroom floor, she found herself caught.

Storm-grey eyes, cool and sharp as steel, locked onto hers.

The man wore a black suit that fit like it had been stitched over his skin, broad shoulders filling the lines, dark hair neatly combed but already unruly at the edges. He was handsome in a way that stole the air from her lungs—handsome in a way that made her knees remember they were not indestructible. His mouth was set in a line that almost looked stern until she realized it was simply control.

Sasha blinked, startled. No—surely not. A man like that wasn’t staring at her.

She glanced over her shoulder, searching for the beauty he must have been aiming his gaze toward. A tall blonde, maybe, or some elegant woman glittering in jewels. But behind her stood only a cluster of waiters ferrying champagne, and a middle-aged couple arguing in hushed tones.

When she looked back, those storm-grey eyes were still on her.

Worse, he’d caught her checking.

His mouth tilted into a smirk—slow, deliberate, the kind of expression that said he found her reaction amusing. Like she was already a game he was enjoying playing.

Heat flared in her cheeks. Sasha pivoted away, telling herself she imagined the weight of his gaze lingering. Her father’s voice thundered somewhere across the room, but she ignored it. She didn’t want another round of introductions to men who looked at her like she was for sale. She needed air.

Instead of heading back to the balcony, she slipped out a side hallway. Her heels clicked softly against marble until she reached a staircase that curved upward, leading to one of the hotel’s quieter levels. She’d heard earlier that there was a smaller bar upstairs, one that catered to men who preferred their whiskey neat and their deals private. Less noise. Fewer eyes.

Perfect.

When she entered, the contrast to the ballroom was immediate. The lighting was low, golden but muted, the hum of conversation subdued. A piano played somewhere in the corner, soft and almost melancholy. Dark leather stools lined a bar polished to a mirror shine.

Sasha slid onto one of the stools, her gown rustling as she adjusted. For the first time all evening, she didn’t feel like a doll on display. She ordered a whiskey sour, her voice quiet but firm, and when the glass arrived she let the condensation kiss her fingertips before lifting it to her lips.

The burn was warm, welcome.

She had just let herself exhale when the stool beside her creaked.

“Mind if I sit?”

That voice. Smooth, rich, threaded with something dangerous.

Sasha turned her head, and her breath hitched. Storm-grey eyes. The man from the ballroom. He was closer now, impossibly close, every detail of him more devastating. The strong line of his jaw. The way his suit hugged muscle instead of hiding it. The faint shadow of tattoos reaching past the cuff of his shirt when he rested his forearm on the bar.

She should have told him to go. Her father would. Her father’s men would drag this stranger out by his tie if they saw.

Instead, Sasha heard herself say, “It’s a free country.”

His mouth curved again—this time not a smirk, but something that made her pulse stumble. Approval.

“Good,” he said, lowering himself onto the stool beside her. He leaned forward slightly, giving the bartender a nod, then shifted to face her. “You looked like you needed an escape.”

Sasha arched a brow. “From what?”

He gestured vaguely in the direction of the ballroom below. “From all that.”

Her lips twitched before she could stop them. He wasn’t wrong. “Not much of a party-goer yourself?”

“Depends on the company,” he said easily. “Most of them bore me to death. A room full of men measuring egos.”

Sasha laughed, surprising herself with the genuine sound. “Finally. Someone else who hates the ‘business world.’” She set her glass down and gave him a wry smile. “You’re the first person tonight who’s said it out loud.”

“Then I’m already winning,” he said. His eyes softened, though the storm never left them. “I’m Nic.”

She tilted her head. “Just Nic?”

He shrugged, casual, but there was intent behind it. “For now.”

Fair enough. She wasn’t about to hand her last name over to a stranger, either.

“I’m Sasha,” she offered.

The name seemed to linger between them, as if he were tasting it. He repeated it under his breath once, rolling it on his tongue. “Sasha.”

The way he said it made heat curl low in her stomach.

They talked. Easily, almost startlingly so. He was funny—drier than most men she’d met, clever in a way that met her humor stride for stride. She teased him about looking like he belonged in the kind of glossy magazine her father’s men pretended not to read; he countered by asking if she always drank whiskey sours or if she was trying to impress the bartender.

He didn’t ask about her father. He didn’t drop names. He didn’t look at her like she was currency.

And she loved it.

Time slipped. Her second drink appeared; his glass emptied and refilled. At some point she realized she was leaning closer than she had planned, her laughter a little too easy, her pulse a little too fast. The low light carved shadows across his jawline, across the tattoos peeking at his neck, and she wondered what else those shadows might hide.

Eventually, the bar began to thin, the crowd moving back downstairs for whatever spectacle her father had planned next. Sasha sighed, sliding down from her stool. Her heels clicked against the polished floor.

Nic moved to stand as well, his movements graceful for a man his size. But as he stepped down, his hip caught the edge of his glass.

The drink toppled, tumbling in slow motion before shattering against the bar floor.

Amber liquid splashed upward, across the hem of Sasha’s silk gown, spotting the fabric and soaking into the pale silk.

She gasped. “Oh, damn—”

“Shit,” Nic muttered, immediately reaching for napkins, but the bartender was already sweeping in with towels. Nic’s hands hovered, broad and clumsy for once, his perfect composure fractured. “I’m so sorry. That’s on me.”

Sasha dabbed at the silk, but it was no use. The stain had already bloomed. She let out a resigned laugh, shaking her head. “Of course. My father will love this.”

“Don’t.” Nic’s voice was low, firm. His storm-grey eyes locked on hers, guilt darkening them. “Don’t worry about your father. Let me fix this.”

She blinked at him. “What are you going to do? Wave your hand and change silk?”

His mouth curved in that dangerous smirk again, softer this time. “No. But my suite’s upstairs. Dry clothes, warm shower, room service that won’t ask questions. Let me make it right.”

Sasha froze. Every sensible voice in her head screamed no. She didn’t know him. She didn’t trust men easily, not with her father’s shadow looming over every interaction.

And yet.

The way he looked at her, steady and unflinching, made her heart race. The way her name had sounded in his mouth still hummed in her chest. For once, she didn’t feel like a pawn. She felt like a woman someone wanted.

She hesitated, then let her lips curve into a small, reckless smile.

“Alright, Nic. Lead the way.”