Chapter 5
Night Club sat at the very top of Westwick's food chain.
The rain was still coming down in torrents as I drove, the windshield wipers swinging back and forth like mad but never quite managing to clear the blur, which felt strangely fitting given how uncertain the road ahead seemed.
I had changed into a black slip dress I bought from some small street-side shop, and thrown an oversized men's blazer over it. It was one of Samuel's old jackets that he no longer wanted, now serving as part of my disguise.
In the mirror, my lipstick was a deep, defiant red against the pallor of my skin, like a poppy blooming on a grave, decadent and dangerous.
Outside the V01 box, two bodyguards in black suits stood like statues. "Who are you looking for?"
"Mr. Pierce." I forced my voice into a calm I did not feel, even as my fingernails bit into my palms. "I'm Samuel's wife. I have something he'll want. Inside information on Hart Enterprises."
The two men exchanged a glance, and one of them spoke quietly into his earpiece. A few seconds later, the heavy wooden door swung open.
"You can go in," the other guard said. "But Mr. Pierce is in a foul mood. Watch yourself."
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The main lights in the box had been left off, so the only illumination came from the ambient lighting, which pulsed in slow, uneven rhythms and cast everything in a hazy, ambiguous glow.
The air was dense with tobacco and the rich scent of expensive whiskey, the two mingling into an almost suffocating pressure that crept beneath my skin.
In the corner, a man sat on a leather sofa, half-swallowed by the shadows.
I could make out his long legs crossed at the ankle with effortless ease, the top two buttons of his black shirt undone just enough to reveal the line of his collarbone.
A cigarette burned between his fingers, its tip flaring and fading, and through the veil of smoke, his eyes studied me with a lazy, unhurried attention.
This was Edward, the man who controlled the Pierce family in Westwick and Samuel's most feared adversary.
Society called him Pierce Saint, but everyone knew he was the kind of predator who would tear you apart and never bother to spit out the bones.
"Samuel's wife?" His voice came out low and rough, the kind of rasp you get from too many cigarettes and too much whiskey, but smooth underneath, like the low strings of a cello, beautiful and utterly dangerous.
"Showing up at your husband's worst enemy's door with a little gift? Does that smug hypocrite even know you're here?"
The insult landed exactly as intended.
I bit down on my lip and refused to give it the satisfaction of a reaction. Crossing to the coffee table, I pulled from my bag the file I had photographed in Samuel's study, the one containing the core vulnerabilities of Hart Enterprises' newest multi-billion-dollar project.
"Mr. Pierce," I said, "the enemy of my enemy is a friend. This will cost Samuel a billion dollars on this project alone."
Edward didn't take the file.
Instead, he leaned forward just enough for the light to catch his face, striking in a way that felt almost dangerous and unnatural.
His gaze moved over me with deliberate, unhurried intent, tracing a slow path from my eyes down to my lips, pausing for a beat at the hollow of my throat along the way.
"A billion?" A soft laugh escaped him, as though the number itself amused him. "You're aiming low, Ms. Grant. A billion dollars doesn't even register with me. So why would I drag myself through the mess of touching your husband's business for pocket change?"
He got to his feet and closed the distance between us.
With each step, that sharp, cold scent of cedarwood pushed further into my space, until I could taste it at the back of my throat. I stepped back on instinct, but the wall stopped me cold before I'd gone far.
Edward braced one hand against the wall beside my head, his body blocking out everything else until all that existed was the shadow of him closing in.
He dipped his head then, and I felt his breath against the side of my neck, hot, unhurried, and enough to send a tremor down my spine that I couldn't quite suppress.