Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
A thin silver pendant.
Two small scales.
Justice.
An odd symbol for a room like this.
I move toward her.
The bartender notices me first. “Mr. Vexley—”
“Leave.”
He disappears.
I stop beside her. “You watched the whole thing,” I say. “With Darnell.”
She takes a sip of her drink. “It’s hard not to.” Her voice is calm. Low for a woman.
“Did you enjoy it?”
She turns her head and looks directly at me. Her eyes are a striking silvery blue. “I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it.”
“No? What would you say, then?”
She tilts her head. Her hair caresses the swell of her breast.
Fuck…
“Preston Darnell doesn’t intimidate easily,” she continues. “I suppose I’d say I found it educational, watching you flex your power like that.”
A faint heat spreads through my chest.
Not because she’s wrong.
Because she isn’t.
“You say that like you disapprove.”
“I say it like I noticed.” She meets my gaze, a look of defiance in her own.
It’s unusual. Most people pretend not to see what I am.
This woman doesn’t.
She looks at me as if she understands exactly what kind of man she’s talking to, and she’s decided not to run anyway.
“You’re not in business with Preston Darnell,” I say.
“Is that a question?”
“It’s an observation.”
She rotates the stem of her glass between her fingers. “Then here’s one in return.”
I wait.
“You never raised your voice,” she says. “You didn’t threaten him either.”
“Didn’t I?”
“No.” She lifts her glass again. “You simply explained what had already happened to him.” She pauses a moment. Then, “Men like you don’t make mistakes when they destroy someone.”
Her words should shock me, but they don’t. I know who and what I am, and I make no apologies for it.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say.
“It wasn’t.”
I can’t help a slow smile as I glance at the pendant resting against her collarbone.
“You wear justice around your neck,” I say. “Why?”
She slides her fingers over the small pendant. “Maybe it’s a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That justice sometimes comes at a price—a price that’s worth paying.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
“Why?”
“Are you looking for justice for someone?”
“I’m always interested in justice,” she says. “But I can tell you’re not.”
She’s not wrong. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re a powerful man,” she replies. “And men with power always choose that power over everything, including justice. And that leads to corruption.”
I hold her gaze. “You think?”
She twists the small pendant. “I suppose it could depend on who’s telling the story.”
Something stirs inside me then. Something I haven’t felt in a long time.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She hesitates long enough that I wonder if she’ll respond.
Then she touches the pendant again. “Delaney Cross.”
Delaney Cross. An unusual yet beautiful name for an unusual and beautiful woman.
“You know who I am,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And still you stayed when I approached you.”
“Should I have run?”
“Most people do.”
Again she touches the silver scales. “Maybe most people don’t like seeing dangerous things up close.”
“And you do?”
“I like understanding them.”
I can’t help a chuckle. I’ve been called many things in rooms like this. Dangerous is one of the more honest ones. And one of the kindest.
She glances at her watch. “I should go.”
“Should you?”
“Yes.” She sets cash on the bar instead of signing a tab. Then she stands.
She’s taller than I expected, all long lines and confidence.
“Good night, Mr. Vexley.”
“Samson.”
A small pause. “Good night, Samson.”
She walks toward the door without looking back. Near the exit she glances once toward the security camera mounted in the corner. Then she’s gone.
I remain where I am, staring at the empty space she left behind.
For years I’ve been the most dangerous thing in every room that matters.
The man people fear.
The man people obey.
Tonight a woman with steel-blue eyes and a silver scale at her throat looked at me as if I were something to be understood rather than feared.
And all I can think about is getting her naked and fucking her senseless.
2
DELANEY
I shove through the club doors and into the night. Cold air hits my face, and I keep walking. One block. Half a block more. Past the waiting town cars lined up at the curb, past two women laughing beneath the awning of the building next door, past a man lighting a cigar. I don’t stop until I’m half a block away.
Then I brace one hand against cool stone and drag in a breath.
Another.
And another.
This is ridiculous.
I’m not breathless because I climbed stairs or because I drank too much.
I’m breathless because Samson Vexley looked at me with those gorgeous amber eyes, and for one humiliating moment I forgot why I was there.
Amber. Like the whiskey flowing all night in thick crystal tumblers at the bar. Honeyed and dangerous and beautiful enough to make a woman stupid.
I close my eyes and tip my head back. “Get it together,” I mutter.
I went there to observe. To see one of Arthur Vexley’s sons in his natural habitat of power and money and everything in excess.