Chapter 6 - The Charity Gala Ambush
The Grand Pacific Hotel looked like a palace of gilded rot.
Crystal chandeliers hung from forty-foot ceilings, casting sparkling light across five hundred of the wealthiest, most corrupt citizens in New England: politicians, judges, shipping magnates, and the high-society wives who pretended the money didn't reek of blood.
When the heavy oak doors of the grand ballroom opened at eight o'clock, the entire room seemed to stop breathing.
Lucas Hale entered first.
He wore a bespoke black tuxedo with a crisp white shirt, the tailored cut emphasizing his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His dark hair was styled back, the silver at his temples giving him an aura of lethal sophistication.
And on his arm was Quinn Beckett.
The midnight-emerald gown clung to her curves like liquid water, the high collar framing the delicate line of her throat where the silver paper crane rested against her pale skin. Her dark hair was swept up into an intricate chignon, revealing the sharp, stunning contours of her cheekbones and her wide, luminous eyes. She didn't look like a terrified waitress. She looked like an empress walking among commoners.
A collective murmur swept through the room like a wave.
“Is that...?”
“Who is she?”
“Look at the way he’s holding her...”
Lucas didn't look at the crowd. He leaned down slightly, his lips brushing Quinn’s ear, sending a pleasant, terrifying shiver down her spine. “Breathe, Quinn. You are the most dangerous thing in this room tonight.”
“I’m wearing a bulletproof vest under silk, Lucas,” she whispered back through a brilliant, frozen smile. “I’m trying not to hyperventilate.”
“You’re doing magnificently,” he murmured, his hand settling firmly, possessively, over the small of her back.
From across the ballroom, near the champagne fountain, a man separated himself from a cluster of city councilmen.
Julian Vane was fifty, slender, with slicked-back graying hair and the sharp, predatory eyes of a scavenger. He wore an immaculate cream-colored dinner jacket, a heavy gold signet ring gleaming on his pinky.
“Lucas,” Julian said, his voice dripping with false warmth as he approached, flanked by three men whose hands stayed rigidly inside their tuxedo jackets. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn't make the auction. The mayor was just saying how much we missed your... contributions.”
Lucas didn't offer his hand. “Julian. I see you managed to buy your way past the door. The standards of this establishment continue to decline.”
Julian’s smile tightened, his eyes sliding down to Quinn. A flicker of surprised lust and calculated greed danced in his gaze.
“And who is this exquisite creature?” Julian asked, taking a step toward her. “You’ve kept her hidden from us, Lucas. Surely a flower like this deserves better company than the Undertaker.”
Julian reached out, his fingers extending to touch the silver crane at Quinn’s collarbone.
Before his hand could travel six inches, Lucas moved.
It was so fast the surrounding guests gasped. Lucas caught Julian’s wrist in a vise-like grip, the bones grinding audibly beneath his knuckles.
Julian’s face went crimson with sudden, excruciating pain.
“If you touch her,” Lucas said, his voice a low, terrifying whisper that barely carried beyond their circle, “I will peel the skin from your hands while you watch, Julian. We are not at the docks. Remember your manners.”
Julian gritted his teeth, his breathing ragged. “You’re making a mistake, Hale. Pier 4 is burning. Your shipping contracts are being voided by midnight. You think you can walk in here with your new pet and pretend you still own this city?”
Quinn stepped forward then, her chin high, her voice ringing clear and steady across the listening circle.
“I am nobody’s pet, Mr. Vane,” Quinn said, her gaze meeting Julian’s with lethal calm. “And if you think a burning pier gives you leverage over a man who rebuilt this city from an alley, you’re even stupider than you look.”
A smothered laugh escaped a nearby shipping heir.
Julian’s eyes flared with pure, venomous hatred. He ripped his wrist from Lucas’s grip, stepping back with a cold, sinister sneer.
“A spirited little thing,” Julian hissed. “Let’s see if she still has her tongue when the lights go out.”
Julian turned on his heel and vanished into the crowd.
Lucas turned to Quinn, his dark eyes burning with open admiration. “You were supposed to stay quiet.”
“He annoyed me,” Quinn said, though her hands were trembling beneath the silk folds of her dress.
“Boss,” Teddy’s voice sounded in Lucas’s concealed earpiece. *“We have movement on the mezzanine. Julian’s private security just cut the feeds to the emergency exits. We need to move now.”*
Lucas caught Quinn’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
Before they could take three steps toward the grand staircase, the massive crystal chandelier above the center of the ballroom detonated in a shower of sparks and blinding flash-powder.
The entire ballroom was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
Screams tore through the air as champagne glasses shattered and hundreds of terrified guests surged in panic toward the doors.
In the darkness, the sharp, rhythmic *pop-pop-pop* of suppressed automatic gunfire echoed from the balcony above.
“Down!” Lucas roared.
He didn't shove her this time. He spun her behind a massive marble pillar, shielding her body with his own as high-velocity rounds chipped great chunks of stone from the pillar above their heads.
A laser sight painted a bright red dot on the marble wall behind Quinn’s ear.
Lucas saw it.
Without a second of hesitation, without a thought for his own survival, Lucas Hale stepped out from the cover of the pillar, placing his broad chest squarely between the sniper’s line of sight and Quinn Beckett.
The bullet struck him with a sickening, heavy *thud*.
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Lucas let out a ragged, choked gasp, his body jerking violently as he slammed back against the pillar, his blood hot and crimson spraying across the emerald silk of Quinn’s dress.
***
