Chapter 1 - The Choice
trying to make myself invisible. Before me stood fifteen of Manhattan’s most eligible, cutthroat heiresses. They were draped in crimson silks, tailored velvet, and diamonds that cost more than my family would earn in three lifetimes. Every single one of them held her breath, waiting for the king to glance in her direction.
Kendrick Ashford did not look at them.
He sat on a raised leather dais, swathed in shadow and tailored obsidian wool. He was thirty-two, ruthless, and commanded the entire Eastern seaboard's underworld with an iron grip. Men with silver hair and decades of cartel blood on their hands bowed their heads whenever he crossed the threshold. Yet tonight, his eyes were cold, bored, and dead.
Then, the dog moved.
Titan, his hundred-and-fifty-pound Neapolitan mastiff, rose from Kendrick’s side. The beast looked like something sculpted from smoke and midnight, scarred across his massive snout. Five-year-old Penny, Kendrick’s daughter, clung tightly to Titan’s studded collar, her silver Mary Janes clicking against the polished Italian marble.
The socialites straightened their posture, smiling rehearsed, predatory smiles. They assumed the dog was being sent to inspect them.
Titan didn't even turn his head toward the line of beauties.
His heavy paws carried him straight toward the dim corner where the catering staff stood frozen.
Straight toward me.
My heart slammed against my throat. My back hit the cold marble wall. *Don’t move. Don’t look him in the eye,* I told myself. A dog that size could crush a grown man's windpipe in seconds.
Titan stopped inches from my knees. The massive hound lowered his scarred head, pressed his wet snout into the fabric of my cheap polyester trousers, and dropped heavily to the floor. Then, his thick tail thumped against the ground in a rhythmic, desperate beat.
The entire ballroom fell dead silent. The string quartet stopped playing.
Penny let go of his collar. She looked up at me with enormous, luminous gray eyes—the exact shade of Kendrick’s.
“Titan?” Penny whispered, bewildered. “What’s wrong with you?”
The dog let out a soft, guttural whimper, rolling slightly to expose his vulnerable throat to me. It was an act of complete, unconditional submission.
Penny blinked, looked at the dog, and then stepped forward. Her tiny, delicate fingers reached out and grabbed the hem of my stained waitress apron. She tugged it twice, turned toward the dais, and pointed her index finger straight up at my face.
“I want this one, Daddy.”
A crystal champagne flute slipped from someone’s numb fingers and shattered violently against the marble.
I felt all oxygen leave my lungs. I looked toward the dais. For the first time all evening, Kendrick Ashford was leaning forward. His lethal, piercing gaze locked directly onto mine.
Before Kendrick could move, Barrett Hayes exploded in outrage. “This is an insult!” the older syndicate boss roared, his face purpling as his daughter stood rejected in the lineup. “That girl is a nobody! A kitchen rat! She must have smeared treats on her apron to bait the hound. Get her out of here!”
Two armed private security guards advanced toward me, reaching for their holstered weapons.
A blonde heiress in emerald silk let out a sharp sneer. “Look at her uniform. She doesn’t even belong on this floor.”
I stepped back, terror turning my blood to ice.
Then Titan turned.
The dog didn’t bark. He unleashed a guttural, demonic growl that vibrated through the floorboards. His lips pulled back, exposing yellowed fangs dripping with saliva. The two guards froze dead in their tracks, their hands shaking over their holsters. Penny immediately tucked herself behind my legs, wrapping both arms around my apron strings like a frightened shield.
“Anyone who touches that girl or my dog,” a low voice reverberated across the room, “will leave this building in pieces.”
Kendrick hadn’t shouted. He didn’t need to.
Barrett choked on his breath. “Kendrick, be rational! She’s serving drinks! These women are daughters of your council—”
Kendrick cast a single glance sideways. Barrett shut his mouth instantly.
Kendrick rose. The room parted before him like water before a blade. Every step he took toward my corner echoed with terrifying authority. He stopped two paces away, towering over me, smelling of cedarwood, rain, and cold steel.
He looked at Titan, who was still growling protectively at the crowd. He looked at Penny, who was clinging to me as if she had known me her whole life. Finally, his eyes dragged up to mine.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
My mouth was dry as desert dust. “Maya Vance, sir.”
Something flickered behind those lethal gray eyes—a spark of sharp, predatory calculation. Most people looked at the floor when Kendrick Ashford spoke. But shock and survival instinct kept my chin lifted. I did not blink.
He studied my face for five agonizing seconds. Then he turned his back on the room.
“She stays.”
Three words. That was all it took to dismantle the balance of power in New York.
Barrett’s face twisted into an expression of murderous hatred. Kendrick took Penny’s little hand and began walking toward the private elevator. Titan rose, turned back toward me once, nudged my trembling fingers with his warm snout, and followed his master.
And as the heavy elevator doors slid shut, one chilling realization hit me: Titan hadn’t picked me by luck.
May you like
He knew me. And if Kendrick Ashford dug into my past to find out why, I was a dead woman.
***
