Chapter 1 - The Shoulder No One Was Allowed to Touch“A few broken windows. Mostly a message.”
Luigi Cavalier’s voice carried from the front of the Gulfstream.
Deari Hamilton lowered his Scotch.
“Whose storefront?”
“Queens Boulevard. The electronics place.”
Deari’s expression hardened.
“That location washes nothing important.”
“Exactly. Moretti wanted us to know he could touch it without asking permission.”
One of the captains muttered a curse.
Deari remained still.
That was what terrified people about him.
Luigi shouted.
Other men threatened.
Deari simply became quieter.
Caitlyn Elmore knew quiet Deari was far more dangerous than angry Deari.
“Send Mercer and Alvarez,” Deari said. “Nobody retaliates tonight.”
Luigi turned.
“Boss?”
“You heard me.”
“They hit our property.”
“And they expect us to answer before sunrise. That means they prepared for the answer.”
Deari took another sip.
“I don't dance because Vincent Moretti taps his foot.”
Luigi stared for two seconds before smiling.
“There he is.”
Deari returned his attention to the storm.
Caitlyn attempted to do the same with her tablet.
Her eyes would not cooperate.
Numbers floated.
Ten million.
Two million.
Panama.
Brooklyn.
Moretti.
Hamilton.
Her brain had stopped attaching meaning to anything.
She rubbed her temple.
Deari noticed.
He noticed everything.
“How long have you been awake?”
Caitlyn's hands stopped.
She felt every man in the cabin become quieter.
“I'm fine, Mr. Hamilton.”
“That wasn't my question.”
She swallowed.
“I slept Tuesday night.”
Deari looked at his watch.
It was technically Friday morning.
His eyes moved slowly back to her.
“You haven't slept in forty-six hours?”
“I had several short naps.”
“When?”
Caitlyn hesitated.
Deari waited.
“In elevators.”
Luigi made a strangled noise that might have been laughter.
Caitlyn wanted the aircraft floor to open and swallow her.
Deari stared at her.
“Put the tablet away.”
Her stomach dropped.
“I can finish the Moretti profiles.”
“Caitlyn.”
“I really am almost—”
“Put it away.”
His voice was quiet.
She obeyed.
Panic immediately filled the space where work had been.
If she was not useful, she was replaceable.
If she was replaceable, Tommy's care facility would receive another overdue notice.
His treatments would be reduced.
His occupational therapist would disappear.
The specialized neurological program keeping her younger brother stable cost more each month than Caitlyn's mother had earned in half a year.
She could not lose this job.
Deari noticed the fear.
“Why do you look like I'm taking you outside to execute you?”
Caitlyn glanced toward Luigi's visible gun.
Nobody laughed this time.
Deari followed her gaze.
His jaw tightened.
“You are not being fired.”
Her shoulders lowered approximately half an inch.
“Then I'll resume after ten minutes.”
“No.”
“Fifteen?”
Deari stared.
Caitlyn looked down.
“Sorry.”
“You apologize too much.”
“Sorry.”
Luigi laughed loudly.
Even Deari's mouth moved slightly.
It was the closest Caitlyn had ever seen to a smile.
The plane hit mild turbulence.
Her body swayed.
Deari's hand shot out and steadied the tablet before it slid.
“Sleep.”
She shook her head immediately.
“I can't.”
“You can.”
“I mean physically. I don't sleep well on planes.”
Deari looked at her pale face.
“You're about three minutes from sleeping standing up.”
Caitlyn said nothing.
“Close your eyes.”
The command carried the same weight as an instruction to transfer ten million dollars.
She slowly obeyed.
She intended to rest them for thirty seconds.
That was all.
Thirty seconds.
The aircraft engines hummed steadily.
Rain whispered against the fuselage.
Voices faded somewhere far away.
Caitlyn's head dipped.
She jerked awake.
Deari was checking messages.
He had not noticed.
Good.
She straightened.
Twenty seconds later, her head dipped again.
This time she did not wake.
