Rhys’s jaw flexed. “I’m not discussing this.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to tell you one thing before I go dance with my bride-to-be. You either want her, or you don’t.”
He didn’t respond.
Alec continued anyway. “But you can’t keep her at arm’s length and act surprised, or like you want to snap someone’s neck, when she starts drifting.”
He tried again, gritting out, “This isn’t the time.”
“This is exactly the time.” Alec’s voice stayed calm, level. “Look at her.”
He did just as Carlo dipped her, Gaby’s curls drifting toward the floor, her laugh barely audible over the music. She looked lighter, set free, as if the weight on her shoulders had lifted, if only for a minute. His gut tightened. What if that smile and her laughter were meant for him?
“Claim her,” Alec urged. “Or let her go. But stop standing here pretending indifference when your face is shouting otherwise.”
Rhys didn’t trust his voice.
Alec delivered one last bit of truth. “I let something good slip through my hands once. Took me eight damn years to get her back. Decide soon, brother. Before she makes the call for you.”
He clapped Rhys’s shoulder once and walked off, heading back to Emily.
Rhys stayed where he was, champagne untouched, music pulsing, candlelight flickering. Realization hit him hard. Whatever he was feeling, it sure as hell wasn’t indifference, no matter what he told himself.
He didn’t know how long he stood there staring into his glass, but the bubbles had mostly dissipated when a swell ofapplause drew his focus to the front of the room. Dev and Cari stood before a three-tiered cake dotted with roses.
Cari’s laugh carried across the room as Dev guided her hand to cut the first slice. Then she fed him a small bite with her fingers. No chaos. No smashing. Just a quiet, intimate ritual meant for them.
Dev fed her next. Also taking care. With a wicked smile that was all Devil, he leaned in and licked a trace of icing from her lips. The kiss that followed was unhurried, smoldering, and indecent in the best possible way.
The room erupted with cheers and laughter.
Rhys didn’t smile, already searching, instinctively, for Gaby.
Carlo had drifted to a corner, animatedly talking with Mateo and Leland. None of them seemed to notice anything missing.
But Rhys did. She was gone.
The realization hit with quiet, devastating precision.
Alec’s words echoed:Decide soon—before she makes the call for you.
Rhys upended his glass and drained it. Then, with the inevitability of a man who’d run out of excuses, he walked toward the exit.
Not fast. Not dramatic. But with the grim, tightening certainty that whatever direction he moved next might determine everything.
Chapter 5
Monday morning found Gaby staring at her monitor, sipping coffee that was barely warm but still necessary after hours spent combing through a file she’d practically memorized.
Viktor Leonovich was wealthy, well-connected, and shielded by layers of offshore accounts, shell companies, and intermediaries paid to keep his hands clean while others took the fall.
Enzo Denali had been the leader, but Viktor seemed to be the one who made the machine run. Insulated and indispensable, the kind of right-hand who didn’t stay second for long.
His travel history didn’t prove anything, but the timing troubled her. He always showed up adjacent to Enzo’s movements. Never the same city, never overlapping, but close enough to make her stomach twist. He manipulated money, influence, and people with equal ease.
Because, why not? Men like him believed they were untouchable.
Gaby leaned back and rubbed the tension from neck. Since taking time out for the wedding, she’d immersed herself in the case—no daydreaming about happily ever afters, no replaying that dance she probably should’ve skipped, and definitely no thoughts of Rhys.
