Chapter 11 - Stepping into the Light
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The silence in the ballroom was profound.
Three hundred of the most powerful people in Chicago stopped talking to stare at the apex predator of their city, and the stunning, curvy woman in the red dress commanding the space beside him.
Stella was standing near the champagne fountain. When she saw Nevaeh walking down the stairs on her brother’s arm, wearing millions of dollars in diamonds, the heiress looked like she was going to have a stroke. Her face turned a sickly shade of purple, and she snapped the stem of her crystal flute entirely in half.
Nevaeh kept her head high. She felt the judgmental, calculating stares of the rail-thin socialites and the hardened mob wives. She heard the faint, snide murmurs.
But Leandro didn't give them an inch.
He kept his hand firmly pressed against the small of her back, a constant, reassuring anchor. When a rival boss approached with a fake smile, Leandro pulled Nevaeh slightly closer, a silent, lethal warning that she was entirely off-limits.
“You're doing perfectly,” Leandro whispered in her ear as he handed her a glass of champagne.
“I feel like a steak in a room full of wolves,” Nevaeh muttered, taking a large sip.
“Let them look,” Leandro said, his dark eyes scanning the room. “They are looking at the woman who holds my leash.”
Nevaeh choked slightly on her champagne, blushing furiously at the implication.
Across the room, Nevaeh spotted Dante Falcone. The rival lieutenant was standing near a pillar, talking in hushed, urgent tones to a bald man with a jagged scar across his neck.
“Leandro,” Nevaeh said softly, nodding toward the pillar. “Is that the Falcone lieutenant?”
Leandro’s gaze snapped to the men. The warmth instantly vanished from his face, replaced by the cold, calculating mask of a syndicate boss.
“Yes,” Leandro confirmed quietly. “I am going to have a conversation with him. Stay here. Do not leave the main floor. Marco will be watching you.”
“Be careful,” she whispered.
May you like
Leandro smiled, a dangerous, thrilling flash of teeth. “They are the ones who need to be careful, mia bella.”
He melted into the crowd, leaving Nevaeh standing near the edge of the dance floor. But Nevaeh wasn't the kind of woman to just wait in the shadows.
