HIRED BY THE DEVIL

Chapter Eight: The Gala Pt 2

At precisely seven o’clock a sleek black Mercedes with tinted windows appeared outside the apartment building.

The driver stepped out the moment she emerged — unhurried and precise — and opened the rear door with the practiced ease of someone who did this as a matter of course.

“Miss Evans.” He was perhaps fifty, silver-haired, with a calm face and quiet eyes. “I’m Jeremy. Mr. Salvatore asked me to collect you.”

“Thank you Jeremy.” She got in.

The interior smelled like leather and something faintly expensive. The seats were the kind of soft that made you understand immediately that you had never sat in a truly good car before this moment. There was water in the console, still cold. A small light glowed along the footwell.

She looked out of the window as Milan moved past in the evening dark — lit up and golden, the kind of beautiful it produced effortlessly and without apology. The city at night had a different quality to it. Richer. More deliberate. Like it had been saving itself for after dark.

She had no idea where she was going.

She knew it was a charity auction. She knew the proceeds went to an orphanage. She knew Enzo Salvatore had sent his personal driver to collect her on a Saturday evening which was — when she stopped to consider it properly — a very strange thing for a man who communicated primarily in silence and four-word sentences to do.

She watched the city and didn’t think about it.

The venue was not what she expected.

She had expected something corporate. Clean lines, Salvatore Group branding, the kind of event that came with lanyards and printed programmes and men in suits discussing quarterly projections.

What she walked into instead was something else entirely.

The room was enormous and beautiful in a way that felt old — high ceilings, dark stone, candlelight that threw everything into gold and shadow. Long tables bearing items under glass. A crowd that was elegant and immaculately dressed and carried itself with the particular weight of people who were not simply wealthy but powerful in ways that wealth alone didn’t explain.

The women wore jewels that were not for decoration. The men shook hands in a way that meant more than greeting.

Rosalina stood just inside the entrance and felt — for the first time since she had put on the green dress and looked in the mirror and felt almost certain of herself — slightly uncertain.

Her dress was beautiful. She knew that. But around her were women in gowns that had been constructed by hands that charged by the hour, draped in diamonds, moving through the room like they owned not just the space but the air inside it.

She felt like a candle at a chandelier convention.

It’s fine, she told herself. You are here as a professional. This is work. Focus.

She smoothed the front of her dress once, lifted her chin, and walked in.

She found him by the far wall.

Of course she did. Enzo Salvatore in a room was not a person you had to search for. He was simply the place the room organised itself around whether it intended to or not.

He was in black — a suit that fit him the way his suits always fit him, like the concept of ill-fitting had never been introduced to his wardrobe. Dark hair. That particular stillness.

And then he turned slightly and the candlelight caught his eyes.

Green.

She had seen those eyes every day for six days now and she still — if she was being completely honest with herself, which she tried to be — had not entirely gotten used to them. They were not a normal green. They were the kind of green that didn’t belong in colour charts or catalogues, the kind that existed in old Italian paintings where the artist had been trying to capture something just slightly beyond the reach of paint. Deep and still and rare and completely, thoroughly unique.

She looked away quickly.

Professional, she reminded herself. Entirely professional.

Beside him stood Luca, broad and easy, saying something low to Matteo, whose lighter green eyes — similar to Enzo’s but without that particular impossible quality — were moving around the room with open curiosity. And beside them, two men she didn’t recognise — identical in the way that made the fact of their twinness immediately obvious, though everything else about them was different. One leaned against the wall with his arms folded and an expression that suggested he found the entire proceedings mildly beneath his attention. The other was already looking at her.

Enzo turned when she was perhaps ten feet away.

He looked at her.

It lasted less than two seconds. Quick and thorough and then gone — replaced by the usual unreadable expression, the green eyes giving nothing away.

But across the group, something shifted. Luca’s expression acquired a particular careful quality. Matteo’s curiosity sharpened into something more specific. The cold twin straightened almost imperceptibly from the wall. And the warm one — the one who had been watching her — went very still for just a moment before his face opened into a smile.

They were all surprised.

She didn’t know why. But she filed it away.

“Miss Evans.” His voice was exactly what it always was. Unhurried. Even. “You found it.”

“Jeremy has excellent navigation skills,” she said.

Matteo made a sound that was definitely a laugh disguised as something else.

“Luca Anderson.” Luca extended his hand warmly. “Good to see you somewhere other than the office.”

“The lighting is considerably better here,” she agreed.

“Matteo Salvatore.” Matteo stepped forward with his easiest smile. “We’ve met. But allow me to say that green is very much your colour.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Someone else told me that today.”

“Whoever they are,” Matteo said, “they have excellent taste.”

The twin who had been watching her stepped forward before anyone could introduce him. His smile was open and warm and landed with the practiced ease of someone who had been deploying it to excellent effect for years.

“Aiden Salvatore,” he said, taking her hand. “Enzo’s significantly more charming cousin.”

“That’s quite a bar you’ve set for yourself.”

Aiden blinked. Then laughed — genuine and surprised. “I really do like you.”

The other twin had not moved. He observed her from where he stood with grey-green eyes that were a cooler, flatter version of Enzo’s — assessing, unhurried, revealing nothing.

“Adrian,” he said simply.

“Rosalina Evans.” She held his gaze steadily. “Nice to meet you.”

Adrian looked at her for one moment longer than necessary. Then he inclined his head — barely — and returned his attention to the room.

She had the feeling she had passed some kind of test. She wasn’t sure what kind.

She noticed Gabriella the way you noticed a change in temperature.

Beautiful. Objectively, unarguably beautiful — dark hair, olive skin, a deep burgundy gown that knew exactly what it was doing. She moved through the candlelit room with the ease of someone who belonged here completely, who understood things about this room that Rosalina was only beginning to sense the edges of.

Her eyes found Enzo first. They always did, Rosalina suspected.

Then they found Rosalina.

The smile that followed was warm on the surface and something else entirely underneath.

“Enzo.” She approached with the unhurried confidence of someone who had done this many times. She kissed his cheek. He permitted it with the stillness of someone who had long since stopped registering it as remarkable.

Then those dark eyes moved to Rosalina.

“I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Rosalina Evans. Mr. Salvatore’s PA.”

Something moved across Gabriella’s face. Brief and controlled and gone.

“How lovely.” Her smile remained perfectly in place. “I didn’t know Enzo was bringing anyone this evening.”

“Neither did most people apparently,” Rosalina said pleasantly.

Across the group Aiden made a sound into his champagne glass. Matteo studied the ceiling. Adrian remained expressionless which was, she was beginning to understand, simply his face.

Enzo said nothing. He was already looking elsewhere.