Who gets protected and who gets thrown to the wolves.
"I'm staying."
The man shrugs and releases my arm. "Your funeral, princess."
He melts back into the shadows, and I'm alone again.
Except I'm not, not really.
I can feel eyes on me, assessing, calculating.
Fresh meat in a place that devours the innocent.
Good thing I haven't been innocent in eight years.
I move deeper into the space, passing rooms with open doors that reveal glimpses of scenes that make my pulse race.
A woman is suspended from the ceiling while two men use her.
A man on his knees, begging for something I can't quite hear.
Blood on someone's back from a whipping that wasn't playful.
This is real. This is dangerous.
This is perfect.
That's when I seehim.
He's across the room, and everyone else might as well disappear.
Tall—six-foot-three at least—in a suit that costs more than most people's cars.
Black hair, sharp cheekbones, a jaw that could cut glass.
But it's his presence that stops me cold.
He doesn't just occupy space; he commands it.
Everyone moves around him like planets orbiting a sun, careful not to get too close, unable to look away.
He's beautiful in the way a weapon is beautiful.
Elegant. Lethal. Designed to destroy.
He has a woman on her knees beside his chair, his hand in her hair while he speaks to another man.
Business, by the look of it.
The man is sweating, nervous, while he—the Boss, he has to be—looks bored.
His fingers absently stroke through the woman's hair like she's a pet.
Then his eyes find mine.
Steel gray, almost silver in this light.
They pin me in place from across the room.
