Chapter 1 - THE RED DRESS
The doors behind us slammed open.
Not dramatically.
Not with gunfire.
Not with men shouting.
Just one heavy, final sound that cut through the ballroom harder than a bullet.
Conversation died.
A hundred faces turned.
And Dominic Russo walked in.
He wore the same charcoal suit he'd worn when he told me he had never wanted me. His black tie was gone now, the top button of his white shirt open, his dark hair slightly disordered as though he'd dragged one hand through it too many times on the drive over.
Three of his men entered behind him.
They stopped near the doors.
Dominic kept walking.
His gaze found Adrian first.
Then it found me.
And for the first time in eight months of marriage, I watched my husband lose control of his face.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
His eyes moved slowly over the red silk.
The bare curve of my shoulder.
The glass in my hand.
Adrian Cross standing close enough beside me that his sleeve nearly touched mine.
Something raw passed through Dominic's expression.
Not anger.
Something worse.
Fear.
Then it vanished.
“Claire.”
He said my name quietly.
Adrian smiled beside me.
“Russo.”
The two men had been enemies longer than I'd been part of either one's world. Dominic controlled freight, unions, half the private security contracts along the lake, and enough legitimate real estate to make newspapers call him a businessman when they were feeling polite.
Adrian Cross owned casinos, clubs, politicians and the kind of smile men wore when they already knew where the bodies were buried.
He was beautiful in an expensive, predatory way.
And he had been watching me since I'd entered the room.
Adrian lifted his glass.
“You're late.”
Dominic didn't look at him.
“Claire. Come here.”
Eight months earlier, that command would have worked.
Maybe even two hours earlier.
But a strange thing happens when the humiliation you've been swallowing finally reaches the top of your throat.
You stop choking on it.
I took a sip of champagne.
“No.”
The silence around us deepened.
Dominic's jaw moved once.
“Not here.”
“Where would you prefer?”
“Home.”
I almost laughed.
Home.
That enormous limestone mansion where I ate breakfast alone and slept alone and learned the footsteps of a man who made sure he never accidentally touched me in a hallway.
I placed my glass on a passing waiter's tray.
“You told me to go to bed, Dominic.”
His eyes hardened.
“So I went out instead.”
A few people nearby looked down quickly, pretending they had not heard.
Adrian didn't pretend.
He looked delighted.
Dominic finally glanced at him.
“Walk away from my wife.”
Adrian's smile widened.
“That's an interesting word to use for a woman you don't want.”
My stomach dropped.
Dominic became perfectly still.
That was the thing people misunderstood about dangerous men.
The frightening ones didn't explode.
They condensed.
All the rage went inward until the room seemed to bend around them.
I turned sharply toward Adrian.
“How do you know that?”
For the first time, his smile changed.
Barely.
But enough.
Behind me, Dominic said, “Claire.”
I ignored him.
I stared at Adrian.
“How do you know what he said to me?”
Adrian tilted his head.
“Chicago is a small city when people are unhappy.”
“No.”
My champagne turned sour in my stomach.
“That happened less than an hour ago.”
Adrian's eyes flicked toward the upper balcony.
Instinct made me follow them.
I saw nothing but strangers.
Then Dominic moved.
Fast.
He crossed the remaining distance, caught my wrist—not painfully, but with absolute urgency—and pulled me behind him.
Adrian gave a soft laugh.
“Still pretending?”
Dominic's voice dropped.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing.”
“You knew she was coming.”
“I hoped.”
“You knew.”
Adrian's eyes found mine over Dominic's shoulder.
“Ask your husband why he told you to burn the dress.”
My breath stopped.
Dominic turned his head slightly.
Too late.
I had heard.
“What?”
Adrian lifted his glass again.
“That red dress. Ask him.”
Dominic's fingers tightened around my wrist.
“Claire, we're leaving.”
I pulled free.
“No.”
“Now.”
“You don't get to freeze me out for eight months, tell me you never wanted me, then storm in here and start giving orders.”
His face tightened.
“There are things you don't understand.”
“Then explain them.”
“This is not the place.”
“You had eight months.”
“Claire.”
“Eight months, Dominic.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Pain, maybe.
I was too angry to trust it.
“Every morning,” I continued, quieter now, “I sat across from an empty chair. Every night I listened to you walk past our bedroom. I kept thinking if I became quieter, easier, less inconvenient, maybe one day you'd remember you had a wife.”
His lips parted.
I didn't let him speak.
“I made you dinner tonight like an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot.”
“Don't.”
My voice cracked.
That hurt more than shouting would have.
“Don't give me kindness now because another man is looking at me.”
Dominic looked as though I'd struck him.
Adrian watched us with terrible patience.
Then Dominic said, “It isn't because he's looking at you.”
