Chapter 6 | You Were Always Mine (1)

Mercer and his two men scurried out. They pulled the door shut behind them, and the room was left with nothing but the fire and the two of them.

Luna kept one shoulder to the bar, watching him. "How did you get in?"

"The door wasn't locked."

"I heard it lock."

He didn't answer that. He turned, sat down on the sofa, at ease as if it were his own living room. "Sit. We should talk."

"About what?" She didn't move. "Mr. Voss, I'm bankrupt, but I'm not naive enough to believe a Wall Street butcher just happens along playing hero."

"You're not naive." He looked at her, and something flickered in his eyes — almost a smile, almost not. "Which means you already guessed. I wasn't passing through."

Her heart skipped. "You followed me here?"

"Following's crude." He corrected her. "Watching you. Since the night you smashed the Sterling crest."

"Why?"

He was quiet a few seconds. The fire jumped in his eyes, two deep wells of light.

"Because all of New York thinks you're crazy. I'm the only one who saw it." His voice was low. "There's a fire behind those eyes that hasn't burned down yet. I want to buy it before it burns you alive."

"Buy me." She laughed; it didn't reach her eyes. "Mr. Voss. I'm not for sale."

"I know." He stood and walked toward her, until there was an arm's length between them. He looked down, calm as the weather. "Which is why I didn't say buy. I said invest."

"Invest in what?" She tilted her chin up. "VELLUNE? You haven't even looked at the plan."

"No need." He said it flat. "I'm betting you win."

"Why?"

He was quiet so long she almost thought he wouldn't answer. Then, in a voice with something in it she couldn't name: "Because I want to see how stubborn one person can be before she burns through the cage her whole family built around her."

"Most people bet on the sure thing."

"I'm not most people." His eyes held hers. "Most people haven't watched you for a month."

That landed harder than it should have. A month. He'd been watching her for a month — the livestreams, the posts, the walk into the trust office. She'd felt eyes on her and told herself it was guilt. It wasn't guilt.

His gaze dropped to her right shoulder — a shallow red mark, where the bar edge had caught her in the scramble, a bead of blood welling and spreading. He lifted his hand. His fingers hovered over the mark. He didn't touch her.

"You're bleeding."

"None of your business." She stepped back, watching him warily. "Mr. Voss, we've never met. I don't take your 'investment' tonight."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't read you." She said it word by word. "There's no free lunch on Wall Street. There's no free hero, either. You showed up too conveniently, you cleaned it up too cleanly, and your story is too pretty. I don't trust it."

"Most people would say thank you."

"Most people aren't me." She held his eyes. "Most people would take the rescue. I want to know who's holding the leash."

He looked at her a long time.

The firelight moved across his face. His expression never changed, but she kept feeling something churning under those eyes, like a current under deep water. He didn't answer the leash question. He just let it sit there, which was its own answer.

"Do you know when you're most beautiful?" He said it suddenly, quiet. "Not in an eighty-thousand-dollar gown under a chandelier. Just now — when you had a Scotch bottle in your hand and were about to fight three men. You were glowing."

Her heart skipped.

"So." He lowered his hand, his voice back to its unreadable cool. "I won't push. I'll leave a card. Come find me when you've thought it through. But remember this—"

He looked down at her. "You only get one chance to refuse me. Next time, I won't ask twice."

He turned for the door, his coat sweeping a clean arc.

"Kane Voss." She stopped him. "What do you actually want?"

He half-turned. Half his face in the light, half in the dark, like a god drawn between good and evil.

He smiled, and said something she didn't understand at all.

"I want you alive. Not dying in someone else's hand. Because—" His voice dropped. "You were always mine."

The door closed behind him.

The room settled. Only the fire crackled. Luna stood where she was, her heart hammering. She looked down at the black card on the bar, then up at the empty doorframe. The words were still going around in her head.

You were always mine.

What did that mean?

She walked to the bar and picked the card up. It was heavier than it looked. Thick black stock, no logo, just a name and a number in the same restrained hand. No company. No title. A man who didn't need one.