Chapter 12 · Blade and Blackout

The oyster knife was still in my fist when Dante's lips brushed my ear.

I'd palmed it off the raw bar twenty minutes ago. Three inches of steel, bone handle, tucked under the lace of my cuff. My pulse hammered straight against the flat of the metal.

"Throat or nerves, wife?" he asked, low and smooth, like we were sharing a dirty joke.

"Nerves." I flashed a razor-thin smile at the mirror behind his shoulder. Four hundred guests stared back at us, dripping in diamonds and vintage champagne. "Big room. Plenty of people dying to watch me fall apart."

"Mm."

He didn't buy a word.

His thumb slid under my lace, finding the bone handle like he'd tucked it in there himself. The heat coming off his fingers scorched clean through my skin.

I should have driven it between his ribs right then. Everyone swears they would, don't they?

Except his other palm was glued to the small of my back, heavy and possessive. Every eye in the ballroom tracked that hand. Capos. Corrupt judges. A precinct captain who'd sat in the front row at my mother's funeral.