“Then why?”
His gaze dropped to my dress.
For one strange second, all the blood seemed to leave his face.
“Because the last woman Adrian Cross saw wearing that dress was your mother.”
Everything in the room disappeared.
The music.
The chandeliers.
The people.
Even Adrian's smile.
I stared at Dominic.
“My mother?”
His eyes closed briefly.
That one movement frightened me more than anything else.
“My mother never owned this dress.”
“Yes,” Adrian said softly.
Dominic turned.
“Shut your mouth.”
Adrian ignored him.
“She did.”
I looked down at the red silk.
I had found the dress four months after our wedding inside a cedar garment box in one of the mansion's unused closets.
It had fit me perfectly.
Too perfectly, I'd thought.
When Dominic saw me wearing it in our bedroom doorway, he had gone white.
Take it off.
Those had been his exact words.
I'd laughed because I thought he was finally reacting to me as a woman.
“What?” I'd teased. “Too much?”
His answer had been vicious.
Burn it.
I had thought he was ashamed of me.
So I had buried it behind my gray dresses and never touched it again.
Until tonight.
I looked at Dominic.
“Whose closet?”
He said nothing.
“Dominic.”
“My mother's.”
The answer didn't make sense.
“Why would my mother's dress be in your house?”
His throat moved.
Adrian answered for him.
“Because she spent more time with the Russo family than your father ever told you.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
“Cross.”
A warning.
Adrian smiled.
“She's already here. You don't get to put the truth back in the grave.”
Then every light in the ballroom went out.
Someone screamed.
Glass shattered.
Dominic's arm hit my waist.
He dragged me downward.
“Floor.”
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
Then another.
The ballroom erupted.
People screamed and ran blindly. Chairs overturned. Somebody slammed into a table and hundreds of pieces of crystal crashed against marble.
Dominic covered my body with his.
“Stay down.”
“Dominic—”
“Stay down!”
Another shot.
A grunt.
Then Dominic's weight shifted.
Warm liquid hit my hand.
For one impossible heartbeat, I thought champagne had spilled.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Dim.
Ugly.
I looked at my palm.
Blood.
Dominic's blood.
“Dominic.”
He was still over me.
One hand braced against the floor.
The other pressed to his side.
Dark crimson spread beneath his fingers.
I forgot every cruel sentence he had ever said.
“Dominic.”
His eyes met mine.
Clear.
Focused.
Furious.
Not afraid for himself.
For me.
Across the ballroom, Adrian was gone.
So was Tessa.
My best friend.
The woman who had told me exactly where the party was.
The woman who had insisted I wear the red dress when I mentioned it.
The woman who had laughed and said, If Russo doesn't appreciate you, make sure someone does.
I stared at the empty space where she had been standing.
Dominic saw my face.
“What?”
“Tessa.”
His expression changed.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
He looked toward his men.
“Lock the exits.”
Then he swayed.
I caught his face between my hands.
“Dominic.”
“I'm fine.”
“You've been shot.”
“Graze.”
“You're bleeding through your shirt.”
His hand covered mine.
And suddenly the whole ballroom seemed very far away.
His palm was warm.
Callused.
Trembling slightly.
Dominic Russo did not tremble.
He stared at me as if memorizing my face.
Then he whispered something I almost didn't hear.
“I was supposed to have you out before they saw the dress.”
My chest went cold.
“Who?”
His fingers tightened.
“Your father.”
Dominic refused the hospital.
Of course he did.
Men like him apparently considered emergency medicine an insult to their masculinity.
His private doctor met us at a secure apartment above an old Russo-owned restaurant on the north side.
The bullet had carved a line along Dominic's ribs.
Painful.
Bloody.
Not fatal.
I sat in the kitchen while the doctor stitched him behind a closed door.
My hands would not stop shaking.
There was dried blood beneath my fingernails.
His blood.
I stared at it.
My father.
My mother.
The dress.
Tessa.
Adrian.
Nothing fit.
When the bedroom door finally opened, Dominic stepped out wearing dark trousers and an unbuttoned black shirt.
A white bandage wrapped his ribs.
His face was gray with exhaustion.
His men disappeared tactfully.
He looked at me.
“Claire.”
I stood.
“No more later.”
He stopped.
“No more ‘you wouldn't understand.’ No more locked doors. No more deciding what I'm allowed to know.”
He said nothing.
I walked toward him.
“You said my father was involved.”
“Yes.”
“With the shooting?”
“I don't know.”
“With Adrian?”
“Yes.”
The word struck like a slap.
“How long?”
Dominic looked at the floor.
“Years.”
I laughed once.
A broken sound.
“And my mother?”
His eyes lifted.
“Longer.”
May you like
“Tell me everything.”
This time, Dominic did.
