Chapter 1 - I Slapped Chicago's Most Feared Man at Dinner—Then Saw the Bullet Hole Where My Heart Should Have Been
Twenty-two guests watched Damian Romano order me into his chair.
Two seconds later, I slapped him.
Then the window exploded.
I had worked at the Lake Forest estate for six weeks.
Long enough to recognize danger.
Not long enough to understand its rules.
"Sit beside me and don't move," Damian said.
My silver tray tilted against my hip.
The guests stopped speaking.
Across the table, a woman wearing emerald silk lowered her glass.
"Mr. Romano, I'm working."
"Not anymore."
He stood.
His chair scraped across the marble.
That sound was small.
His expression was not.
I expected anger.
Instead, I saw something almost impossible.
Fear.
"Harper. Now."
He crossed the room before I could answer.
His hand closed around my wrist.
And six years disappeared.
I was back in Milwaukee.
Back in Tyler Bennett's narrow apartment.
Back beside the door he wouldn't let me open.
My throat tightened.
"Don't touch me."
Damian's grip loosened.
But my body had already decided.
I tore free and slapped him.
The crack rang beneath three chandeliers.
Nobody breathed.
Damian turned toward the north windows.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking past me.
The gunshot came before I understood.
A bullet tore through the chair beside his place.
Wood splintered across the floor.
Damian caught me around the waist.
We hit the marble beneath the table.
"Stay down."
I could smell cedar on his jacket.
A second shot shattered the window.
Glass sprayed over the abandoned place settings.
Someone screamed for the doors.
Damian pressed one hand over my head.
"Gabriel!"
His cousin appeared near the doorway.
"North lawn. First shooter is down."
Damian's jaw tightened.
"First?"
Gabriel glanced toward the shattered window.
"We're checking the grounds."
"Check the people inside, too."
Those words lodged beneath my ribs.
Inside.
The threat might already be inside.
I looked at the chair.
The bullet hole sat at chest height.
My chest height.
Had I taken one more step, I would have died.
Damian followed my gaze.
"Are you hurt?"
I shook my head.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
"Use words, Harper."
"No. I'm not hurt."
His shoulders lowered by a fraction.
Then Victor Crane hurried toward us.
The estate manager's face was white.
"Mr. Romano, this employee struck you."
Damian looked up.
"I noticed."
"I'll handle her dismissal immediately."
"You will do nothing of the kind."
Victor blinked.
"But she humiliated you."
Damian pointed toward the ruined chair.
"Someone tried to kill her."
Victor's lips parted.
No sound emerged.
"Find out who opened that window," Damian said.
"It was locked before dinner."
Victor stepped backward.
"Of course, sir."
I watched him go.
The back of his collar was damp.
Everyone else looked toward the broken glass.
Victor looked toward the servants' corridor.
I didn't know why that mattered.
Not yet.
***
Two hours later, the estate felt hollow.
The guests had been escorted away.
Police lights washed over the hedges.
My uniform still smelled like spilled champagne.
I stood outside the security room.
Gabriel opened the door before I knocked.
"Am I fired?"
He almost smiled.
"For hitting Damian? He survived."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know."
I stared at him.
"You don't know anything about me."
"You're right. I don't."
He stepped aside.
"But I know what happened tonight."
Six monitors glowed above a steel desk.
On the center screen, the dinner played silently.
I saw myself carrying the tray.
I saw Damian rise.
Gabriel paused the footage.
"Look at the silver."
A red point shone in the tray's reflection.
It traveled across the polished surface.
Then settled near my shoulder.
I gripped the back of a chair.
"That's a laser."
Gabriel nodded.
"Damian saw it in the reflection."
He resumed the recording.
Damian's head turned.
He stood.
He reached me.
I slapped him.
The chair exploded.
Gabriel stopped the video.
"If he explained first, you'd be dead."
My stomach twisted.
I remembered the sting in my palm.
The look on Damian's face.
The way he shielded me anyway.
"Where is he?"
Gabriel didn't answer.
He opened another camera feed.
It showed the servants' corridor.
Victor Crane stood beside a locked service door.
He checked his watch.
Then he slipped something beneath the door.
A white envelope.
A hand reached out from the other side.
The timestamp read 9:39 p.m.
Three minutes before the shooting.
"Why are you showing me this?"
Gabriel leaned closer to the screen.
"Because that door leads to the north lawn."
A cold line ran down my spine.
"Victor let the shooter in?"
"We don't know that yet."
He rewound the footage.
The hand appeared again.
This time, I noticed a silver ring.
A square black stone.
I'd seen that ring before.
On the finger of a woman at dinner.
The woman in emerald silk.
I opened my mouth.
The security room door clicked shut behind us.
Gabriel turned.
Damian stood in the doorway.
His sleeve was dark with blood.
"Don't tell her anything else," he said.
May you like
Then his knees buckled.
***
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