Chapter 34

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Uh-oh spaghetti-o.

Briar

Get in. Get out. That's the plan.

But hasn't that always been the plan with Rowan?

That's the plan with all my projects, my victims, my prey.

I get in, get what I want, and get out. Sometimes, that means leaving a trail of casualties behind. Most of the time, actually. Which is probably why not a single one of my marks thus far has been a good person. Mama and Papa knew what they were doing whenever they assigned me my missions.

In their absence, I'm floundering.

The security attendants at the venue entrance allow Rowan and I to slip gracefully into the glittering, expansive ball room. Heavyset men in dark clothes monitor illegal weapons in glass cases while more showmen present a quarry of rare and endangered animals on the opposite side of the room. Live music drowns out the noise, which drowns out the live music.

It's all lavish elegance, as far as the eye can see, but none of it comes close to drawing my eye half as much as Rowan.

By the end of the night, this charade will be over. By the end of the night, Rowan and I will never speak again outside of professional, encrypted email. If that.

But, for the rest of the night, I have to deal with looking at him

He's tall, and not in a tux, but what he's wearing is arguably better than a tux.

Vantablack. Form-fitting. Heavy boots. Slicked-back hair.

Despite the fact he's not exactly wearing a reaper cloak, if he appeared at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, I'd assume my time had come and give up the ghost.

He's regal. Handsome. Severe.

He adjusts one sleeve of his long, dark coat and tugs on the cuff of one black glove, stretching his fingers.

Together, we're quite the picture. Dark leather gloves to lacy, silken white. Sheets of black against cascades of red. Guns and smoke. Knives and mirrors. A perfect, crisp deck of cards.

"Princess. You're staring." His austere gaze lands on me. "Still. Please try to stay focused."

If only he knew how focused I was.

I pull my lips into a trained smile. "You look nervous."

His attention cuts across gold leaf and pearl, the squalling animals in gilded cages, several auction displays of stolen goods. His fingers flex again as he fiddles more with his glove. "It is wholly unfamiliar."

I know that much.

The thing is: it shouldn't be.

Places like this, in the lavish underground, saturate my entire childhood. My papa had to put bullets in the heads of opportunists who assumed the girl in their midst was for sale. I grew up beneath the champagne fountains and deluxe fruit swans, peeking from under the tablecloths and doing my reconnaissance.

Even if this world was no place for a child and my parents fell on the eccentric side in my upbringing, Rowan is thirty-eight. He should have been dipping his toes in the liquid gold for the past two decades. We should have met, long, long ago.

Maybe, if we had, things would be different between us.

Maybe, if we had, I wouldn't have to let him go.

"I suppose we should mingle until we catch sight of our target?" Rowan's gloved hand appears in front of me. "Is there any chance he doesn't show?"

Humming, I take his hand. "No. Not a chance at all." His fingers—strong and sturdy—close over mine, guiding me into the fray of spun silver and glass. With my every step, the slit running up my leg reveals the gun holster strapped to my thigh. A dozen eyes take note. A handful of men sweep back the flaps of their suit jackets to reveal their own weapons tucked into their waistbands.

Extravagant standoffs like these—where one wrong move could send the entire room into an uproar of shots fired—excite me more than they should. I thrive in the tension. The secrets. The power plays.

Mama owned stages like these. She and Papa stole shows together, gathering information, sowing doubt, twisting stories and words.

No one the wiser.

No one understanding the simplest fact…

Rosanera as a criminal family doesn't appear to pose any threats because we aren't a mafia built on violence and injustice. We aren't big dogs barking at anyone who approaches our territory. We don't run the brutal rackets, steal, destroy, leave dismembered messages that make the news.

We're just people. The single mothers. The construction workers. The nine-to-five office men. The lawyers. The good cops. The underpaid teachers. The average citizens who—at one point or another—needed help and turned to the shadows to get it.

We are just people, all over the world.

From the surface, a rose isn't threatening even with its paltry thorns.

Our strength has always been in what can't be seen.

Our roots spiderweb beneath the noses of every family represented here. Our roots strangle each unknowing weed. I have men working for me everywhere. In Pratt. In Veleno. In New York. Even in Italy itself.

Rosanera owns this world.

And with that ownership, I am capable of doing many, many selfish things.

"Should we dance?" Rowan asks, having brought me to the quietest section of the dance floor. Couples around us use the excuse to murmur their interests in one another's ears. Eyes cut toward desired goods. Lashes flutter. Men sloppily present new jewels as though purchasing them weren't their women's ideas.

Rowan and I have no need for such conspiracy as of yet, so I fix my gaze on him. "I thought we were going to mingle and keep an eye out for our target."

His hand plants against my back, sending liquid heat rushing into my stomach. "I just remembered." His fingers thread with mine, putting us in position. "I hate mingling."

