Page 1 of Dangerous Men (Fortune City Mafia #1)

SYDNEY’S NIGHT

“ Please tell me you’re not thinking about Chase again.”

I sink further in my seat, focusing all my energy on the drink in front of me and deliberately not meeting Jade’s eyes.

I don’t need to look at her to know exactly how she looks right now, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed and her lips set in a tight line.

We’ve known each other for so many years now that her look of disapproval is permanently etched into my brain.

“The two of you broke up months ago,” Jade reminds me.

Her naturally black hair is dyed a bright bubblegum pink tonight and is tied back from her face in a messy bun.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch a strand of it fall forward, brushing against her cheek, and in the lights of the club, the color seems to glow.

“And, in case you forgot, Sydney, he’s a total asshole . ”

“I promise you, I’m not thinking about Chase,” I lie, taking a sip from my fourth martini of the night.

The gin pools in my stomach with the rest of tonight’s drinks, but I’ve lost the pleasantly warm buzz I had earlier.

It’s gone, just like my good mood. “And we don’t need to keep talking about him.

Honestly, I’m so bored just hearing his name come out of my mouth. ”

I paint a smile on my face, willing myself to believe what I’m saying is true, willing myself to stop thinking about him, even if just for one night.

“Syd…” Jade presses, and when I finally glance over at her, her dark brown eyes don’t look disapproving at all. They look concerned.

Great. Now my stomach is full of both gin and guilt.

Jade knows me. Truly knows me in the way only a best friend can. And she knows me too well to believe me when I say I’m okay right now. I’m far from okay.

I slump in my seat even more, the weight of my mood dragging me down.

I was okay when the night started, though. I was doing great .

But that was before we ran into them.

I was only two martinis deep and enjoying a rare fun night out when I spotted Katie across the dance floor of the club. Not just Katie, either, but the whole college gang. Friends of mine, not Jade’s. Friends I hadn’t seen in months—not since the breakup.

It’s my fault I haven’t seen any of them, I know.

After Chase and I fell apart, I cut myself off from the whole group, isolating myself from everyone but Jade.

Jade, who was mine and mine alone. Jade, who was my port in any storm, my oldest and best friend.

Katie and Sarah and all the rest of that group were my friends, sure, but they’d been Chase’s friends, too.

Hell, Katie’s husband was practically his best friend, and had been for years .

Seeing them meant almost certainly seeing Chase. Something I wasn’t ready for. Might never be ready for.

Every time I’d considered reaching out to them, and every time I weaseled my way out of yet another social gathering, I’d thought about that.

Thought about the risk of us ending up at the same place at the same time.

Thought about being in the same room with him after everything he’d put me through.

Call me pathetic, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of running into Chase again. So that left me with only one logical option: cutting myself off from everyone completely. Ignoring every invite and every phone call from everyone who reached out.

Not that many of them did.

But when I saw them tonight and realized that the club was too loud and too busy for me to have to explain my sudden exodus from their lives, I’d wanted to go over there. I’d wanted to say hi to them, to hug them, to remind them I was still alive! Still here!

Still mattered!

I had just worked up the courage to do it when I spotted him. Chase. Chase and his new, very blonde, very preppy girlfriend.

It hit me then. The crushing realization that not only did Chase pick this girl over me, but apparently so had all my friends.

Was I so easily replaced? So easily tossed aside and discarded by all of them?

I’d held on so tight to what Chase and I had together, and it almost killed me.

I’d wanted so badly to fit with someone, to be someone’s other half.

Over the course of our relationship, I molded myself to be the epitome of everything I thought he wanted.

Everything I thought would make him happy.

I was the perfect girlfriend. Day by day, minute by minute, I became an “us”.

And it still wasn’t enough.

No matter how much I bent, how much I changed, it was never enough. I became smaller and smaller until I didn’t even recognize myself anymore…and he still found someone better.

Chase and I weren’t good together, I try to remind myself.

