The way he says it—like she’s an object, like she’s something I left unattended—lights something violent under my skin.
Maverick moves in, cracking his knuckles with the kind of casual menace he doesn’t even have to perform anymore. It’s just who he is. “Do you always poke around shit you weren’t authorized to breathe near,” he asks, “or is tonight a special occasion?”
The bastard has the audacity to smirk. There’s blood in his teeth, arrogance in his stare, and a spark of provocation he hasn’t earned. “Sorry,” he says, mockingly polite. “Didn’t know chemistry majors were this protected.”
My jaw tightens. Because that detail isn’t public. Not something you glean from watching her at a party. They dug. They researched. They know her name, her face, and the fucking shape of her life. And that makes this more than trespassing—it makes it a threat.
“You work for Rinaldi,” I say. I don’t need him to answer.
His silence is confirmation. The way his shoulders tense is confirmation. The flicker of defiance in his eyes is confirmation.
I move in until I’m standing toe-to-toe with him, forcing him to look up. There’s nowhere for him to hide from the weight of this. “Tell Rinaldi he’s playing a dangerous game,” I murmur. “If he so much as lets one of his men breathe near her again—fuck, if they whisper her name—I’ll dismantle every piece of his empire. Slowly. Quietly. In ways he won’t see coming until it’s too late to run.”
He lets out a humorless huff, licking the blood from his lip like the taste gives him courage. “You think he cares about your petty threats?”
I smile, just a small curl of my mouth, barely there. “It wasn’t a threat.”
That’s when he understands. The silence that follows isn’t just quiet—it’s surrender. You can see the moment a man realizes he miscalculated, that he’s not facing a warning but a wall he can’t get through. He gets it now.
Maverick drifts a little closer, voice flat, almost bored. “Want me to turn him into a message?”
I study the intruder a moment longer. The stiffness in his shoulders has melted into something weaker. Acceptance. Or fear. Maybe both. “No,” I say finally. “He wanted eyes on this. We’ll give him something to see.”
A few minutes later, he’s still breathing. Barely. Just enough to crawl to his people with the knowledge that mercy exists—but only when I decide it does. Maverick tucks a vial of blood into his jacket, the old tradition our enemies always understand. Blood spilled, but not taken. A warning wrapped in restraint.
They want a war. And they’re about to get one.
I straighten my cuffs, exhale once, and let the calm settle back into place. The chaos of the party waits beyond the door—heat, noise, and bodies still dissolving under the drug Violet created without realizing what it would unleash.
But none of that matters.
I have a Kitten to find.
Chapter 10
A Secured Space and a Charged Grin
Violet
The nerve of him—really, the sheer audacity—swaggering in like he owns the oxygen in the room, while tossing a single look at me that short-circuits my entire nervous system, and then vanishing like it was all some private joke at my expense. I’m still standing there trying to gather myself back into something resembling a functional adult when—
“Vi!” Cami’s voice slices through the din, bright and bubbly, and so painfully Cami that it almost breaks whatever spell he left on me. She floats toward me with two champagne glasses held high like she’s presenting me with trophies I definitely did not win.
I turn to her, frustration buzzing just under my skin, sharp enough I could cut myself on it. “Do you know that guy?” I ask, and my tone comes out too pointed, too jagged.
“Oh, Asher? Of course!” Cami beams, as if that name isn’t a whole detonation going off inside my chest. “I mean, who doesn’t know Asher? He’s only the head of Crimson Inc.”
The words hit like a slap. “Wait—what?”
She blinks at me, baffled. “Crimson Inc.? The Future 500 company that runs half the city’s charity events? He’s the boss. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No, Cami, he didn’t tell me.” It comes out sharper than I mean it to, but honestly? Fair. “He just stood there—smug—and called me ‘Kitten,’ and then disappeared before I could get a single answer.”
She giggles—giggles—like this is adorable. “That sounds like him. He loves a little mystery.” Then she winks, spins, and is swallowed back into the party, leaving me there vibrating with irritation.
I drag my gaze across the room, pulse quickening for reasons I don’t want to name. He can’t have gone far. He shouldn’t be able to move through this crowd unseen, and yet no matter how hard I look, he’s gone. Pulled under by bodies, dim lighting, and the strange gravity that this party seems to run on.
A frustrated breath slips out of me, and I turn back to the bar. My cheeks still feel heated—from him, from me, from… whatever that was. I shouldn’t let a man I don’t even know get under my skin like that.It’s infuriating.
