Chapter 1 - The Weight of a Locked Door
The air between them grew thin, heavy with the scent of expensive bourbon, ozone, and unspent violence. Roman did not retreat. Men like him did not know how to step back once they had marked their ground. His eyes, the color of winter river ice, locked onto Tessa’s face as if searching for a fracture in her armor.
“You asked what you are,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that had once made hostile cartel bosses drop their weapons. “You are the only person in this city who knows where every body is buried, Tessa. Literally and figuratively. You think I can simply let you walk out that door with that knowledge in your head and five years of my life in your briefcase?”
“You survived for thirty years before you met me,” Tessa shot back, her pulse hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “You can manage your own ledgers.”
“The ledgers aren’t the point.” Roman closed the remaining distance between them until she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. He reached out, his long fingers brushing against the lapel of her trench coat. For a fraction of a second, she thought he might grab her, might use his physical dominance to force her back into her chair. Instead, his hand drifted past her shoulder and slammed the heavy mahogany door shut once more, throwing the deadbolt home with a sharp, echoing clack. “The point is that you think you can walk away from a board that you helped construct.”
“I’m not a board member, Roman. I’m an employee who is terminating her contract.”
“An employee doesn’t look at me the way you’ve looked at me for three years,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “An employee doesn’t memorize how I take my coffee, or notice when the scar on my ribs starts aching before a storm. You stayed because you thought you were building something. Now you want to burn it down because I’m playing the hand we both knew was coming.”
Tessa’s breath caught. She hated how easily he could dismantle her arguments simply by stating truths she had spent years trying to conceal.
“Chloe Bishop is the daughter of Senator Arthur Bishop,” she said, forcing her voice to remain steady. “Her father controls the judiciary committee that is currently reviewing the port acquisition licenses in Baltimore. Marrying her secures your shipping lanes for the next decade. It’s a clean, brilliant, ruthless move. Exactly what I taught you to appreciate.”
“And?” Roman prompted, his face inches from hers.
“And it means you’re trading me for a political asset.”
“I’m not trading anything,” Roman snarled, his restraint finally cracking. His hand shot out, gripping the edge of the desk behind her as he penned her in. “Chloe Bishop is a contract. A signature on a piece of paper that keeps the federal prosecutors off my back while I finish consolidating the East Coast. She doesn’t know what I do in the dark, Tessa. She doesn’t know the taste of copper or the sound of a silenced nine-millimeter. She wants a billionaire in a tuxedo for her society galas. She can have him.”
“Then why are you locked in this office with me instead of downstairs dancing with your bride?”
Roman stared down at her, his jaw working as if he were chewing on glass. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the muffled thump of the bass from the ballroom downstairs, shaking the crystal decanters on the sideboard.
“Because,” Roman murmured, his gaze dropping to her lips before rising back to her eyes, “Chloe didn't come here to be a wife.”
Tessa frowned, the anger momentarily giving way to professional curiosity. “What are you talking about?”
May you like
Roman reached into his inner jacket pocket, withdrew a folded manila folder that smelled faintly of old paper and printer toner, and tossed it onto the desk between them.
“Open it,” he commanded. “Read the first page. And then tell me if you still want to hand in your resignation.”
