Chapter 1 - The First Drop of Crimson
The air inside the Etor Hotel ballroom smelled of expensive perfume, stale sweat, and the electric tension of a city about to tear itself apart. Valerio Castellion stood in his shadowed alcove, watching the green silk of Danica Merritt’s gown swirl across the mahogany floor as his younger brother, Veto, held her close. To every politician, prosecutor, and mobster in the room, it looked like a charming dance between a ruthless rising prince and his brother's guest. To Valerio, it looked like a death sentence.
He had spent two months keeping his distance from Danica. As the Castellion family’s chief forensic accountant, she possessed the keys to every offshore account, tax shelter, and shell company that kept their empire legally bulletproof. More than that, she had wormed her way past the icy barricades of Valerio’s mind. He loved her curves, her fierce intelligence, and the unyielding way she stared him down in boardrooms. But love was a weakness. In the Midwest underworld, affection was an open invitation for a bullet.
So he had watched from afar, planning to send her away to Paris when the gala ended, saving her from the violence that defined his life.
Then she stumbled toward his alcove.
When Danica vanished into the crowd toward the powder rooms, she left behind a white linen napkin. Valerio pulled it from the table, his breath catching in his throat. It was soaked in warm, fresh blood. Across the linen, scrawled in black eyeliner, were five words that turned his world upside down: Coat room. Oswaldo’s dead. Veto’s coup.
Valerio’s hand tightened around the handle of his customized 1911 pistol beneath his suit jacket. His mind raced. Oswaldo, his most loyal enforcer for fifteen years, was gone. Veto, the golden boy he had protected and trusted, had sold him out to the Felicity faction, their bitter rivals from the South Side.
"Ignatio," Valerio whispered to his remaining guard. "Oswaldo is down. Veto has turned. We have under two minutes before this room becomes a slaughterhouse."
The color drained from Ignatio’s face, but his professional training kicked in instantly. "Back exits?"
"Likely compromised. We go through the kitchens. But first, I have to get her."
Valerio did not run. Running invited chaos. He walked with lethal, measured precision through the velvet curtains and into the dim, mirrored corridor leading to the service elevators and coat rooms. A smear of dark blood on the floral wallpaper confirmed his worst fears.
Pushing open the heavy door to the coat room, the copper stench of fresh death hit him like a physical blow. Behind a row of mink and fox furs lay Oswaldo, his throat slit with brutal, surgical efficiency. Valerio’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached, but he forced the rage down into an iron-clad vault in his mind. There was no time for grief. Only vengeance.
A muffled crash echoed from the service elevator bay down the hall.
Valerio rounded the corner just in time to see a massive hitman from the Felicity faction grabbing Danica by her dark hair, slamming her back against the veneered wall, and raising a suppressed pistol straight toward her forehead.
Danica wasn't crying. Even with tears pooling in her dark eyes and blood staining her trembling fingers, she was glaring at her attacker with a fierce, defiant hatred. She raised her thick, heavy silver bracelet and slammed it directly into the gunman's wrist, deflecting the barrel of the gun a fraction of a second before it went off.
A bullet punched through the ceiling plaster, raining white dust over her lush curves and emerald gown.
May you like
The hitman cursed, raising his fist to strike her across the face.
He didn't get the chance.
