Page 20 of Empire State Enemies

I watch as Rose shifts on her bar stool with a hurried, almost skittish energy. None of her movements look practiced, she seems . . . nervous. Wary. Her eyes flick to me briefly beforedarting back to her phone in a rapid, unsettled motion. She fucking knows who I am. Then she gets up and heads off to the restroom.

Fast forward ten minutes and she is running out of the bathroom.

“Freeze it there.”

9:32 p.m.

Now she’s hustling through the lobby in her high heels, making a straight shot for the exit.

She did it. The guilt is practically etched into her pretty features.

While I was distracted by her roving hands and sinful mouth, she was stealing something more than just my attention. Clever girl.

I knew something felt off about her. I saw the red flags and still dived in dick-first anyway. In my self-destructive not-giving-a-fuck state I chose to overlook it all.

A fool, that’s what I was.

“Camera sixty-seven. The garage.”

“Right away, Mr. Quinn.” Clickity-clack with the nails.

“Pick up the pace, Sara,” I growl, my patience worn thin.

I fold and take control of the screen myself, fast-forwarding until—jackpot. My sleek black Porsche peeling out well before I’d caught on to her game.

I zoom in on the driver’s seat. Not her, but some asshole guy. Can’t see his face. Rage builds inside me. Her lover? Partner in crime? Did she go home and fuck him after getting me all fired up?

“Damn,” I mutter.

“Sir, we’ll call the cops right away,” Sara says, voice quivering as she reaches for the phone.

“Wait.”

If I let the cops handle this, they’ll follow their standard procedures. But handling this internally means I get to deal out my own brand of justice.

Someone had the balls to target me, using a girl in a cheap dress to do their dirty work. Smart play, but they’re about to learn they picked the wrong mark.

My nostrils flare. I didn’t misread the signals—her indignation, that was all part of the act. Damn, she deserves an award for that performance.

I’m not handing this over to the police.

“I’ll take care of it personally,” I mutter, scraping my hand over my stubble. “Just get the footage to security. I’ll handle the rest.”

Sara pauses, uncertainty flickering in her eyes, but then she nods. “Of course, Mr. Quinn.”

Fucking joke. That cunning little actress played me good. And here I was, thinking I had the measure of everything that goes down in my hotels.

I must be laughing to myself because Sara’s looking at me like I’ve lost it.

The truth is, the car doesn’t matter. A while back, sure, I would’ve flipped out over a special edition Porsche getting lifted. But right now, with all this medical drama, nothing seems that important.

But I’m damn sure going to track down that little hustler. I know her face now—her scent, her heat, those soft murmurs she makes in the heat of passion.

And when she rushed out of that bathroom, she left something behind—a black silk shawl. And in a moment I can’t quite explain, I grabbed it. Probably has her DNA all over it.

She’s deluded if she thinks she can just disappear into the night without a trace.

Her first mistake was picking me as her mark. But her second, far graver mistake was pulling it off.