Her body surrendered without permission.
Her head tilted.
Slowly.
Helplessly.
And landed directly on Deari Hamilton's shoulder.
The cabin became silent.
Not ordinary silence.
The kind of silence that arrived immediately before a gunshot.
Luigi's eyes widened.
One captain stopped breathing.
The other looked at Caitlyn as though she had casually climbed onto a tiger and begun braiding its tail.
Deari went perfectly still.
Caitlyn slept.
Her cheek rested against the charcoal wool of his jacket.
A loose strand of auburn hair lay across his collar.
Her breathing softened.
Nobody moved.
Luigi finally whispered, “Boss.”
Deari's eyes lifted.
Luigi pointed subtly.
As though Deari might somehow not have noticed the woman unconscious against his body.
Deari looked down.
Caitlyn's face in sleep was different.
The constant anxious tension had disappeared.
No frightened little crease between her eyebrows.
No lips pressed together to prevent herself from asking questions.
She simply looked tired.
Too tired.
Deari had seen men bleed to death without changing expression.
He had ordered people removed from rooms permanently because they had touched his watch without permission.
Physical contact was something he tolerated only when expected.
A handshake.
A doctor's examination.
Occasional intimacy that meant nothing and ended before morning.
Nobody rested against him.
Nobody trusted him enough to fall asleep.
Caitlyn had not chosen to.
That somehow made it worse.
Or better.
He could not decide.
Luigi waited.
“Want me to wake her?”
Deari's stare snapped toward him.
“No.”
The word came instantly.
Luigi blinked.
One captain looked at the other.
Deari shifted slightly.
Not enough to disturb Caitlyn.
Only enough to allow her head to rest more comfortably.
Then he removed his suit jacket with extraordinary care.
Caitlyn made a small sound and curled closer without waking.
Every man in the cabin stared.
Deari spread the jacket over her.
Luigi's mouth actually fell open.
“Anyone wakes her,” Deari said softly, “and I'll throw them off the plane.”
Nobody doubted him.
Then he lowered the cabin lights.
That was the moment Luigi Cavalier understood something dangerous had happened.
Not to Caitlyn.
To Deari.
For the next hour, nobody spoke above a whisper.
Deari remained almost completely motionless.
His shoulder gradually went numb.
He did not move it.
Caitlyn slept with the absolute exhaustion of someone whose body had finally staged a rebellion.
Deari studied her occasionally.
He knew basic facts about Caitlyn Elmore.
Twenty-seven.
Executive secretary for nineteen months.
Perfect attendance.
Exceptional memory.
No disciplinary incidents.
Minimal personal life.
One dependent family member listed on insurance.
Thomas Elmore.
Brother.
He knew she sent approximately sixty percent of every paycheck to a medical facility.
Deari knew because Hamilton Enterprises' accountants knew everything.
He had never wondered why.
Now he did.
At two seventeen in the morning, Caitlyn stirred.
Her eyelashes fluttered.
She inhaled.
Warm fabric.
Cedarwood.
Something solid beneath her cheek.
Her eyes opened.
She saw black shirt fabric.
Then a throat.
Then Deari Hamilton's jaw.
Every molecule of blood left her face.
She sat up so violently that she nearly headbutted him.
“Oh my God.”
Deari caught her tablet before it fell again.
Caitlyn stared at him.
Then his shoulder.
Then his jacket across her lap.
Then Luigi.
Luigi looked away immediately, but not quickly enough to hide his expression.
She was going to die.
Not figuratively.
Literally.
Her mother would receive a polite call saying Caitlyn had relocated unexpectedly.
“I am so sorry.”
Deari said nothing.
“I didn't—I would never intentionally—”
“I know.”
“I must have—”
“Fallen asleep.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were awake forty-six hours.”
Caitlyn swallowed.
“Yes.”
Deari picked up his Scotch.
“You drool.”
Her eyes widened in horror.
Luigi coughed violently into his fist.
Deari's expression remained perfectly serious for three seconds.
