I sip slowly and watch a quiet exchange near the VIP entrance. The guy in the Armani suit—one of Rinaldi’s men—is foolish enough to think he’s invisible while pushing product that isn’t ours. But I see him. I press a button on my cufflink, casual and almostbored. Maverick’s already moving before the signal even finishes. Two of our guys close in, a whisper here, a redirect there, and Armani disappears into the hallway with the kind of promise that never ends well for his employer.
Rinaldi will feel the loss.Not my concern tonight.
I let my gaze drift back to the room and the shift in it becomes clearer. The energy isn’t just indulgent—it’s unhinged, threaded through everyone's nerves like a current too strong for the circuitry. It’s almost clinical to watch how fast it spreads, how the entire penthouse folds under the weight of whatever they’ve taken.
A woman’s laugh tips over into a drawn-out moan as someone pulls her into his lap and slides into her like he can’t bear another second of space between them. On the floor, a couple claws at each other with desperation. For a moment I just watch, mapping the patterns, the escalation, and the way every body in the room seems to be humming on the same frequency. Something engineered. Something intentional.
It draws my focus in a way no party ever does.
Then my eyes catch movement near the glass wall.
She stands half behind another couple, tucked just enough into the shadows that most people would miss her entirely. Petite frame, curves not meant for this crowd, and dark hair falling around a masked face doing a poor job of hiding the sharpness in her eyes. Her whiskey-brown eyes cut through the room like she’s tuned to a different frequency than everyone else.
It's her stillness that catches me.
She’s watching the room like she’s cataloging reactions. Measuring them. Tracking impact and outcome. Her cheeks are flushed, and her lips parted just slightly, but she’s not lost in the frenzy like the others. She’s letting herself feel it without being swallowed by it, which is rarer than anything else in this place.
She’s studying desire rather than drowning in it.
That makes her far more interesting than anyone else here.
I take another sip and pretend I’m not focused on the way her gaze lingers when someone moans near her shoulder. She shifts, a small involuntary movement like she’s trying to ground herself, and that’s when she catches the weight of my stare.
Her head lifts, and our eyes lock.
The rest of the room falls into background noise.
She doesn’t flinch when she catches me watching her, which is either very brave or very stupid, and I can’t decide what one makes me want her attention more. She holds my gaze with the kind of quiet defiance that makes my pulse move just a little faster, the way it does when I find an unexpected variable in a system I thought I understood.
She’s not intimidated, not flustered. Just… evaluating me right back.
Her chin lifts a breath higher, and something about the gesture tells me she’s used to surviving rooms she doesn’t belong in. It also tells me this—whatever has this penthouse in a chokehold—it didn’t hit her the same way.
That gets my full attention.
I take a drink, slower this time, and watch how her throat works when she swallows. She shifts again, giving me a clearer view of the lace mask, and the black dress that clings like someone tailored it with skilled hands. Hands that knew exactly what effect it would have on men like me. Tension threads through her posture like she’s holding herself in place by sheer will.
She’s turned on and trying to hide it, flushed but still holding herself together. Every breath is a quiet giveaway that she’s hyperaware of the room—and of me. It’s not the reaction of someone who stumbled into the chaos. It’s the reaction of someone connected to it, someone who understands exactly what’s happening here.
And that’s the part that interests me.
Because whatever this drug is, she’s not drowning in it like the others, and now I need to know why.
The meeting is already a headache, and I haven’t bothered to pretend otherwise. I should care—at thirty-one, sitting as the head of a multibillion-dollar empire, and supposedly the man who keeps the whole machine polished and running—but all I can think about is last night.
Not the party. Not the idiots I had to clean up after.Her.
The acquisition report sits untouched in front of me. Two companies. One legit tech startup. One shipping line sitting a little too close to the Colombian coast for anyone with half a brain to believe it’s clean. Everyone pretends this is a discussion, but the decision was made before they printed the agenda.
Crimson Incorporated is a perfect mask for the Redmont empire—respectable on paper and lethal underneath. We tear apart failing companies, rebuild them, sell them, and pretend it’s philanthropy. It keeps the shareholders rich and the press quiet. It also bores the shit out of me.
The real work, the work with teeth, belongs to The Order. My favorite side of the family business. Ninety percent of the island’s drug trade under one crest, one empire and one rule.
Mine.
But even with that power, there are two things you can’t avoid: death and taxes.
We handle both regularly.
