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RHAIM

I saw Lia teeter off the dance floor on her heels—and I clocked that something wasn’t right—but then she threw herself into mingling with other guests—and Nick found me again.

“The Macallan will be at your office by Wednesday,” he told me.

“Fuck, I like doing business with you,” I said, keeping a covert eye on Lia—who looked over to give me a nervous glance.

“Everything all right on the home front?” Nick pressed.

I put my empty glass on a passing server’s tray. “It’d fucking better be,” I told him, and peeled away, to get to Lia’s side.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No,” she said quietly. “My father apologized for the whole St. Clair fiasco—and now he’s decided not to aim so high.” She gave a bitter laugh. “He’s gonna find an up and coming mayor for me.”

I hoped she was joking—but it was clear from her disposition she was not.

“Fuck. That,” I whispered. “Not that I wouldn’t murder a whole army for you but?—”

“Eventually someone would figure it out.” She picked up a champagne glass as a server walked by and drank half of it at once. “So what’s the plan?” she asked, looking up to me hopefully.

The Bonnie to my Clyde.

Certain that I had all the answers—and not caring if we had to write our names in blood at the top of the test.

“We leave. Tonight.”

The words came out of me before I could stop them—then after I’d said them, I didn’t want to take them back.

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped with a gasp, as I continued.

“I know you have a passport—and I’ve got money in offshore accounts. We’ll get to Dubai, and then go from there.”

“When?” she asked, without hesitation.

“Meet me at Isabelle’s. Two a. m. Pack light—we can buy anything you need on the road,” I told her. “But stay here until it makes sense to leave. Don’t do anything obvious.”

“You mean like kiss you right now?” she asked, her lips pulling into a quirk.

“Yeah. Precisely. I love you.”

She nodded and backed up, with a little bounce in her step. “I so fucking know.”

I played things casual, ordered another drink, gladhanded some other attendees, then pulled out my phone to call Sable.

“Annnnnnnd?” she said, like she’d just been doing nothing but waiting on the other side.

“I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Oooh, what?”

“The good news is, everything’s going my direction. The bad news is, I might not be able to talk to you, after tonight.”

“Uh—Rhaim? What the hell are you planning?”

“Can’t tell you that, either. I’ll be square with our accounts by midnight—but you should definitely back out of everything you on my side can that might even vaguely be traceable, just in case.

And—if there are any tails on Lia between the hours of one and three in the morning, can you make sure they’re good and distracted for me? ”

“Well, well, well—I should’ve always known it would end like this—you’re a madman.”

“Yeah, I am,” I said, keeping an eye on Lia’s red dress, as she walked around and worked the crowd.

Madly in love.

“K. I look forward to finding out what the fuck it is you’re doing tomorrow in the news, like some plebe.”

“Sorry-not-sorry, Sable. Good-bye,” I said—and hung up.