Then Caitlyn realized.
He was joking.
Deari Hamilton had made a joke.
At her.
Caitlyn stared.
He took a drink.
“You don't.”
A tiny smile touched his mouth.
She could not process this.
She held out his jacket.
“I'm sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“But your jacket—”
“Keep it until we land. You're cold.”
She was.
She had not noticed.
Caitlyn wrapped it around herself reluctantly.
Deari's jacket swallowed her.
It smelled like him.
She hated that her exhausted brain noticed.
“Thank you.”
Deari looked toward the window.
“Sleep again.”
“I think I've humiliated myself sufficiently.”
“Caitlyn.”
“Yes?”
“Sleep.”
She obeyed.
This time she leaned against the window.
Deari discovered he disliked that.
He ignored the thought.
When the Gulfstream landed in New York at four eleven, Caitlyn woke to discover the cabin nearly empty.
Deari stood near the aircraft door speaking to Luigi.
She gathered her things rapidly.
Outside, rain covered the tarmac.
A line of black SUVs waited.
Caitlyn stepped toward the stairs.
Deari blocked her.
“You're not going to the office.”
Her stomach tightened.
“The transfer agreements—”
“Legal can finish them.”
“I need to organize the Moretti—”
“Tomorrow.”
“Mr. Hamilton—”
Deari looked at Luigi.
“Have a driver take Miss Elmore home.”
Caitlyn stiffened.
“No.”
Three men looked at her.
Deari's eyebrow rose.
Caitlyn immediately regretted being born.
“I mean…I appreciate that, but I can take a cab.”
“At four in the morning?”
“I usually do.”
“Not anymore.”
She gripped her bag.
“You're my employer, not my father.”
Luigi quietly took two steps away.
Deari stared.
Caitlyn's heart hammered.
Then something unexpected happened.
Deari nodded.
“Correct.”
No anger.
No threat.
“But tonight, I'm also the man who watched you nearly collapse because my company apparently doesn't know how to let an employee sleep.”
Caitlyn looked down.
“That is partly my choice.”
“Why?”
She said nothing.
Deari noticed.
“Tommy?”
Her head snapped up.
“How do you know about Tommy?”
“I read employee files.”
Her expression changed.
Fear.
Not of him.
Of exposure.
Deari immediately understood there was more.
“He's sick?”
Caitlyn hugged the jacket around herself.
“It's complicated.”
Deari could have ordered an explanation.
Instead, he said, “Then we'll discuss it when you've slept.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
Deari looked at the exhaustion written across her face.
“We'll see.”
Caitlyn wanted to argue.
Then she yawned directly in his face.
Luigi turned around to hide another smile.
Deari opened the SUV door himself.
That shocked everyone more than the shoulder.
Caitlyn hesitated.
“Go home.”
She climbed in.
Deari closed the door.
The SUV drove away.
Luigi stood beside him in the rain.
“You know they're all going to talk.”
Deari looked toward the remaining captains.
“They value their tongues.”
“Not them.”
Luigi grinned.
“Everyone.”
Deari said nothing.
Luigi's smile disappeared.
“Careful, boss.”
“With what?”
“Soft spots.”
Deari slowly turned.
Luigi was one of only three people alive who could speak to him this way.
Luigi continued quietly.
“Moretti is testing us. If he finds something you protect, he'll put a knife against it.”
Deari looked toward the road where Caitlyn's vehicle had disappeared.
“She is an employee.”
Luigi nodded.
“Then stop looking like you're memorizing the taillights.”
Deari's stare could have frozen steel.
Luigi smiled.
“Coffee?”
Deari walked away.
But Luigi's warning followed him.
Across the city, Caitlyn's driver stopped outside her modest apartment building.
She climbed out wearing Deari Hamilton's jacket.
From a parked car half a block away, a camera lens focused.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The photographer lowered the camera.
Then dialed a number.
A man answered.
“Yes?”
May you like
The photographer looked toward Caitlyn entering the building.
“We found Hamilton's weak spot.”
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