Marissa’s expression is unreadable. “He doesn’t talk to interns. He doesn’t talk to anyone unless there’s a reason. So I’ll ask again, what did you say to him?”
“Nothing. He just… someone was bothering me. He made them leave.”
“Hemade them leave.” Marissa repeats the words slowly, like she’s trying to decode a foreign language. “Jesus, Janice. Do you have any idea who that man is?”
I shake my head. “I don’t recognize the name.”
“Dimitri Rudenko owns half the development projects in this city. The other half, he could own if he wanted to. People don’t say no to him. They don’t interrupt him. They definitely don’t bother his—” She stops herself, exhaling sharply. “Stay away from him.”
“I wasn’t trying to cause trouble.”
“I don’t care. Dimitri Rudenko isn’t someone you want noticing you. Trust me.” She turns, already walking away. “We’re leaving. Event’s over for us.”
I follow, glancing back over my shoulder once.
Dimitri stands near the windows, surrounded by men in suits, but his gaze is already waiting for mine. He doesn’t look away. He’s watching, expression unreadable, until I turn the corner and he disappears from sight.
My hands are still shaking when I reach the street.
I tell myself it’s adrenaline. Residual fear from the confrontation. Normal biological response to a stressful situation.
It isn’t fear.
That, more than anything, terrifies me.
Chapter Two - Dimitri
The event drags on for another hour, but I barely register it.
I move through the necessary conversations with practiced ease—nodding at the right moments, offering noncommittal responses that could mean anything or nothing, letting men twice my age believe they’ve gained ground when they haven’t moved an inch. Patterson slinks back eventually, nursing his bruised ego with expensive scotch and avoiding my gaze entirely. Smart man. For once.
The entire time, I’m aware of where she is.
The intern.Janice.
She stays near the periphery, tablet clutched like a shield, watching everything with those too-perceptive eyes. She doesn’t belong here. Everything about her screams outsider—the cheap dress that pulls tight across generous hips and strains at the seams over the full curve of her chest, the way she holds herself like she’s trying to take up less space, the nervous habit of tucking hair behind her ear when someone passes too close.
Nineteen years old. Twenty next month, she’d said, chin lifted in defiance that would have been charming if it weren’t so dangerously naive.
I shouldn’t have intervened. Shouldn’t have noticed her at all.
Men like Patterson are everywhere in this city, testing boundaries, seeing what they can take. Usually I don’t care. The world is full of women who learn to navigate predators or get eaten alive. Natural selection dressed in Armani suits.
So why did I cross the room the second I saw Patterson corner her?
I turn the question over in my mind, searching for logic that isn’t there. She isn’t my responsibility. Isn’t my concern. She’s an intern at some consulting firm I’ll probably never deal with directly, and in three months she’ll disappear back to wherever she came from, one more casualty of a city that chews up idealists and spits out cynics.
I should forget her.
I watch her leave with her supervisor—Marissa Carmichael, sharp and competent, the kind of woman who knows when to keep her mouth shut—and something tightens in my chest when Janice glances back. Our eyes meet across the room, and for a second I see the exact moment she realizes I’ve been tracking her movements.
Then she’s gone.
I drain my glass, set it on a nearby table, and return to the conversation I’d been ignoring.
Felix sidles up beside me ten minutes later, pale blue eyes missing nothing. “You intervened.”
“Patterson was being Patterson.”
