I walk over to her. My hands tremble slightly—not from nerves, but from the urge to rip that dress off her and ruin her against the glass.
"You look..." I struggle for the word. Beautiful is too soft. "...lethal."
"That’s the point," she says, meeting my gaze in the reflection.
I zip the dress up. The sound is a hiss of metal teeth locking together. I rest my hands on her waist, pulling her back against me. I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the scent of vanilla and gunpowder.
"Are you sure about this?" I ask against her skin. "You can stay here. Luca can guard the door. You don't have to walk into that room."
She turns in my arms, reaching up to fix my collar. Her fingers brush the gun under my arm.
"I’m not staying behind, Silas. Not anymore. If we’re buying an army, I want to see what we’re paying for."
She reaches down to the table and picks up the ceramic knife—the same one she used on Nikolai. She cleaned it, sharpened it. She slides it into a sheath strapped to her thigh, hidden beneath the leather.
"besides," she adds, a cold smile touching her lips. "I want them to know who the Queen is."
Pride, dark and viscous, floods my veins.
"Let’s go," I say. "The wolves are waiting."
The meeting is set in the VIP lounge ofPurgatory, a nightclub in the Meatpacking District that is technically owned by the Triad but operates as neutral ground for the city’s underworld.
The bass from the club below vibrates through the floorboards, a rhythmic thumping that mimics a heartbeat. The air in the private room is thick with cigar smoke and tension.
Five men sit around a circular glass table.
Chen, the head of the Triad. Marcus King, leader of the Yardies. O’Malley, representing the Irish remnant. Diego, from the Latin Kings. And a representative from the Albanian cartel I paid off years ago.
They are apex predators in their own territories. But tonight, they are curious. They heard the rumors. They heard that Vane Enterprises is frozen. They heard Nikolai Sokolov is hunting me.
They smell blood in the water. They just don't know whose it is yet.
The door opens. Luca steps in first, scanning the room. He nods.
I walk in.
I don't pause. I walk straight to the empty chair at the head of the table. I don't sit. I stand behind it, resting my hands on the leather backrest.
Ivy walks in beside me.
The conversation in the room stops dead.
Five pairs of eyes shift to her. They scan her legs, her leather dress, the dark intent in her eyes. Some look with lust. Others with confusion.
"Gentlemen," I say, my voice cutting through the silence. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"We heard you were dead, Vane," O’Malley says, leaning back and blowing a ring of smoke. He’s a heavy man with a red face and bad teeth. "Or broke. Word on the street is the Feds locked your vaults."
"The Feds lockedmyvaults," I correct him smoothly. "They didn't touch my liquidity."
I signal to Luca.
He steps forward and places a heavy black duffel bag on the table.
He unzips it.
Bundles of cash spill out. Hundreds. Stacks of them. Five million dollars in physical currency, withdrawn from the stash houses we hit on the way here.
