Chapter 2 - The Predator’s Reprieve
Roman Falco wiped his mouth with a crisp linen napkin and left it perfectly folded on the table. He had not touched his Barolo. The ice in Derek’s abandoned glass shifted and cracked in the silence.
Roman stood. He did not ask for the check. He did not need to. The restaurant manager was already nodding nervously at him from across the room, pale and sweating under his collar. Roman stepped into the aisle and adjusted his cuffs. He hated loud men. He hated messy men. Most of all, he hated men who broke things they did not know how to fix.
Outside, the Chicago night air hit Harper like a damp, heavy towel. It was a humid, suffocating summer evening. She stood beside the valet stand in the narrow, brick-lined alley adjacent to the restaurant, shivering despite the oppressive heat. The brick walls seemed to press inward, boxing her in.
Harper pulled a compact mirror from her purse with trembling fingers. Her lipstick was chewed away in the center. Her eyes looked wide and hollow, rimmed with smudged mascara. You look like a victim, she told herself harshly. She snapped the compact shut with a sharp click. She hated that word. It implied a lack of choice. She had made a choice to stay, over and over, because leaving had always seemed infinitely more terrifying than surviving.
The heavy mahogany restaurant door swung open with a muffled creak.
Derek marched outside. He did not walk; he stalked. He tossed his valet ticket at the young attendant, who scrambled nervously to retrieve the keys from the lockbox.
“Get over here,” Derek snapped at Harper without looking back.
Harper stepped forward, gravel crunching beneath her heels, bracing herself for the horrors of the car ride. The car was Derek’s private sanctuary—soundproof and isolated. Harper mentally mapped their apartment layout. If she could reach the master bathroom and lock the heavy bolt before he threw his keys into the ceramic bowl, she might buy herself an hour of safety.
Then the low, heavy, menacing purr of an engine echoed through the alley.
A black town car rolled slowly toward the curb, bypassing the valet lane entirely. It stopped illegally, blocking the exit route.
Derek threw up his hands in immediate irritation. “Hey! Move the damn car. My guy is bringing my Audi around.”
The driver did not move. The windows were tinted pitch black, absorbing the yellow streetlamp light.
“Did you hear me?” Derek stepped off the curb, puffed out his chest like a brawling rooster, and slapped the hood of the town car with an open palm. The sound was loud, sharp, and deeply disrespectful.
Harper closed her eyes. Idiot. Derek had spent so long bullying her and subordinates who couldn't fight back that he genuinely believed the entire world would flinch whenever he raised his hand.
The rear passenger door opened with a soft click.
The man from the adjacent booth stepped out onto the pavement.
Under the dim yellow streetlight, Roman looked even larger than he had while sitting down. He was not excessively muscular like a gym rat, but he possessed a dense, grounded gravity. He moved with the slow, deliberate economy of a apex predator that did not need to run to catch its meal.
He stopped several feet from Derek. He did not look angry. He looked profoundly, insultingly bored.
“You touched my car,” Roman said.
His voice was a low, gravelly baritone. It barely carried above the engine idle, yet it instantly commanded and consumed all the space in the alley.
Derek laughed harshly, high up in his throat. “Yeah, I touched it. It’s blocking the lane, pal. Move it before I have it towed.”
Roman reached inside his jacket. Derek tensed instantly, fists balling at his sides, clearly expecting a weapon. Instead, Roman produced a silver Zippo lighter and a cigarette. He flicked open the lid. The bright flame illuminated the sharp angles of his jaw and the cold, dead calm in his dark eyes.
“You’re a very loud man,” Roman said, exhaling a thin stream of gray smoke into the humid air. “Inside, you were loud. Out here, you are loud.”
Derek blinked, his bravado stuttering. “Were you spying on us?” He stepped toward Roman, attempting to reclaim his shrinking dominance. “Listen, buddy. I don’t know who you think you are, but you need to back the hell up.”
“You made a promise,” Roman continued, completely ignoring him. His dark gaze shifted past Derek to lock onto Harper.
She froze. His eyes were dark, fathomless pools of obsidian. There was no pity in them. Pity was for the weak. What Harper saw instead was clinical assessment. He was calculating her worth, her internal damage, her precise breaking point.
“A very specific promise,” Roman said softly, looking back at Derek. “You said she was dead when she got home.”
May you like
Derek’s face went slack for a fraction of a second before the false bravado rushed back in. “That’s between me and my girlfriend. It’s none of your business. Mind your own damn business.”
“I am a man of my word,” Roman said, taking another slow drag from his cigarette. “I value follow-through, so I am curious. How are you planning to kill her?”
