Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LIGHTER
The massive mahogany doors of the Zenith Tower ballroom slammed shut, the heavy deadbolts echoing like gunshots.
Pandemonium reigned. Guests in ten-thousand-dollar gowns screamed, scrambling away from the epicenter of Table One. Seraphina Vance was on the floor, thrashing violently. Her flawless porcelain skin was rapidly blooming with angry, violent red hives where the bourbon had splashed her chest.
"The epi-pen! In my clutch!" Seraphina shrieked, her voice morphing from a socialite’s purr to a ragged, desperate wheeze. "Do it! Now!"
A bodyguard dove for her beaded designer clutch on the table, ripped it open, and jammed a thick, auto-injecting syringe directly into Seraphina’s thigh. The mafia wife gasped, her eyes rolling back as the chemical cocktail fought the neurotoxin.
Avery stayed on her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
Lucius Vance didn’t look at his wife. He stepped over her writhing body, his immaculate midnight-blue suit perfectly pressed, his dark eyes locked entirely on Avery. The air around him was so cold, so terrifyingly still, that the chaos of the room seemed to bend around him.
"You," Lucius commanded, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it vibrated in Avery’s bones. "Stand up."
Avery swallowed hard. She forced her shaking legs to straighten. She was a master’s student drowning in debt, standing toe-to-toe with the apex predator of the Chicago syndicate.
"The waiter," Avery said, her voice remarkably steady despite the terror threatening to drown her. "Where is he?"
Lucius snapped his fingers. Two massive men in tailored suits dragged the waiter forward. The man’s jaw was already bruised, his eyes wide with panic.
"He was hired for the catering staff," Lucius said softly, walking slowly around the trembling waiter. "A nobody. But you… you are a sound technician. You shouldn’t be on the floor. So how did you know my wife was thirsty?"
"I heard the radio chatter," Avery said, reaching up and pulling the heavy comms headset from her neck. She held it out. "The steel walls in the mezzanine create an electromagnetic bounce. It picked up a scrambled frequency. I heard the call to drop the liquid."
Lucius stared at her, his razor-sharp mind calculating. "Answer One, Open Two," he murmured, taking the headset.
They had answered how Avery knew. But the two new questions were far more dangerous: Who gave the order, and who supplied the military-grade neurotoxin?
Lucius grabbed the waiter by the throat, his grip like forged iron. "Who paid you?"
"I don't know!" the waiter choked, tears streaming down his face. "A guy! A guy in a coat! He just handed me the tray and the vial! I swear to God, Mr. Vance!"
Lucius didn’t yell. He simply tightened his grip.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.
The waiter went limp in Lucius’s hands, a single bullet hole perfectly centered in his forehead.
Screams erupted anew. Lucius dropped the body, instantly shielding Avery with his own frame as his men drew their weapons, scanning the balcony.
"Sniper on the catwalk!" a guard yelled.
But it wasn't a sniper. A man in a tailored grey suit was already disappearing through a service exit on the second floor.
Lucius didn’t chase him. He knelt beside the dead waiter and rifled through the man's pockets. He pulled out a single object.
It was a heavy, custom-engraved silver lighter.
Avery looked at it, her heart dropping.
Lucius’s eyes darkened with a profound, terrifying grief. The lighter bore the crest of a roaring lion.
"That belongs to my brother," Lucius whispered. "Dante."
The reversal hit Avery like a physical blow. Seraphina hadn’t orchestrated the hit to steal her husband's empire. She was working with Lucius’s own brother.
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Lucius stood up, his face hardening into a mask of pure, unadulterated vengeance. He looked at Avery.
"You saved my life," Lucius said. "Which means whoever ordered this hit now considers you a loose end. You belong to me now."
