“Your revenge plan is flawed,” he says, his voice dropping to a murmur that feels entirely too intimate. “But the motivation is solid.”
“Who are you?” I demand, my fingers tightening around the strap of my purse.
He looks down at me. A slow, dangerous smirk finally breaks the hard line of his mouth. It’s a terrifyingly handsome smile, and it makes every survival instinct in my brain scream at me to run.
“Someone who hates Simon Vance just as much as you do,” he says.
He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a sleek, matte-black business card, and slides it into the front pocket of my blazer. His knuckles brush against my collarbone for a fraction of a second. I suppress a shiver.
“Go home, Audrey. Sleep off the gin,” he murmurs, stepping back. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow. We have a wedding to ruin.”
Before I can formulate a single word, he turns and walks out of the bar, moving with the silent, predatory grace of a man who owns the ground he walks on.
I stand frozen for a long moment, the jazz music sounding too loud in my ears.
Slowly, with trembling fingers, I reach into my pocket and pull out the black card. There is no company logo. No email address. Just a phone number, and a name embossed in silver lettering.
Malcolm Vance.
I stare at the card until the letters blur.
I didn’t just pitch a revenge plot to a stranger.
I pitched it to Simon’s older brother. The billionaire black sheep. The man the media calls the Devil of Chicago.
And he just agreed to help me.
CHAPTER 2
MALCOLM
The cold Chicago wind hits me the second I step through the revolving glass doors of the hotel lobby, but I barely register the drop in temperature.
I reach into my trouser pocket, my thumb finding the smooth metal of my lighter. I don’t pull it out. I just press the edge of it into my skin, using the dull pain to anchor the adrenaline currently flooding my system.
I don’t experience adrenaline often. My entire existence is built on the absence of it. When a senator’s son drives his Porsche into a storefront at three in the morning, or when a corporate merger is threatened by a leaked sex tape, I am the man they call because my heart rate never spikes. I assess. I contain. I eliminate the liability.
But right now, there is a distinct, rhythmic tension pulling at the muscles in my jaw.
I can still smell her.
Beneath the sharp bite of the winter air and the exhaust fumes of Michigan Avenue, I can smell the cheap gin she was drinking, mixed with a faint trace of vanilla and the expensive, floral perfume she probably bought back when her bank account had more than two digits.
Audrey Jennings.
She was smaller in person than she looked in the surveillance photos. Smaller, but infinitely sharper. I expected a weeping, broken woman mourning the loss of her business and her fiancé. Instead, I found a woman calculating the cost of a martini olive and casually debating the merits of arson.
A black SUV idles at the curb. The rear door opens before I even step off the pavement.
Grant is standing by the vehicle, his massive frame blocking the wind. He’s wearing a dark overcoat that barely conceals the tactical holster strapped to his chest. He doesn’t look at me directly—he’s currently scanning the street, his eyes lingering on a delivery truck parked too close to the intersection.
"Clear," Grant murmurs, his voice a low rumble.
I slide into the backseat. The interior of the car is dead silent, the heavy doors shutting out the noise of the city completely. Grant gets into the driver’s seat, shifts the car into gear, and pulls away from the curb with smooth, practiced efficiency.
"You were inside for twenty-four minutes," Grant says, glancing at the rearview mirror. "I was beginning to think the target didn't show."
"She showed." I unbutton my suit jacket and lean back against the leather headrest. "And she is not a target, Grant. She’s an asset."
