The soft click of a lighter snapped behind me.

“You threatened Thomas,” Larkin’s voice cut through the ambient jazz music floating from the grand piano below.

I turned my head slightly. Larkin was leaning against the mahogany doorframe, a lit cigarillo held loosely between his fingers, his dark eyes fixed on my profile. He wasn't smiling.

“He has poor manners,” I replied calmly, swirling the ice in my glass. “And worse financial discipline. Skimming four hundred thousand from the New Jersey docks is amateur hour, Mr. Steves. If I were running his operation, nobody would ever find the variance.”

Larkin pushed off the doorframe and walked toward me, his movements predatory and controlled. He stopped just a foot away, the scent of expensive bourbon and cedar wood wrapping around us.

“You’ve been hiding a lot behind those wire-rimmed glasses, Penelope,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register that sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. “Three years of quiet typing, meticulous bookkeeping, and never once complaining about the seventy-hour workweeks. And tonight, you walk into my family’s most secure event, terrorize my cousin into a panic attack, and stand there as if you own the entire building.”

“Maybe I do,” I said, turning to face him fully. “Or maybe I just got tired of pretending I couldn't see the cage I was locked in.”

Larkin stared at me for a long, suffocating moment. The tension between us felt charged, a live wire crackling with unspoken danger and mutual respect. For the first time, he wasn't looking at an employee; he was looking at an equal.

“The federal prosecutor you mentioned,” Larkin said quietly, tilting his head. “Was that a bluff?”

“Do you want to check my briefcase in the cloakroom?” I countered without missing a beat.

A slow, dangerous smile finally broke across Larkin’s face—a rare, genuine expression that made him look less like a syndicate boss and more like a man who loved a high-stakes gamble.

“My father left this empire in a mess,” Larkin said, stepping even closer, his gaze locked onto my lips. “Thomas wants to tear it apart from the inside out. But I need someone who understands the numbers better than the enforcers understand their guns. I need a chief financial officer who isn't afraid of blood on the ledger.”

“My starting salary is currently seventy-five thousand a year,” I said smoothly. “For a CFO position handling syndicate-level portfolios across three continents, the market rate is significantly higher.”

Larkin let out a low chuckle that vibrated in his chest. “Name your price, Penelope.”