Chapter 2
He wore a charcoal suit cut like it had been tailored around a weapon — no pins, no pocket square, no ornament of any kind. His dark hair was swept back neatly, but the sharp, jagged scar that cut through his left eyebrow ruined any illusion of corporate civility. He was the head of the Costa Syndicate. He controlled the ports and the unions. If Preston Hayes was a parasite feeding on corporate loopholes, Roman Costa was a great white shark in deep black water.
His two guards stopped at the door, hands clasped in front of them, eyes scanning the room.
Roman walked on alone.
Sloan shrank back against the base of the table, trying to make herself smaller than she already was. She was caught in the narrow gap between Preston’s booth and the velvet rope, trapped. If she stood now, she would be directly in the man’s path.
She held her breath, clutching the damp towel to her chest, knees soaked in spilled scotch.
Preston scrambled to his feet. His arrogance evaporated so completely it was almost embarrassing to watch — replaced by a frantic, nervous energy as he fumbled to button his jacket with trembling fingers.
“Mr. Costa. An honor.” He gestured wildly at the empty leather bench opposite him. “Please, have a seat.”
Roman didn’t speak. He didn’t take Preston’s offered hand. He simply slid into the booth, movements fluid, devoid of wasted energy, and leaned back with one arm along the top of the seat.
His dark, impenetrable eyes found Preston.
Preston lowered his unshaken hand and swallowed. Sweat was already forming on his upper lip.
“I — uh — I appreciate you taking the time. I know your schedule is —”
“You have five minutes, Hayes.”
The voice was a low, gravelly baritone. It didn’t boom. It simply demanded silence in order to be heard.
“Right. Yes. Five minutes.” Preston pulled a slim leather folder from his jacket and opened it on the table. “The shipping routes out of the South Ward. My logistics company recently acquired a fleet of transport vehicles. We can move your heavy machinery across state lines with zero weigh-station interference. We have the municipal inspectors on payroll.”
Roman stared at him.
He didn’t look at the folder. He looked at Preston the way one might look at a stain on the sidewalk.
“You acquired the fleet through a leveraged buyout,” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question. “And gutted the pension fund to pay the bribes.”
Preston laughed — a thin, nervous sound.
“It’s just business, Mr. Costa. Efficiency.”
Roman’s gaze detached from Preston’s sweating face.
It drifted downward.
Sloan was frozen by the leg of the table, barely two feet from his polished leather oxfords. Her uniform was stained. Her hair had come loose from its bun. She was still holding a towel full of broken glass.
And she looked up.
She didn’t mean to. It was involuntary, the way a hand jerks back from a flame — her eyes simply rose and met his.
A jolt went down her spine.
His eyes were entirely black in the dim light. Cold. Utterly merciless. And yet, as he looked down at her kneeling in the spilled liquor with glass in her rag, something microscopic shifted behind them — the muscle in his jaw feathering, the cold sharpening, narrowing, *focusing.*
He didn’t see a waitress.
He saw the humiliation. He saw the trap she was standing in.
Sloan felt completely, terrifyingly exposed.
Preston noticed the silence. He followed Roman’s gaze down to the floor, and panic flared across his face — he was losing the room, losing the deal, losing the version of himself he needed these men to see.
He needed to take it back.
“Apologies for the mess, Mr. Costa.” His tone dripped with forced disdain. He nudged Sloan’s hip with the toe of his shoe — a small, casual dismissal, the way you’d move a chair. “The staff here is entirely incompetent. Girl can’t even pour a drink without making a disaster of it.”
Sloan flinched at the contact and scrambled to gather the last of the glass. Her hands were shaking so badly that a shard sliced a shallow line into her thumb.
A bright bead of blood welled up and slid down her skin.
Roman’s eyes tracked the drop.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
The silence from his side of the booth turned deafening. He didn’t blink. He looked at Preston’s shoe, resting where it had shoved her — and then up to Preston’s face.
Preston, oblivious, leaned in eagerly.
“Like I was saying about the South Ward routes — we can cut your overhead by twenty percent —”
“Get up.”
The words were spoken softly.
They cut through the air like a gunshot anyway.
Preston blinked. “Excuse me?”
Roman didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes locked on the woman on the floor.
“Get up.”
Sloan’s chest seized. Her lungs forgot the mechanics of pulling air. She searched his face for a trap, a joke, a cleverer cruelty — and found nothing but absolute, terrifying command.
Her legs felt like lead. Survival instinct moved them anyway.
She pushed herself off the sticky floor, knees aching, tights ruined, and stood — clutching the bloodied, scotch-soaked towel against her side, head still slightly bowed.
She was trembling. She hated that she was trembling.
Preston’s face flushed an ugly, mottled red. Roman giving orders to his server — interrupting his pitch to do it — was a direct insult. But Preston was far too cowardly to take it up with Costa.
So he took it out on the nearest thing.
“Don’t just stand there dripping on the floor,” he snapped. His voice climbed an octave, hunting for authority. “Pour Mr. Costa a drink. The good stuff. And try not to screw it up this time, you stupid bitch.”
Sloan’s jaw clenched. The cut on her thumb stung.
She turned to the table, reached for the heavy bottle of Macallan, and grabbed a clean crystal glass from the center. Her hand trembled as she tipped the bottle forward.
The weighted glass base clinked against the rim of Roman’s glass. Once. Twice.
May you like
It was a tiny sound. In the dead silence of the VIP lounge, it rang like an alarm bell.
Preston snapped.
