Chapter 5: The dance with the devil
1252 Words
Raina stepped out of the elevator and into a room full of people who believed they were safe.
The gala glittered beneath chandeliers. Gold light slid over silk dresses, polished shoes, champagne flutes. A quartet played near the windows while servers threaded through the crowd with silver trays.
At the far end of the ballroom, Lucian Moretti welcomed a senator with a practiced smile.
Raina kept walking.
Her invitation had opened the front doors. Her black dress, borrowed jewels, and calm expression carried her past the first security check. The pistol beneath her jacket was a last resort. The slim blade strapped to her thigh was the plan.
She passed a table of donors. One man looked twice at her face. She met his gaze without slowing. He turned back to his drink.
Niko Bellini stood near a marble column, laughing with two men in dark suits. Raina had pictured this moment for years. In those imaginings, she was never afraid. She never remembered the sound of the gun, or the floor beneath her cheek, or how it felt to be unable to make her body move.
Her fingers tightened around the stem of a champagne glass.
She set it untouched on a passing tray.
Niko glanced in her direction. Recognition did not register—only the casual interest of a man noticing a stranger. Raina moved behind a cluster of guests before he could look again.
Lucian was closer now. He had finished greeting the senator and was listening to a woman with a jeweled necklace. A security man stood just behind him, scanning the room.
Raina circled toward the main doors. Two guards watched them. The side passage offered another way out, but it was narrow and occupied by staff. She needed Lucian to move.
A server approached with a tray. Raina took a glass and brushed the man’s shoulder, sending the champagne sloshing over his cuff.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching for a napkin.
The server turned to help. The nearby guard stepped in to clear space.
Raina slipped past them.
She reached Lucian just as he turned from the woman. Her hand closed around his arm as if she were an invited guest greeting her host. She leaned close, smiling for the people watching.
“Don’t make a scene,” she whispered.
His smile stayed in place. “Who are you?”
“Someone you should have finished off years ago.”
His eyes flicked over her face. A flicker—recognition, then caution—before his expression smoothed again.
Raina guided him toward a curtained alcove beside the ballroom. To anyone watching, it might have looked like a private conversation. Lucian could have called for his guards. He didn’t.
As soon as they were screened from the crowd, Raina drew the blade and pressed its tip beneath his ribs.
Lucian’s hand twitched. She pushed harder.
“Don’t,” she said.
His gaze lowered to the blade, then returned to her face. “You brought a knife to a gala.”
“I brought it for you.”
“And the gun?”
Her stomach tightened. He had noticed the shape beneath her jacket.
“You’re observant.”
“I have to be.”
“Then observe this.” She pressed the blade against his ribs, careful not to break the skin. “I came to kill you.”
A waiter appeared at the curtain’s edge. Lucian lifted his free hand, signaling him away without looking. The waiter hesitated.
“Now,” Lucian said.
The man retreated.
Raina’s grip faltered for half a second. She hated that Lucian saw it. She steadied her wrist, forcing the blade back against him.
“Call your men,” she said, “and I’ll open you up before they reach us.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
“Your hand says otherwise.”
Her jaw locked. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you’ve been close enough to kill me for several seconds. You haven’t.”
“I wanted you to know who was doing it.”
“Why?”
“So you’d understand that Elias Hills’s daughter came back for you.”
Something changed in his face. Not shock. Not grief. Something quieter, buried before she could name it.
“Elias,” he said.
“You remember him.”
“I remember the name.”
“You shot him.”
The blade pressed harder. Lucian sucked in a breath—not from pain, she realized, but from surprise that she’d said it so plainly.
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
He stopped.
Raina saw it then: the pause, the searching gaze, the calculation. He was looking for a version of the past that would keep him alive.
“You came to collect a debt,” she said. “You put a gun to my father’s head. He told you he had nothing, and you shot him.”
“I was there,” Lucian said.
The answer struck her more sharply than a denial. She held the blade steady, though her fingers had gone numb.
“Then you admit it.”
“I admit I was there.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’s what I can give you here.”
“You don’t get to set the terms.”
A burst of applause rose from the ballroom. Lucian’s gaze shifted toward the curtain.
“Your guests are waiting,” Raina said. “Go smile for them.”
“You’re the one holding a knife to my ribs.”
“And you’re still the one with guards outside.”
Lucian looked back at her. “If you wanted to kill me, you’d have brought a better plan.”
“I brought a plan. Then I saw your face.”
“Did it change something?”
“It reminded me you’re a man.”
His smile vanished. “And?”
“And men bleed.”
She shifted the blade, keeping it just beneath his jacket. A guard’s shadow passed behind the curtain. Lucian didn’t move.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
“Your own guest list brought me here.”
“Niko?”
Raina’s eyes narrowed. “You know he’s here.”
“He works for my cousin.”
“Marco.”
Lucian watched her carefully. “You’re looking for him.”
“I’m looking for every man who was in my house.”
“Then you’re starting in the wrong place.”
Her hand tightened around the hilt. “You expect me to believe that?”
“No.” He leaned a fraction closer to the blade. “I expect you to keep asking.”
A guard’s footsteps approached the alcove. Raina’s pulse jumped. If Lucian called out, she might not reach the ballroom doors. If she stabbed him, she might never get out at all.
She had imagined this meeting as a clean, final act: one movement, one strike, the end of a name. Instead, her arm trembled. Rage and fear tangled until she couldn’t tell which one had made her hand unsteady.
Lucian noticed. His mouth curved—not quite a smile, but close.
“Tell me,” he murmured, leaning toward the blade, “if you came to kill me—”
His breath brushed her cheek. She raised the knife, furious at herself for the shake in her fingers.
Lucian smiled against the blade.
“Then why are your hands shaking?”
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