Chapter 2 - THE FATAL CRASH OF SILVER
The silver tray slipped from Fay’s fingers before reason could claw its way back into her skull. It hit the marble floor with a deafening clatter that sheared through the string quartet’s gentle waltz, sending champagne flutes shattering in bursts of golden foam and razor shards. Gasps rippled through the high-ceilinged ballroom like a falling row of dominoes. Two hundred pairs of eyes—predators, socialites, corrupt politicians, and hired killers—swung toward the noise in lethal unison.
Fay didn't look down at the ruined glass slicing near her cheap black flats. She didn't look at the banquet manager whose face had instantly drained to the color of curdled cream. She moved.
She took five lunging, desperate strides across the parquet floor, cutting directly through the velvet sea of evening gowns and tailored tuxedos. Celeste Maro was already lifting her crystal flute, raising it toward Griffin Hales’s lips with an angelic, doting smile, murmuring something tender over the murmur of the crowd. Griffin’s dark eyes were already dipping toward the rim, his sharp jaw relaxing into a rare, unguarded half-smile.
He’s going to drink it.
The poison wasn't a rumor. The whisper from the VIP hallway surged through Fay's blood like liquid fire.
Before Griffin could part his lips, before his personal bodyguards could register the waitress breaching the private perimeter, Fay threw herself into the lion’s den. She didn't scream a warning; screams caused men like Griffin to flinch, to hesitate, to reach for holsters—or worse, to drink instinctively. Instead, she reached up with trembling hands still smelling of cheap lemon detergent and rough lye soap, locked her fingers onto the cold, stubbled planes of Griffin Hales’s jaw, and yanked his mouth down to hers.
The shockwave that rippled through the grand hall was absolute, suffocating silence.
Her lips collided with his. Griffin went rigid as carved obsidian. His chest, solid as an armored wall beneath a thousand-dollar silk shirt, hit hers with crushing force. He tasted of peaty scotch, bitter espresso, and raw, lethal authority. Fay kept her eyes squeezed shut, pouring every ounce of desperate urgency into the contact, tilting her head with deliberate violence to knock his shoulder backward. Her hip slammed hard into Celeste’s arm.
The crystal flute flew from Celeste’s manicured fingers. It arced through the air and shattered violently against the marble dais, splashing pale vintage champagne across the immaculate white lace train of Celeste’s couture dress.
Instantly, the air turned to lead. The metallic shick-clack of at least eight concealed firearms being chambered echoed beneath the chandeliers.
Fay pulled back, her breath rattling in her throat, her chest heaving as if she had surfaced from deep ocean water. Her hands dropped away from Griffin’s face, leaving faint red marks from her desperate grip against his skin. She was shivering uncontrollably.
Griffin didn't reach for his gun. He stood towering over her, six-foot-three of coiled violence, his obsidian eyes bored directly into hers with an intensity so heavy it felt like physical weight. His hand hovered an inch from her waist, fingers half-curled, frozen in the split second he had instinctively caught her to prevent them both from falling.
"What in the hell is this?" Celeste’s screech tore through the paralyzed room, stripped of all its polished velvet charm. Her eyes bulged in pure fury, her jaw unhinged as she stared at the peasant girl who had just laid hands on Chicago’s most dangerous kingpin. "Security! Drag this filthy gutter rat out and break her neck!"
"Quiet," Griffin said.
His voice wasn't raised, but the single syllable dropped the temperature of the room below freezing. Celeste shut her mouth, her chest heaving in indignation, though a twitch of terror flickered at the corner of her crimson lips.
Griffin slowly wiped his lower lip with the back of his thumb, his gaze never once breaking away from Fay’s pale, sweat-sheened face. "You have exactly five seconds," Griffin murmured, his voice rumbling low in his chest, meant only for her, "to explain why your mouth was on mine before my men paint this marble with your blood."
Fay swallowed the iron tang of pure fear, her eyes darting down to the fizzing puddle at their feet. "Don't touch the liquid," she whispered, her voice trembling but steady enough to carry to his ears alone. "Check the Persian rug under the spill. Look at what your champagne is doing to the floor."
May you like
Griffin’s dark brow furrowed. He glanced down. Where the spilled vintage champagne had pooled over the antique wool runner, tiny white bubbles were hissing, dissolving the natural fibers into smoking gray slime. It wasn't vintage champagne. It was concentrated potassium cyanide mixed with an acidic solvent.
Griffin’s gaze snapped back to Fay, darker than midnight, razor-sharp and terrifyingly awake.
