Chapter 1 - The Guest From Chicago
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“What?” Matthias asked, his voice dropping to a harsh, impatient whisper.
He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if his mother or the board chairman had heard her. They hadn't. The string quartet was playing a lively Vivaldi piece, and the clinking of crystal champagne flutes masked the sudden, freezing tension between husband and wife.
Serena didn't look at him. She looked past his shoulder, toward the massive, custom-built mahogany doors at the entrance of the estate.
“I said, I brought someone too,” Serena repeated, her voice perfectly calm, entirely devoid of the hysteria Matthias was clearly expecting.
“Serena, stop this,” Matthias hissed, grabbing her elbow. His grip was tight enough to bruise. “You are pregnant and hormonal. I am not playing these games with you tonight. Fiona is a colleague. You are going to stand here, you are going to smile, and you are going to be the perfect hostess. Do you understand me?”
“Let go of my arm, Matthias,” she said quietly.
Before he could respond, the heavy mahogany doors did not just open; they were violently shoved apart. The elderly butler, who had worked for the Dre family for thirty years, stumbled backward into the foyer, his face pale with sheer terror.
The December wind howled into the grand foyer, bringing with it a flurry of white snow and a sudden, bone-chilling silence that swept through the sixty guests. The string quartet missed a note, then abruptly stopped playing.
Stepping over the threshold was a man who did not belong in a Greenwich mansion.
He was dangerously tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a tailored black suit that cost more than Matthias’s car, but he wore it like armor rather than fashion. His dark hair was brushed back, his jaw sharp and dusted with a shadow of a beard, and his eyes were the color of shattered ice.
Behind him stepped four men in heavy winter coats. They didn't look at the art on the walls or the crystal chandeliers. They looked at the guests. And they looked at them like targets.
Matthias’s grip on Serena’s arm instantly vanished. His face drained of all color, his arrogant posture collapsing in a fraction of a second.
“Oh my God,” Matthias whispered, his breath hitching in his throat.
Fiona, standing near the champagne tower, spilled her drink down the front of her ivory gown.
The man in the center of the foyer slowly unbuttoned his coat. He didn't look at the terrified bankers or the gasping old-money matriarchs. His icy gaze swept the room with predatory precision until it locked onto Serena.
When he looked at her, the violence in his eyes vanished. He offered a slow, respectful nod.
“You’re late,” Serena said, her voice carrying clearly across the silent, terrified room.
May you like
The man smiled. It was a terrifying expression.
“Traffic out of Chicago was murder, Mrs. Paige,” he said, his deep, gravelly voice echoing off the marble floors. “But I told you I’d be here.”