Nothing about it was good, and Jade doesn’t even know half of what I put up with from him.

She doesn’t know how bad it got at the end.

So why is it still so painful? I finally took off the rose-colored glasses I had pressed so tightly to my eyes, but I’m still crushed over losing the person I thought I’d be with forever.

I watched them all leave together, unable to summon the courage to walk over to them. My ex, his new girlfriend, and my old friends. As they filed out of the club, Chase finally looked across the crowded room and met my eyes.

And my heart shattered into pieces again. Not just for what he did to me. Not just for what he took from me. But for what we could have been if things had been different. For the life we could have had together.

For the person I could have been.

The light touch of Jade’s fingers on my hand pulls me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I take a deep, calming breath and recite one of my favorite therapy mantras as I pull myself back into the present.

I am an ocean of calm.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how destroyed I feel right now, it doesn’t matter that my heart is breaking or that I’m still crushed from the breakup. I refuse to fall apart in the middle of this club. I refuse to let him take another thing away from me.

It was my idea for the two of us to blow off some steam tonight and have a little fun. Jade and I have been working nonstop at our shared business, and between that and my breakup, I feel like we haven’t had an opportunity to truly let loose in a while.

We need this. I need this.

“I promise, I’m okay,” I insist, squeezing Jade’s hand. The fake pep in my voice is almost convincing enough to be believable. “Come on, we look too good to be sitting here all night. I want to dance!”

It’s obvious the change in my tone isn’t genuine, but Jade still lets me pull her up from the table and into the crowd of dancing bodies, laughing as I tug her along. If there’s one thing that I can always convince Jade to do, it’s show off her gorgeous self and her killer dance moves.

I’ve always loved to dance. To lose myself in the music, to surrender to the flow of the beat. As we sway to the upbeat tempo, I feel myself come alive—a flower finally in bloom.

Fuck Chase. Fuck my fake friends. Fuck everything but this moment, right now.

I let the music take me away, swaying my hips and moving to the rhythm.

I can feel my little red dress clinging tight to every inch of me in the heat of the club, but I don’t even care.

This is the feeling I needed. I lost myself in my relationship with Chase—my self-esteem crumbling until there was barely anything left—and in the process, I lost this.

The joy of just existing in my own skin.

It’s been too long since I truly felt like myself .

Moving to the music, I lose myself in the flow of the song and in the night’s energy. With a bright laugh, Jade wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in for a hug.

That’s when I feel it.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, my spine tingling with the sensation that someone is watching me.

I step away from Jade, my eyes scanning the room.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid after my run-in with Chase, but I swear something in the air just shifted.

I can feel someone’s heavy gaze on me, but when I look around the club, I can’t see anyone.

The lights are too dim, the crowd too thick.

But this feeling? It’s magnetic. A pull toward something unknown and dangerous, like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering what it would feel like to jump.

I touch the back of my neck, frowning as my eyes search the dark corners of the club.

This is ridiculous. What I’m feeling is nothing more than a few too many drinks, an overactive imagination, or a mix of the two. My mind must be playing tricks on me. You can’t actually feel someone staring, can you? That’s insane.

Still, the sensation lingers, like the ghost of a touch.

Unable to shake the feeling, I signal to Jade that I need a break, pointing toward the bar. She nods enthusiastically, falling into step beside me as we make our way off the dance floor, toward the quieter side of the club where the music isn’t so deafening.

By the time we order our fifth round of drinks and stumble back to a table, I’m sweaty, emotional, and bordering on very drunk.

And right on cue—as if they have a sixth sense for intoxicated women—two very eager men approach our table.

From the sleazy smiles on their faces, and the way they quickly lean into our personal space, it’s easy to guess what they’re interested in.

“Gay!” Jade shouts at the men without even blinking.

That stops them in their tracks. The two men look at one another, frowning. “What?” nondescript man number one says. “No! We’re not?—”