Ignoring my heart rate, I laugh. "You just remembered that, huh?"

"I've never been to an event like this. My parents handled relations. I did their dirty work." He sweeps me closer to the music, into a pocket all our own by the exorbitant stage. Light showers the stern lines of his face, bathes his full, downturn lips.

"I know." I trace the edges of his expression as they soften, as he draws me closer, removing all space between. "When did you learn to dance?"

"About three seconds ago." Feather-light, he guides me into a twirl, mimicking what another man did on the other side of the room moments before.

"You can tell me the truth. Did you practice alone in the guest room with a broom last night?"

"My secret's out. Except it was a mop." He reels me in. My body meets his. Stillness passes between us, an endless moment stretching beneath dulcet tones. Murmurs cease around us, filtering out of my head. The whole reason we're here disappears from my mind until it's only him, it's only me, and it's only us.

"What happens after this?" he asks, lowly.

I swallow. "I imagine we get what we need and race against time to retrieve our parents."

His head shakes as he lowers it to my ear. "I mean after that."

After…

I don't really want to think about that.

Rowan settles firmly in against my body, and something hard in his coat presses on my stomach.

To keep the delusion going just a little longer, I whisper, "Rowan. Do you have a gun in your pocket?"

His throat clears as heat covers his face. "Briar. Behave yourself."

That is an incredibly tall order. I'm not even sure if I know how to.

Breath eases from his lips, and something seems to harden his resolve. "Briar." His hand cups my cheek, thumb swiping over my bottom lip. "I love you."

My heart skips.

"I don't know how I've lived without you for as long as I have."

I swallow hard as my skin goes cold.

"I'm serious about wanting you, princess. I don't care if I've been fooled. I don't care if I'm your victim. Let me make you happy. Let me be your prisoner for the rest of my life."

"Rowan—" His name leaves me strangled. "Is…now really the time for this?"

He drops his face near my ear again. "Yes. Our man just entered. Which means things are going to come to a head very soon. And I don't want you slipping away from me while I'm dealing with my parents later." He pulls a ring box out of his coat pocket, keeping it shadowed between us. "Say you'll marry me. And, after this, allow me to meet your father and formally ask for your hand."

All feeling leaves my body. Breathless, I croak, "What…are you…"

"Can't a socially-awkward guy proposition an emotionally-unavailable girl without having to explain himself?"

A fluttering shiver rises in my stomach.

"I won't ask you again," he whispers.

My heart hits my ribs.

"Turn me down, and I'll forge our marriage papers. Reject me for any reason less than hating me, and I will chase you to the ends of the earth. You're a professional. I know whatever I say now won't upset our job here, but I know if I don't say it now, you may try to disappear on me, and while you're in hiding for as long it takes me to track you down, I want to haunt you with these words." His lips brush a kiss to my temple. "I love you because you're you, not in spite of you. I want to be yours just as badly as I'd like to make you mine."

Strength pours from my limbs, and my voice is unfamiliar when I manage to find words. "Do you know the truth?"

"The truth?" he echoes.

My lungs burn, starving for air.

I lift my face and step back to meet his eyes. Nothing but unwavering sincerity reflects back at me. A ripple of confusion tightens his brows. He takes a moment to ascertain the location of our target. Then his attention belongs to me again.

So.

No.

He doesn't know the truth.

Not at all.

And I can't handle any of this right now.

Gathering my gown, I turn in a rush of fabric toward the closest exit. My men part like a tide to let me leave. The world spots, dark blots encompassing my vision as what I can only assume is a panic attack creeps up on me. It's too hot, suddenly. Too cold. The balmy night wraps me in a fist as I flee from the distant cry of strange birds, the murmurs of conversation, an auction rallying to begin.

Lace and Chip.

Lace and Chip are somewhere, waiting for me, my personal team. My personal backup.

I forget where we coordinated to meet if I needed them.

My head is spinning right now.

Rowan doesn't know anything. He's genuinely interested in cementing a life with me. He has genuinely planned to ask…to ask my papa for my hand.

Tears overwhelm me, and I lose my footing in the grass, sinking my heels halfway into the turf as a sob rattles my bones. I swear, wrapping myself in a hug.

Before I can so much as regain my balance, someone's hand skims up my thigh.

I shudder. "Rowan—" My voice breaks. "Please."

The weight of my gun lifts from its holster, then a different murmur hits my ears. "Not your Rowan, princess."

Before I can reboot my emotions, regain my gun, and take the defensive, an arm's around my throat—choking me—as a drug hits my bloodstream, and it's…

Well.

It's almost poetic, isn't it?

As my vision splotches and fades all I can think is that, even in the darkest places, life has such a twisted sense of humor.