The word is quiet. Final.
I wasn’t hunted like Dahlia. I was delivered. Gift-wrapped by my own boss.
“But I don’t fit his type,” I say. “He was hunting Alex that night. Blonde, blue-eyed. I’m—” I gesture at myself. At everything about me that doesn’t match the pattern. “I’m the opposite.”
“You think he picked you by accident?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
Alaina studies me for a long moment. “He doesn’t just hunt anymore, Dylan. He’s evolving. The blonde women—that’s impulse. Opportunity. But you? You’re strategic. A paralegal with access to his finances. Someone Dom trusts. Someone who’s already proven she can keep secrets.”
The ring burns against my hip. Dahlia’s ring. The woman who didn’t fit into Marcus’s strategic plans. The woman who was just... disposal.
“What does he want from me that he didn’t want from them?”
“I don’t know.” Alaina’s voice is heavy. “And that’s what scares me.”
We stand in silence for a moment. The ballroom continues around us—laughter, champagne, the clink of five-thousand-dollar plates. None of them know. Or all of them know and don’t care.
“The women you saved,” I say finally. “You said you’ve gotten some out.”
“Twelve relocated. Six helped quietly. Four restraining orders that were never filed because filing them would haveended careers.” She pauses. Takes a long drink. “And names that never made the news.”
“All Marcus? His father? Grandfather?”
“Total. We couldn’t save the others,” Alaina says. “We tried. We warned them. But some women don’t believe it until it’s too late. Some believe it and stay anyway because they think they can handle it. Or because they have nowhere else to go. Or because a man like Dom Draven has them trapped.”
She looks at me when she says it. Knows.
“How long?” I ask. “How long has this been going on?”
“With Marcus? Three years since he started in city politics. Maybe four.” She pauses, watching the Comcast executives clink glasses with Palm Beach tan. “With powerful men in this city? Since William Penn laid the first stone.”
I think of my father.
The lawyer who taught me to document everything. Who believed that paperwork could protect you. Who died when I was twelve and left me with a mother who worries too much and a grandmother who thinks I work too hard.
I think of Alex.
Blonde and blue-eyed and exactly Marcus’s type. Sitting in Nikko’s car right now waiting for me to text. Not knowing that the man who was hunting her that night at the club comes from a long line of terrible men.
I think of Dahlia.
Whoever she was. Whatever family is still looking for her. The ring that burns against my hip like a brand.
“I came here with a plan,” I say. The words feel small. Stupid. “Work the room. Gather intel. Names and connections and who talks to whom. My best friend is outside right now. I thought if we could just document enough—find the pattern?—”
“Evidence.” Alaina almost laughs. Almost. “I’ve been gathering evidence for three years. You know what evidencegets you in this city? It gets you a meeting with a DA who takes Marcus’s campaign contributions. A judge who golfs with his father’s friends. A newspaper editor who’s sleeping with someone’s wife and can’t afford a scandal.”
“Then what’s the point?” My voice cracks. “What’s the point of any of this? The business cards, the escape routes, the Saturday dockets—if you can’t stop him?—”
“We can’t stop him yet.” Alaina grips my arm. Fierce. “But we can save who we can, when we can. Document what we can. Wait for someone brave enough—or stupid enough—to get proof that will stick.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, women keep disappearing.” Her voice breaks slightly. Just slightly. “And we keep handing out business cards and hoping it’s enough.”
I look around the Grand Ballroom. At the crystal chandeliers that have watched a hundred fundraisers. A hundred beautiful dresses. A hundred young women who thought they were networking, building careers, making connections.
