The Waldorf Astoria ballroom drips with blood money disguised as charity. Every crime family on the East Coast sends representatives to this annual farce—a tax write-off masquerading as philanthropy where we pretend we're not all calculating who to kill next week.
Cassian's hand burns through the backless Valentino as we enter. Blood-red silk that costs more than most people's cars, chosen specifically because he said it made him want to fuck me against a wall. Which he did, twenty minutes ago in the limo, my lipstick smeared across his throat until Rafael diplomatically raised the partition.
Now that lipstick is perfectly reapplied, but I can still feel him dripping down my thigh.
"Ready?" he murmurs against my ear, and the room takes notice—how we move like one organism, how his hand never leaves my body, how I lean into him without thought.
"Always," I breathe back, and feel his fingers flex possessively.
The crowd parts for us. Three months ago, I was the sacrificial lamb, the Castellano princess sold to the beast. Now they see something else entirely—the way Cassian tracks my movement even while talking to the mayor, how I touch his arm and his entire body responds, the marks on my throat that my diamonds don't quite hide.
We look like what we are: a matched set of beautiful violence who fuck like animals and kill like professionals.
Vincent stands near the bar with Patricia, and I watch my father's face go through several expressions as we approach. Confusion at my confidence. Calculation at our obvious unity. Then something like fear when he meets my eyes and finds a stranger looking back.
"Father." My voice is sweet poison. "Patricia. How lovely."
"Esther." He says my name like he's not sure it's really me. "You look... different."
Cassian's thumb strokes my spine, one long possessive drag that Vincent tracks with narrowing eyes. "Your daughter's evolved. Amazing what happens when someone actually values her."
Before Vincent can respond, she arrives. Ivy in virgin white—the irony would be delicious if it wasn't so pathetic. But it's her company that makes my blood heat.
Natalie. Cassian's ex-mistress who vanished two years ago, now hanging off some businessman's arm like a trophy. Behind them, two more women I recognize from the photos Rafael showed me. Maria, supposedly another ex, and Sophie, who claims she had him for six months.
Ivy brought a fucking reunion tour.
"Cassian," Natalie purrs, gliding over in designer white that matches Ivy's. Her hand goes straight to his arm, nails dragging along his sleeve. "It's been too long. Remember Paris? That weekend at the George V?"
I watch Cassian's jaw tick, but I don't tense. Don't react. Instead, I smile at her date—a boy who can't be more than nineteen, pretty in that soft way that will fade fast.
"Natalie, wasn't it?" My voice is warm honey. "How brave, bringing your son to an adult event. Oh wait—that's your husband? My mistake. Though I suppose at your age, options narrow."
Her face flushes ugly red. "Listen, you little—"
"No, you listen." I step into her space, and Cassian's hand tightens on my waist—not restraining, supporting. "Whatever old war stories you're about to spin, save them. I know he fucked you in Paris. I also know you cried through half of it and he had to fake his orgasm because you reminded him of his dead mother."
Natalie stumbles back like I've slapped her. The crowd pretends not to watch while hanging on every word.
"Shall we get drinks?" Cassian suggests mildly, but his eyes are hot on mine, and I feel him hard against my hip.
He likes me vicious. Lesson learned.
The exes circle all night like sharks. They drop breadcrumbs about Cassian's preferences—how he likes women on their knees, the birthmark on his hip shaped like a crescent moon, how he played piano for Sophie after fucking her. Each detail meant to cut, to show they've had him in ways I haven't.
"He's insatiable," Maria stage-whispers to her friend. "Three, four times a night. Used to leave me so sore I couldn't walk."
I sip champagne and think about this morning—round six or seven—my legs over his shoulders, his face between my thighs until I screamed so loud the staff definitely heard.
Cute that she thinks four times is impressive.
"Excuse me," I say sweetly. "Ladies' room."
They follow like trained dogs. The bathroom is marble and gold, empty except for us. Ivy locks the door behind her with theatrical flair.
"Let's be honest," she says, studying her reflection. "You're temporary. We all were, but I lasted longest. Three years. You've had what, two months?"
"Ten weeks, actually." I reapply lipstick with steady hands. "But who's counting?"
"He always comes back to me." Ivy's mask is slipping. "When he's done playing with his new toys, when he needs someone who understands the business—"
"You lasted three years because you were useful to his business, not his bed." I turn to face them fully. "He told me you stopped fucking after six months. Couldn't get wet for him anymore, could you? Had to use so much lube he started calling you the Sahara."
Ivy goes white. Natalie starts to speak but I cut her off.
"You lasted four weeks before he paid you fifty thousand to disappear. I've seen the transfer records." I point to Maria. "You were Rafael's girlfriend. Cassian never touched you. You're lying because Ivy owns your husband's debts."
Dead silence. I move past them, pause at the door.
"You want to know the difference between me and all of you?" I look back at their stunned faces. "You tried to tame him. I'm learning to run beside him. Oh, and Ivy? That shipment you're planning to redirect tomorrow? Cassian already knows. He's letting you hang yourself with your own rope."
I leave them there and find Cassian surrounded by the old guard—Vincent included—discussing me like I'm not approaching.
"The Castellano princess has certainly adapted," Vincent says coldly. "Though breeding will tell. Her mother never quite fit either."
Cassian's hand tightens on his glass, and I see the violence ripple through him. Before he can move, I link our arms, pressing against his side.
"Father." My smile could cut glass. "Still bitter that Mother saw you for what you really are? A mediocre man who needed her money to matter? At least when she died, she died free of you."
Vincent's face purples. His hand rises—to strike me, probably—but Cassian moves faster. Vincent's wrist is suddenly bent at an unnatural angle, my husband's smile never wavering.
"Touch her and I'll mail pieces of you to your wife," Cassian says pleasantly. "Starting with the parts she won't miss."
He releases Vincent and guides me to the dance floor, one hand possessive on my waist. The orchestra starts something slow, sultry, and he pulls me against him fully.
"You're magnificent when you're cruel," he murmurs against my ear, and I feel his cock pressing against me through our clothes.
"You created a monster." I roll my hips subtly, watch his eyes darken.
"No." He spins me, pulls me back harder. "I uncovered one. It was always there, waiting."
His hand slides lower, fingers spreading across my ass, and several people notice. Good. Let them see who owns me. Let them see who I own right back.
"The bathroom story about Ivy," he breathes against my throat. "I never told you that."
"Rafael's chatty when he's drunk." I nip his ear. "Also, I went through your phone."
He laughs, real and dark, and crushes his mouth to mine right there on the dance floor. Tongue claiming mine, hand fisting my hair, completely inappropriate and absolutely perfect. When we break apart, half the room is staring.
"Take me home," I breathe against his lips. "I want you to fuck me in this dress."
"The party just started."
"The party's over. Ivy's about to be arrested for embezzlement, Vincent's going to have an accident next week, and I need you inside me in the next twenty minutes or I'm going to kill someone."
His pupils blow completely black. "Christ, I love you."
It's the first time he's said it outside of sex. The words hit like bullets—devastating and perfect.
"I love you too," I say, and mean it with every broken, reformed piece of myself. "Now take me home and prove it."
He does, leaving the party in chaos behind us, our absence the only story anyone will remember. In the limo, he spreads me across the leather and shows me exactly how magnificent he finds my cruelty.
This is who we are. Lovers and killers, partners in everything. And God help anyone who tries to separate us.