The Girl in red

The smell of wealth was always the same like vintage cologne, iced liquor, and silent threats. Even here, three floors below the city's legal limits, it clung to the air like static before lightning.

Zara Moretti stepped into the gold-lit ballroom like she owned it, even though the borrowed jewels around her throat still made her skin itch.

“Careful,” Emilio whispered beside her, offering a flute of champagne he hadn’t paid for. “You’re looking a little too convincing.”

“I should hope so,” she said, her eyes scanning the crowd behind feathered lashes. “I didn’t squeeze into this dress just to flirt with the bartender.”

Emilio grinned. “He’s crying inside, you know. He poured that drink like he was imagining your entire mortgage.”

“I don’t have a mortgage.”

“Exactly. That’s why he’s crying.”

The music was too soft, the kind that made people feel expensive. Around them, trust fund kids laughed like nothing could touch them, clinking glasses filled with thousand-dollar regret. The theme was “decadent rebellion,” which basically meant cocaine in the restroom and crown jewels on borrowed names.

Zara’s eyes landed on a man with a sapphire cane and a tattooed throat. He was whispering something to a girl with ice-blonde hair and a champagne flute held like a dagger. Two tables down, someone was already passed out, a Rolex still ticking on his wrist.

“I swear this party smells like generational crime,” Emilio muttered, adjusting his tie—an old thing he’d stolen from a real estate heir who never noticed. “Are you sure we should be here?”

“We made fifty grand off the Steinhouse con. That buys us an invitation anywhere.”

“Z, we’re swimming with sharks.”

She took a slow sip from her flute and smiled. “Then stop bleeding.”

He rolled his eyes. “You really think someone here’s connected to Wolfe Enterprises?”

“That’s what the whispers said.” Her gaze swept the room again, sharp and hungry. “Where there’s syndicate money, there’s Wolfe scent.”

Emilio’s smile faded slightly. “You sure this is about your mother?”

Zara didn’t answer. Not with words. Instead, she raised her glass again and tilted her head toward the velvet staircase leading down into the private VIP wing. “Stay visible,” she murmured. “Distract the cameras.”

“Oh, so I’m the decoy?”

“You’re the distraction,” she corrected, already stepping away. “You’re pretty when you talk too loud.”

He raised a brow, but didn’t stop her.

As she moved deeper into the room, Zara felt the weight of eyes on her. That wasn’t paranoia, it was experience. Every room like this came with men who thought money made them gods. Men who liked to own things they didn’t deserve.

She gave them just enough to keep looking. Not too much. Just the barest flash of thigh beneath silk, the flicker of a smirk, the air of mystery. They could want her. That was fine.

As long as they never saw her coming.

The wine-red dress fit like it had been sewn onto her bones—tight at the waist, low at the back, and split high up the thigh. She walked like a memory you’d spend a decade trying to remember correctly.

But she wasn’t looking for worship.

She was hunting.

And just as she reached for another flute from a passing tray, the air shifted.

She felt it before she saw it—a stillness behind her, like the moment just before a wolf bares its teeth.

Then, a voice. Low. Smooth. Amused.

“Funny,” it said, close to her shoulder, “you don’t look like someone who waits in lines.”

She turned—slowly, calculated—and met the eyes of Cassian Wolfe.

His presence was the kind that made silence louder. The kind that made rooms adjust themselves around him. Midnight-black suit. Slight cuff adjustment as he examined her, like he was already measuring her worth. Tall enough to look over crowds. Beautiful enough to get away with anything.

Zara smiled like he was boring.

“And you don’t look like someone who introduces himself.”

He smirked, one hand sliding into his pocket. “Cassian.”

She sipped her drink. “Zara.”

“I’ve never heard of you.”

“That’s the point.”

Cassian tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to read the subtext between her heartbeat. “You always this charming with strangers?”

“Only the ones who stalk me from across the room.”

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

She took a deliberate step toward him. “You weren’t.”

His smile sharpened, and just for a second, something flickered in his gaze—interest, danger, maybe recognition. She couldn’t tell yet.

But she knew this much:

This man was no ordinary wolf.

