Who the fuck are you?she asked.
Meet me for dinner on Sunday, and I’ll tell you.
I have plans Sunday.
With who?I almost asked. Like it mattered. Like I actually fucking cared about the thought of her out with someone else.
I didn’t.
Cancel them, I said. She needed to understand how this worked between us, who held the power.And be at Angolini’s over on the east side by 8 p.m. Don’t make me threaten you.
With that, I set my phone down and went about making myself a light meal before bed. I’d eaten dinner earlier, but between working out and the adrenaline rush of seeing Stella face-to-face, I’d burned through enough calories that I was hungry again. I didn’t like being hungry. Couldn’t stand it, actually. It made me anxious, brought up memories I refused to think about. As a kid, food had been scarce, and that insecurity was hard to shake even as an adult. Now, I carried an emergency protein bar wherever I went, just in case, and had two boxes of my favorite snacks in the back seat of my car.
My phone buzzed with notifications as I set about making myself a sandwich. I ignored them. I might have believed the email was untraceable, but I wasn’t willing to answer any of Stella’s questions in writing. Everything between us from here on out had to be verbal. Her family was old money. They had the kind of generational wealth that came with real power and connections, which made them much more dangerous than the lower echelon of nouveau riche clients I’d dealt with so far. I had to tread carefully with her, because if she felt like her brother was really stuck, she might go to her parents after all.
And that would ruin everything.
¦ ¦ ¦
Sunday night found me sitting in a booth in Angeloni’s, an Italian restaurant in an older part of the city. I hadn’t been here before but had heard good things from Josh. Good, meaning he said it was small, hard to find, and relatively private—the perfect location to unveil a blackmail plan. I’d have witnesses, which would likely keep Stella from following through on her threat of killing me, but not enough that it would be a huge scene if she had a public freak-out or started screaming about me being a criminal. The location would also make it hard for the cops to get to in a hurry, but, in the unlikely event that they were a) called and b) arrived quickly, I’d gotten here an hour early to scope out the area. If shit went sideways, my plan was to escape out the rear kitchen door and flee into the warren of narrow streets and alleyways beyond.
I’d paid the hostess extra to seat me in one of the secluded little alcoves in the corner, and I’d taken up position with my back to the wall, my eyes trained on the front door as I waited for my “date” to arrive.
The restaurant might have been small, but it felt more cozy than cramped. Booths ringed the exterior walls, while tables draped in white cloths dotted the interior. The lighting was soft and subtle, coming from vintage wall sconces, candles, and a single chandelier. Waitstaff wove throughout the dining room dressed in crisp black uniforms, and music filtered from hidden speakers, the dulcet tones of a mandolin accompanied by a guitar. It was nice, romantic even, under different circumstances.
Surreptitiously, I reached into my jacket pocket and drew out a small, black, rectangular device. It was an ultrasonic jammer that emitted a high-frequency sound above the range of human hearing. I flicked it on and peeled off the sticker backing, attaching it to the underside of the table. If Stella tried to record our conversation, the jammer would prevent her mic from picking anything up.
The door pushed inward, and suddenly there she was, backlit by the exterior streetlights. She paused on the threshold, one hand holding the door open like she wasn’t quite sure if she was really going through with this. Her eyes scanned the crowd. I smirked, waiting for them to land on me. I knew my expression was arrogant, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like a spider watching a fly zoom straight toward my web.
If this little meeting went how I hoped, I’d be one step closer to the revenge I’d been chasing for years. Stella’s parents owned one of the most lucrative, privately held real estate companies in the country, and their business partner was my father: Richard Lawson. By getting close to Stella, I’d have a chance to connect with everyone around him, and then I could start turning them against him one by one.
Stella’s gaze found me across the room.
I lifted my glass of wine in greeting.
She snarled and stomped forward.
The hostess tried to say something, but one look at Stella made her think better of it, and she slunk back behind her desk. Not that I could blame her. Stella looked mad enough to spit nails, and oh, goody, she was heading straight toward me with that attitude.
This dinner was going to be fun.
Even pissed off, she was stunning. She’d done something different with her makeup than the first time I’d seen her. It was more subtle, less emo and more corporate goth. Her hair was curled into dark waves. The black dress she wore fell to just above her knees, cinched tight at the waist by some strappy leather contraption that looked like it could double as a bondage prop. Her knee-high, heeled boots added several inches to her already towering height, and I was sure she was trying to be intimidating, but she was so beautiful that it was backfiring.
A smoking hot woman with her entire focus trained on me? Yes, please.
She paused a foot away from the table, glaring.
I grinned at her. “Nice outfit. You cosplaying as one of Dracula’s rejected brides?”
She shot me a withering look. “I came dressed for your funeral.”
“And how are you planning to do away with me?”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m currently torn between driving masonry nails into your eyeballs or dousing you in kerosene and throwing matches at you until you catch.”
I winked at her. “So what you’re saying is you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about me.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but our waiter suddenly appeared at her side. “Good evening,” he said, his warm smile oblivious to the tension. “Can I get you something to drink?”
