Milo chuckled. “Or what?”
She smiled then.
Not sweetly.
Not politely.
The smile of a woman who had spent years lifting buckets of water, carrying funeral arrangements up church steps, managing drunk groomsmen, unpaid invoices, broken coolers, screaming brides, and grief-stricken widows who wanted lilies because lilies were the last flowers their husbands had ever bought them.
A man like Milo thought violence began with fists.
Lena knew violence began with permission.
So she gave him none.
“Touch me again,” she said, clearly enough for the closest tables to hear, “and you’ll lose the hand.”
The air tightened.
Milo’s face darkened.
His grip tightened.
Before he could speak, a voice cut through the room like a blade drawn slowly from silk.
“Let her go.”
Dorian Kade had not raised his voice.
He did not need to.
Milo released her.
Every eye turned.
Dorian crossed the marble floor with unhurried steps, the crowd separating before him. There was no anger on his face. Anger would have been human. This was colder.
He stopped beside Lena, close enough that she could feel the heat of him without being touched.
His eyes were on Milo.
“Did I ask you to entertain my guest?”
Milo swallowed. “No, boss.”
“Did I ask you to put your hands on her?”
“No.”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
Milo’s mouth opened.
Dorian’s gaze did not change.
Milo left.
Quickly.
The ballroom exhaled.
Lena rubbed her arm once, then stopped herself. She would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing pain.
Dorian turned to her.
Up close, he was worse. Not more handsome. More present. His eyes were gray with a dark ring at the edge, the kind of eyes that made lies feel childish.
“Miss Hart.”
“Mr. Kade.”
“You have a gift for making enemies.”
“I learned from my brother.”
A faint movement touched his mouth. It was not quite a smile.
“Come with me.”
“No.”
The room went still again.
Dorian looked at her for a long second.
“Your brother’s life depends on the conversation we are about to have.”
Lena’s stomach twisted.
She looked across the ballroom. Theo stared back at her, shame bending his shoulders.
Lena hated him a little in that moment.
She hated herself more for following Dorian anyway.
He led her through a side corridor, past two guards, into a private library with green walls, a black marble fireplace, and shelves full of books that looked expensive enough to be unread. The door closed behind them.
Lena stayed near it.
Dorian went to the desk.
“Your brother signed approval papers for transfers totaling four hundred and eighty thousand dollars,” he said.
“He is stupid with cards and worse with women. He is not smart enough to steal from you.”
“He was smart enough to sign.”
“Someone put the papers in front of him.”
Dorian’s eyes sharpened.
Lena stepped forward.
“I do not have your money,” she said. “I can sell my van, my equipment, my lease, maybe the studio if I find someone desperate. I can get you fifty thousand by Monday. Maybe seventy if I ruin myself completely. I’ll pay the rest. But my brother did not steal that amount, and my grandmother had nothing to do with any of this.”
“I know.”
Lena froze.
Dorian’s voice remained calm.
“I do not want your money.”
“That is never good.”
“No.”
The fire shifted softly.
For the first time, Lena noticed the exhaustion beneath his control. Not weakness. Wear. The kind carried by people surrounded by loyalty they could not fully trust.
“When the missing funds appeared,” Dorian said, “my council wanted your brother made into an example. Publicly. They wanted your studio burned, your grandmother removed from her nursing home, and every person connected to Theo Hart taught the cost of embarrassment.”
Lena’s throat closed.
“But you did not do it.”
“Not yet.”
The honesty struck harder than a threat.
“Why?”
Dorian looked toward the closed door.
“Because tonight, I watched seventy people pretend not to see one of my men hurt you. You did not scream. You did not beg. You did not perform helplessness for an audience that had already chosen comfort over courage.”
His eyes returned to her.
“You gave him a warning.”
Lena’s heartbeat changed.
“Admiration from a man like you is not a compliment.”
“No,” Dorian said. “It is information.”
He opened a drawer and placed a folder on the desk.
“My organization is changing. Public contracts. Legal development. Hospital boards. City partnerships. I cannot keep appearing as a gangster prince surrounded by men who solve every problem with blood and women who confuse loyalty with diamonds.”
Lena stared at him.
“You need a wife.”
“I need the appearance of one.”
She laughed once.
“You’re insane.”
“I need a woman with no criminal record, a working-class reputation, a legitimate business, and a spine strong enough not to fold beside me in public. You need your brother breathing, your grandmother safe, and your studio untouched.”