X smirks. “Play it cool, King.”
But all I can think?—
the only thing pounding inside my skull?—
is Jade.
Her eyes.
Her face.
Her humiliation.
The fear in her voice when she screamed my name.
The way I failed her.
I swallow, steady myself, and force my expression neutral.
Because tonight isn’t about flirting.
It isn’t about being the king.
It’s about infiltration.
It’s about information.
It’s about justice.
Rosalie stops in front of me, tilting her head, British accent smooth as silk.
“Leo Holt,” she says. “I was wondering when you’d show.”
I give her a tight smile.
“Trust me,” I say. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
She drifts away to greet someone else, and I take the chance to slip out of the ballroom chaos and down a hallway lined with portraits of dead people who probably owned half of New England.
I find the “man cave” easily.
Of course it’s not a man cave.
It’s a Versailles smoking room masquerading as one.
Dark paneled wood.
An ornate pool table with carved lion legs.
Leather chairs that look like they cost more than my car.
A marble-topped bar stocked with whiskey labels I recognize from my father’s “special cabinet.”
It’s obscene.
I grab a glass and pour two fingers of something older than I am.
It burns down my throat in a way that almost—almost—cuts through the mess in my chest.
