Chapter 1
Vivian Moretti
“Please. I am begging you. Do not kill me.”
I woke with a start and clutched my chest as a loud crash came from the adjoining room. Something heavy had been knocked over, followed by the sound of fists hitting flesh.
For a few seconds, I could only stare into the darkness, trying to understand what was happening. Then a man cried out, his voice shaking with panic.
My stomach tightened.
I threw off the covers and scrambled out of bed. My clothes were scattered across the floor, exactly where I had left them the night before. I grabbed them and dressed as quickly as I could, pulling on my trench coat afterward. I could not help thinking that my clothes were returning to my body much faster than my paramour from the previous night had taken them off.
Another crash came from the adjoining room.
I froze.
There was only one door connecting my bedroom to the main part of the hotel suite, and I had no intention of walking through it to find out who was fighting on the other side. My eyes moved to the glass balcony door.
The balcony.
I remembered crossing through another room when I arrived at the hotel the night before. If I remembered correctly, the neighboring suite had a balcony that might connect to mine.
It was my only option.
I grabbed my phone, purse, and shoes and held them against my chest as I moved toward the balcony. I had barely taken two steps when a soft pop came from the adjoining room.
I stopped breathing.
A gunshot.
A silenced gunshot.
I knew that sound. Anyone raised around people like my family would know it.
“f**k. f**k. f**k. Vivian, you i***t,” I whispered.
I forced myself to keep moving.
My fingers trembled as I unlocked the balcony door and stepped outside. The morning air hit my face, but I barely noticed it. The sun was only beginning to break across the horizon, casting a faint glow over the city below.
Under different circumstances, the view would have been beautiful.
Right now, all I could think about was the man I had just heard begging for his life.
I tightened my grip on my phone and purse and looked toward the neighboring balcony.
Please, I thought, do not let them be Dad's men.
I crouched near the railing and looked down.
My stomach turned.
The drop was far too high. There was no chance I could climb down, and jumping was out of the question. I pressed myself against the concrete wall and moved toward the curtain separating the balcony from the suite. Then I lifted the edge just enough to see through the narrow gap.
The man I had spent the night with stood in the middle of the room.
He had a pistol in his hand.
With the calmness of someone who had done it many times before, he unscrewed the silencer from the barrel and glanced down at the body lying on the floor.
I stared at him.
I did not recognize him.
That frightened me more than the gun.
My eyes moved around the room. Three other men were on their knees with their hands behind their heads, while two more stood behind them, watching silently.
I did not recognize any of them either.
I did not know every man who worked for my father. There were too many of them for that. But if my father had sent someone to find me and drag me home, I would have recognized at least one of them.
These men were not his.
That left me with a much bigger problem.
I was the only person outside that room who had witnessed what happened. The man inside could decide to solve that problem himself.
After all, he had already slept with me the night before. Killing me afterward would probably be no harder than killing the man lying at his feet.
I pulled back from the curtain and looked around the balcony.
Only then did I remember exactly where I was.
A penthouse suite.
Of course it was.
The stranger who had paid a million dollars for my virginity the previous night was clearly not someone who worried about the price of luxury.
I looked toward the roof, then back at the railing. If I wanted to escape, climbing up seemed like my only option.
I took off my trench coat and dropped it on the floor before looking up again.
Then I looked down.
The balcony was far too high, and there was nothing below me that I could use as a foothold.
I stepped back.
I was a nerd, not an athlete. Climbing several floors above the ground was not an escape plan. It was a quick way to get myself killed.
I had already gone against my father and grandfather by giving my virginity to a stranger instead of the man they had chosen for me years ago. I refused to die because I had made one reckless decision after another.
“Good going, Vivian,” I muttered. “You finally found a way to escape the Moretti family, only to end up in bed with a murderer.”
“Fuck.”
I kicked the nearest chair without thinking.
The metal legs scraped across the concrete before the chair struck the glass door with a sharp clatter.
I froze.
The patio door slid open.
The man from the night before stepped outside.
I immediately dropped into the other chair and tried to make myself as small as possible.
Up close, he was even more intimidating than I remembered. He was enormous, easily over six feet tall, with broad shoulders that made the balcony suddenly feel much smaller. My mind betrayed me with an unwanted memory of the previous night, and I quickly pushed it aside.
This was not the time.
“What are you doing out here?”
His voice was calm.
Too calm for a man who had just killed someone.
I swallowed and forced myself to meet his eyes.
“Watching the sunrise.”
My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
He studied me for a moment.
“I was going to leave,” I continued, trying to keep my hands still. “But you seemed to have company.”
My fingers were shaking anyway.
His gaze dropped briefly to them before returning to my face.
“Aya.”
He said the fake name I had given him in a gentle voice.
My body stiffened.
He walked toward me and lowered himself until we were almost at eye level. Then he reached out, moved a loose curl away from my forehead, and took my trembling hand.
“You should still be sleeping,” he said.
His thumb moved slowly across my fingers.
“Did I not wear you out enough?”
I shook my head and kept my eyes away from his.
“You, um… there was yelling, and I do not like confrontation, so I came out here until it stopped.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Did you look through the window?”
He glanced toward the glass door he had just stepped through.
“No.” I shook my head quickly. “I came out as soon as the yelling got really loud. I just sat here.”
I pulled my knees against my chest and rested my chin on them, hoping he believed me.
For a few seconds, he said nothing.
Then his expression relaxed.
“Good girl.”
He leaned forward and pressed a brief kiss against my forehead.
“I would like to see you again,” he said quietly. “But that will not happen if you start putting your nose where it does not belong.”
My stomach tightened.
“I understand, Adrian,” I whispered.
The corner of my mouth lifted into what I hoped looked like a nervous smile.
He studied my face again.
“You are f*****g beautiful.”
He reached up and touched my cheek.
His eyes were a warm shade of brown with faint flecks of gold, and the intensity of his gaze made me feel as though he could see straight through the lie I had just told him.
Then I smelled it.
Gunpowder.
It clung to his fingers.
I forced myself to remain still.
I could not let him know that I had seen anything.
So when he leaned closer, I closed my eyes and allowed his lips to meet mine, pretending that the smell of gunpowder meant nothing to me.
