MIDNIGHT IN THE MAYBACH AND BLOOD ON THE BALLROOM FLOOR: THE MAFIA BOSS, HIS SECRETARY, AND THE BULLET WITH HER NAME ON IT.
Rain hammered against the tinted windows of the Maybach, blurring the neon signs of downtown into streaks of violent color. Inside, Vincent Costa didn’t look at the city. His dark eyes remained locked on the rearview mirror, tracking a sleek gray sedan weaving aggressively through the wet traffic.
Beside him, Mave tapped away on her tablet, completely oblivious to the sudden, heavy silence suffocating the cabin. For three years, Mave had been the invisible gear driving the Costa Syndicate’s financial engine—balancing clean books, routing offshore accounts, and strictly following rule number one: You do not ask questions.
Tonight, however, the rules were shattering.
The heavy oak doors of Vincent’s office earlier that day had set the trap. Despite her protests, Vincent had forced Mave to attend a high-profile charity gala at the Plaza Hotel. Now, standing near a marble pillar in a midnight blue silk gown that felt more like a straightjacket, Mave felt like a shark surrounded by high-society predators.
Across the crowded, chandelier-lit ballroom, Vincent stood near an ice sculpture, playing the polished politician for the city council. But Mave knew the truth behind his custom charcoal suit: he was a ticking bomb.
“He’s not looking at you, Mave. He’s scanning the room. It’s what he does,” Vincent’s lieutenant, Leo, had muttered earlier before vanishing into the crowd with a cryptic warning about ghosts.
Yet, when Mave looked up again, Vincent wasn’t scanning. His gaze was anchored directly on her, his jaw clenched tight enough to crush glass.
Then, the atmosphere in the room violently fractured.
The string quartet kept playing, but the temperature plummeted. Near the mahogany double doors stood a man who didn’t belong. He wore a tuxedo that sat too loose on his frame, as if hiding a tactical vest underneath. Pale hair shaved close to the sides and a jagged, white scar cut clean through his left eyebrow. He wasn’t holding a champagne flute. He was holding a cold, dead stare—and it was aimed straight at Mave.
Mave’s breath hitched. She frantically scrolled through her digital guest list. Not on the list.
Across the room, Vincent saw him too. The polite mob-boss mask didn’t just slip; it evaporated. Vincent abruptly cut off a state senator mid-sentence and began moving through the crowd.
He wasn’t walking toward the intruder. He was walking straight toward Mave.
The stranger pushed off the wall, his pace quickening, carving a direct vector through the terrified socialites. Mave tried to step back, but her stiletto heel clicked against the marble base of the pillar. She was cornered.
Vincent closed the distance with terrifying speed. Before the stranger could clear the final table, Vincent lunged forward, grabbing Mave’s bare wrist with a grip of iron.
“Take my arm—now,” the Mafia Boss whispered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp vibrating with pure adrenaline.
Before Mave could process the command, Vincent yanked her flush against his chest, spinning them both around so his broad shoulders shielded her completely from the aisle.
The stranger froze ten feet away, his hand sliding ominously inside his jacket toward his waistband. The crowd around them remained blissfully ignorant, laughing at a joke made by the mayor, caught in a bubble of luxury while a execution played out in slow motion.
“Vincent,” Mave gasped, her heart hammering against his lapel. “Who is that?”
“Dead man walking,” Vincent murmured, his eyes locking onto the stranger’s hand. Without breaking eye contact, Vincent’s right hand slid discreetly down his thigh, resting comfortably over the suppressed Glock tucked into his waistband. “Do not look back. When I count to three, you run for the service elevator behind the kitchens. Leo is waiting there with the keys.”
“I’m not leaving you to take a bullet,” Mave hissed back, her defiance overriding her terror.
Vincent let out a dark, dangerous chuckle, his breath warm against her ear. “You think I brought you here to be a hostage, Mave? You hold the codes to every offshore account keeping this syndicate alive. If I drop tonight, you’re the first target on their hit list.”
The stranger took a step forward, his fingers curling around the grip of his concealed weapon.
“One,” Vincent whispered, his muscle tensing like a coiled spring.
Mave’s hand dropped to her clutch, her fingers closing around a heavy silver paperweight she had slipped into her bag before leaving the office—her own improvised weapon.
“Two,” Vincent breathed.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. The music faded into a dull hum. Mave didn’t run. Instead, she slid her hand through the crook of Vincent’s arm, pressing her body against his side, perfectly mimicking a terrified socialite while positioning her eyes to watch the reflection in the polished glass of the display case.
“Three,” Vincent growled.
The glass shattered. A silenced gunshot punched through the chandelier above them, sending crystal raining down like frozen rain. Screams erupted as the gala dissolved into absolute, bloody chaos. The stranger drew his weapon, leveling it straight at Vincent’s chest.
In a blur of motion, Vincent shoved Mave behind the marble pillar, whipped out his sidearm, and fired two rapid shots through the smoke, sending the assassin crashing backward into a table of champagne flutes.
Vincent didn’t check if the man was dead. He grabbed Mave’s hand, dragging her through the smoke and flashing strobe lights toward the exit, the war for the city officially begun.