He was the one who didn’t need to hunt.

Because prey came to him.

Zara didn’t flinch under his stare, and that alone made her dangerous.

Cassian watched her walk away—not with the lazy hunger of a man used to getting what he wanted, but with the calculated stillness of a hunter watching prey choose to walk into the trap.

She didn’t look back.

Which only made him follow.

He took a long sip of scotch, eyes locked on the curve of her spine disappearing into the crowd. Around him, people postured and paraded. A girl with violet nails giggled in his direction. A man offered a cigar and dropped three names like keys. He ignored them all.

She’d said her name was Zara. No last name. No attachments. No history.

Which meant one of two things: she was nobody.

Or she was hiding.

He liked both.

Across the ballroom, Emilio caught sight of Cassian’s focus and muttered a soft curse.

“Of all the sharks in this glass tank…” he murmured, mostly to himself. He set his half-drunk champagne down and intercepted Zara at the edge of the crystal-lit bar.

“You made eye contact with that,” he hissed. “Do you have a death wish?”

“He’s just a man.”

“That’s not a man. That’s a hostile acquisition in a tux.”

She raised a brow, only half-listening. “Do you know who he is?”

“Cassian Wolfe. CEO of Wolfe Enterprises. Also known as Don’t touch, don’t talk, don’t tempt.”

She turned her glass slowly in her fingers, the stem catching the gold light. “Well, I already did all three.”

Emilio groaned. “Z, listen to me. That man’s family runs things under the things. Syndicates, offshore accounts, private holdings, shell companies—he’s not rich, he’s untouchable.”

Zara’s eyes flicked past Emilio’s shoulder. “Maybe. But he’s watching me like I’m the one who bites.”

Emilio didn’t even have to look. “He’s coming over, isn’t he?”

“Right now.”

“Of course he is.”

Cassian’s presence hit like a drop in barometric pressure. The air seemed to press in tighter. He didn’t shove people out of his way—he didn’t have to. They moved for him, the way prey instinctively parts for a predator.

He stopped a step from Zara’s side.

“Boyfriend?” he asked, glancing at Emilio.

“Bodyguard,” Zara replied coolly. “He cries when I don’t text back.”

Emilio gave her a withering look. “She’s joking. I only cry when she steals my socks.”

Cassian gave a polite nod, not laughing.

“I’d like to speak with you alone,” he said, voice smooth and low, like something distilled in a rich mahogany office.

Zara looked him over. “Why?”

“Because you’re the only person in this room who isn’t trying to impress me.”

“I don’t even like you.”

He smirked. “Exactly.”

Emilio leaned in, low and fast. “Z, seriously—don’t be stupid.”

She touched his arm gently. “It’s fine. I’ll be five minutes.”

Cassian was already walking.

Emilio whispered after her, “Famous last words.”

Zara followed, heels silent on marble, head high, spine straight. She didn’t know why she was doing it. Curiosity? Defiance? Maybe it was the way he looked at her—not like she was fragile, but like he was already considering where to break her open.

Cassian led her away from the noise, up a narrow staircase to a balcony lounge veiled in dark silk and citylight.

As the door shut behind them, silence fell like a curtain.

Cassian turned. “So,” he said, watching her like an equation he couldn’t quite solve. “What’s your real name?”

Zara leaned against the carved marble ledge, her back to the glittering city and her eyes on Cassian.

“My real name?” she echoed, brows lifting. “That’s a bold opener. Do you ask all your dates to break the illusion this early?”

“This isn’t a date,” he said, stepping closer. “It’s an interrogation disguised as curiosity.”

She smiled. “And what makes you think I’ll answer anything?”

“Because you’re still here.”

A flicker of heat passed between them, sharp and quiet. The kind of tension that made the air feel thick. The room, despite its wide balcony windows and vaulted ceiling, suddenly felt too small for both of them.

“I like the mystery,” he said, stepping even closer. “But I don’t believe in ghosts, Zara. People don’t just appear in my world without a reason.”

She tilted her head. “Is that how you see people? Reasons?”

“I see liabilities.”

“And what am I?”

“A threat.”