Page 47 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
I could get used to this. I really could.
"You've always had a thing for the untouchable ones." Onyx says it casually, lifting her glass.
My heartbeat trips. But I'm tired of hiding. I've been hiding for eleven years and my jaw aches from the effort.
"Since I was sixteen." I say it quietly, my eyes on my champagne. "I've been in love with him since I was sixteen years old, Onyx."
The table keeps talking. Katriana is showing Persia something on her phone. Ilona refills her sparkling water. Nobody hears us.
Onyx sets her glass down. Her hand finds mine under the table and her fingers tighten. She doesn't look surprised. She looks like a woman who already knew and was waiting for me to say it out loud.
"I know, babe." Her voice is soft. "I've known for a while. I watched you watch him for a long time."
My eyes burn. "You did?"
She squeezes my hand. "You look at that man like he formed the sun and forgot to take credit for it."
I laugh and it comes out wet. "That's embarrassing."
"That's love." She bumps her shoulder against mine. "And it's about damn time you stopped pretending it wasn't."
A movement at the edge of my vision pulls my attention from the table. A server approaches with a fresh bread basket, slim and quiet, moving through the private dining room with the efficient invisibility of someone trained to be present without being noticed. Blonde hair pulled into a low knot at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands falling along the line of her jaw. Quick hazel eyes that scan the table, the glasses, the placement of every dish, cataloging details with a precision that reminds me of the way Kon swept Massimo's penthouse in two seconds flat on his first visit.
She sets the bread down without a word, adjusts a water glass that was a fraction off its coaster, and turns to leave. Her hands are steady and her movements are controlled and there's a stillness about her that doesn't match the uniform she's wearing,the way a dress fits wrong when the woman inside it was made for something else entirely.
Our eyes meet for half a second. Hers are hazel, guarded, sharp enough to cut. She doesn't smile or linger. She moves on, leaving me with an odd feeling that I either know her or should know her.
I make a mental note to ask Onyx who she is.
Persia's phone buzzes against the table, the vibration rattling her champagne glass against the crystal dessert plate. She glances at the screen and her expression shifts. Subtle, controlled, a micro-adjustment that most people would miss. The warmth drains from her eyes. Her jaw tightens. Her hand moves from the table to her lap where I watch her fingers curl into a fist beneath the linen napkin.
"Ladies." Her voice doesn't change pitch but the warmth recedes, replaced by something crisp and operational that turns the air at our table ten degrees colder. "We need to wrap up."
The transformation is instantaneous and absolute. I blink and four women who were laughing about Pilates and preschools become four women who understand exactly what Persia's tone means.
Katriana's hand goes to her phone, her thumb already finding Drake's name when I look over her shoulder at her screen. Ilona straightens in her chair, her dark eyes sweeping the room from left to right with a focus that wasn't there ten seconds ago, mapping exits, counting bodies, calculating distances. Onyx reaches for my hand under the table again and this time the squeeze isn't affection. It's instruction.
“Stay close. Follow our lead. Don't panic.”
"What's happening?" My voice comes out steady because the cherry lipstick earns its keep again and I have eleven years of practice at holding my face together when everything underneath is screaming.
"Security flagged two men in the lobby who don't belong," Persia says quietly, folding her napkin and placing it on the table with deliberate calm. Her movements are precise and unhurried and I realize with a cold clarity that she is performing composure the same way I perform it, the same way every woman at this table has learned to perform it. "Our escorts are on their way. We leave through the service corridor."
Two men who don't belong. My gut connects the dots before my brain does. Either my father has sent men for me or Lorenzo wants to flex his muscles. Or something worse. My stomach drops and the champagne turns to acid behind my ribs, the bubbles that felt celebratory five minutes ago now burning against the lining of my stomach.
Katriana is already on her feet, her phone pressed to her ear, her voice low and steady. "Drake, it's me. We're moving." Every trace of the woman who showed me forty-three pictures of her baby in a sunhat vanishes between one breath and the next, replaced by someone who has been through this before and knows exactly how the drill works.
Ilona stands and buttons her jacket, smoothing the front with quick fingers. Her movements are precise, unhurried, her dark eyes cutting to the service entrance. She mapped every escape route when she walked in. They all probably did. Every single one of them probably walked into this room and counted doors and exits and measured distances to the nearest stairwell while I was admiring the bread basket.
Onyx pulls me to my feet. "Stay behind me. Don't stop for anything."
"Onyx, I'm fine. I can?—"
"Sloane." Her blue eyes lock on mine, fierce and steady, every trace of the woman who was teasing me five minutes ago gone. "This is what this life looks like. You stay behind me and you move when I move. Okay?"
There are days I wish my father hadn't shielded me from life. Today is one of those days.
I nod. My heels feel too loud on the marble as we file out of the private dining room and into the service corridor, each step echoing in the narrow space. The hallway is dimly lit, the walls shifting from polished marble to matte black, and the air is cooler here, carrying the faint smell of industrial cleaning supplies and the metallic tang of the service kitchen somewhere below us. Pipes run along the ceiling and the fluorescent tubes overhead buzz with a low hum.
