Chapter 3 3

The entrance to the private club was flanked by security guards who looked like they were carved from granite. Kate walked straight toward them. She had cleaned the blood off her face and pinned the tear in her dress with a sterile safety pin she'd begged from a nurse at the front desk. She looked deranged, but she held her head high enough to balance a crown.

"Invitation?" the guard asked, stepping in her path.

"Tell Lucas Sterling his past is here," Kate said, her voice steady.

The guard hesitated, then touched his earpiece. A moment later, he stepped aside.

The ballroom was a sea of silk and diamonds. The air smelled of expensive perfume and hypocrisy. Estelle, Lucas's fiancée, was holding court near the center, laughing at something a senator's wife said. Lucas stood beside her, swirling a glass of scotch, looking like the king of the world.

The room went quiet as Kate walked in. The crowd parted, not out of respect, but out of the sheer spectacle of her ruin.

"Well, well," Estelle's voice carried over the silence. "If it isn't the bankrupt gallery girl. Did you come to bus tables?"

Laughter rippled through the room. Kate didn't blink. She walked until she was toe-to-toe with Lucas.

"Kneel," Lucas whispered, loud enough for the inner circle to hear. "And maybe I'll call off the dogs."

Kate reached into her clutch. Lucas smirked, expecting a tissue for her tears.

Instead, she pulled out a folded document. It wasn't the original-she wasn't stupid-but a copy of a bank transfer record from five years ago.

"The money laundering complaint," Kate said clearly. "You forged Nate's signature. But you forgot that I kept the records from when you were skimming off the Sterling family trust."

Lucas's smile vanished. His eyes darted to the paper, then to the people around them. "You're delusional."

"Am I?" Kate unfolded the paper. "Board of Directors meeting is Tuesday, isn't it? I wonder what they'd think about the Vice President funneling company assets into his personal gambling debts."

Lucas lunged. He grabbed her wrist, his fingers digging into her tendons with bruising force. "Give me that."

"Let go," Kate warned.

"You think a piece of paper scares me?" Lucas leaned in, his breath hot and smelling of scotch against her ear. "I can bury you. And that little bastard you're hiding in Queens? Leo? Maybe he needs an accident too."

The world stopped. The noise of the party faded into a high-pitched ring. He threatened Leo. He called him a bastard.

Kate didn't think. The reaction was visceral, ancient. She wrenched her wrist free and swung her hand.

Crack.

The sound of her palm connecting with Lucas's cheek echoed like a gunshot.

Lucas's head snapped to the side. A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. A bright red handprint bloomed instantly on his pale skin.

Kate stepped closer, her voice trembling with rage. "You touch a hair on his head, and I won't just ruin your career, Lucas. I will burn your entire life to the ground."

Estelle shrieked, rushing forward. "Security! Get this psycho out of here!" She tried to shove Kate, but Kate sidestepped. Estelle stumbled, crashing into a waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes. Glass shattered.

Kate turned on her heel. She walked toward the exit, her back straight, though her legs felt like jelly.

"You're dead, Silva!" Lucas roared behind her, humiliation cracking his voice. "You hear me? You're finished in this city!"

Kate pushed through the heavy doors and out into the night. As soon as the cool air hit her, the adrenaline crashed. She leaned against the brick wall of the alley, gasping for air, her hand throbbing from the impact.

She had bought herself maybe twenty-four hours. Lucas would come for her now with everything he had. The blackmail file was thin; she had bluffed about how much proof she really had.

She needed a shield. An impenetrable, diamond-hard shield.

She looked up. Across the skyline, the Emerson Tower pierced the clouds, its logo glowing like a beacon.

Kate pulled out her phone. Her fingers shook as she scrolled to a contact she hadn't touched in five years, a ghost in her machine. Armond - Do Not Call. It was his old private number, one she suspected was long disconnected. But last night, in a moment of reckless curiosity while he slept, she had seen his new number on his phone screen and memorized it. She'd keyed it in under a new, anonymous entry: V.

She stared at the screen, at the new, dangerous entry. Calling him was suicide. It was walking back into the lion's den with a steak tied around her neck. But Leo was in danger.

Kate pressed call.