Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN BENEATH THE TABLE
The silk tablecloth smelled of bleach and expensive cigar smoke.
Khloe Bennett pressed her spine against the heavy wooden pedestal beneath the VIP table and held her breath as Jared’s footsteps echoed across the marble floor outside the booth. He was looking for her.
Then a pair of polished Italian leather shoes shifted only inches from her knee.
A large, scarred hand dropped a linen napkin onto the floor. A man’s face appeared in the shadows beneath the table.
“Play along.”
Outside, rain swept through Seattle. It did not make the city feel clean. It only made everything slicker.
For Khloe, the rain was the only reason she had made it this far.
She had slipped through the alley behind the restaurant, her cheap trench coat soaked through, her pulse hammering against her ribs. Jared was close. Even before she heard him demanding that the valet hand over the keys, she could feel the familiar weight of his presence.
For 3 months, she had maintained complete silence.
She had changed the locks, blocked his numbers, and slept with a baseball bat beside her nightstand.
Then, because she attended a coworker’s farewell dinner downtown, Jared found her again.
Khloe pushed through the restaurant’s brass service doors. Freezing drizzle gave way immediately to the suffocating heat of the kitchen, where cooks shouted over the hiss of searing meat.
No one stopped her.
She moved with the frantic invisibility of someone running for her life.
Through another set of swinging doors, she entered the main dining room.
The sudden quiet struck her immediately.
The restaurant was the kind of place where a single cocktail cost what Khloe earned in a day. Dim pools of light fell across heavy mahogany tables while patrons spoke in insulated murmurs.
Khloe stood beside the service station, wet hair plastered to her neck and water dripping from her coat onto the imported rug.
Then Jared’s voice reached her.
“I know she came in here.”
The voice was whiny and entitled, but beneath it remained the edge Khloe knew well.
He had forced his way through the front entrance.
Panic flooded her.
The hostess stepped into his path, but Jared was larger, drunk, and beyond caring about public decency.
To Khloe’s right was a secluded alcove behind heavy velvet curtains.
The VIP section.
Inside stood a massive table covered by a floor-length white cloth.
There was no time to think.
Khloe ducked, dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled beneath it. Her stockings tore as she moved across the floor.
Darkness swallowed her.
The space smelled of spilled gin, starched linen, leather, gun oil, and expensive cologne.
She curled herself tightly around the carved wooden pedestal, arms wrapped around her shins, and tried to control her breathing.
Inhale for 4.
Hold for 4.
The advice from therapy seemed absurd while she was hiding beneath a restaurant table.
Then the velvet curtain opened.
Footsteps entered the alcove.
They were not Jared’s.
These were measured and deliberate.
A chair scraped back.
Someone sat down.
2 long legs extended beneath the table and stopped approximately 6 inches from Khloe’s knees. Charcoal wool trousers ended above polished oxfords that appeared to cost more than her car.
Khloe stopped breathing.
She had crawled beneath an occupied table.
A waiter spoke above her.
“Mr. Varga, your usual?”
“Just the bourbon tonight, Elias.”
The man’s voice was deep and almost entirely without inflection. He did not sound like someone accustomed to repeating himself.
The waiter apologized for the disturbance at the front and assured him that it was being handled.
“See that you do.”
The waiter left.
Khloe remained frozen.
Then Jared’s voice tore through the restaurant.
“I said I’m looking for someone.”
A moment later he shouted her name, followed by an insult.
Khloe covered her mouth.
The humiliation burned almost as sharply as the fear.
The velvet curtain was ripped open.
“Hey, you!”
The man at the table did not move.
Jared demanded to know whether a woman with brown hair and a cheap coat had entered the room.
Silence followed.
Then a linen napkin fell beneath the table.
The seated man leaned down.
Khloe saw him clearly for the first time.
His features were hard and angular. A pale scar crossed his left eyebrow. His eyes were dark and unnervingly calm.
He showed no surprise at finding a soaked woman curled beneath his table.
For a moment, he simply studied her.
Then he whispered:
“Play along.”
He straightened.
The waiter returned and told Jared the area was private.
Jared told him to shut up and again demanded to know where his girlfriend was.
Khloe dug her fingernails into her palms.
Jared used the familiar explanation.
Khloe was sick.
She was mentally unwell.
He needed to take her home.
It was the same lie that had repeatedly made strangers withdraw while Jared held her arm tightly enough to leave bruises.
“Your girlfriend,” Dante repeated.
“Yeah. Khloe. Where is she?”
Dante noted that Jared had walked through a closed curtain, raised his voice in a quiet room, and was standing on his shoes.
Jared scoffed.
He did not care about the shoes.
The sentence ended in a violent impact.
A heavy body struck the floor.
Khloe jerked beneath the table and hit her elbow against the wood.
Jared had collapsed.
He gasped that his knee was broken.
Dante remained seated.
His polished shoes had not moved.
Someone else had done it.
A bodyguard had been standing in the shadows.
Dante told Paulie to remove Jared because he was ruining his appetite.
Jared was dragged upright.
He begged and insisted that he only wanted his girl.
“Your girl is not here,” Dante said.
Then he told Jared that if he ever saw him in the city again, Paulie would take more than his knee.
When Jared failed to respond quickly enough, Dante repeated the question.
Jared finally agreed.
Dante ordered him taken through the back and thrown into the dumpster. If he managed to crawl out before the rain stopped, Paulie was to break the other knee.
Jared disappeared.
Khloe remained beneath the table, trembling hard enough for her teeth to chatter.
The man who had terrorized her for 2 years had just been dismissed as if he were an inconvenience.
She had escaped one predator and hidden directly beneath another.
Eventually Dante told her she could stop hyperventilating.
Jared was gone.
Khloe crawled out.
Her coat clung wetly to her legs. Her hair was matted. Her knees shook as she pulled herself upright.
Across from her sat Dante Varga with a glass of bourbon in one large, calloused hand.
He took a slow drink before looking at her.
His suit was immaculate. He was not excessively muscular, but there was a solid, immovable quality to him.
“You ruined a very expensive napkin.”
May you like
Khloe looked at her muddy boots.
“I can pay for it.”
