The bass from the main floor of The Backroom Club had finally bled out into the New York night, leaving only the industrial hum of the steel kitchen and the clatter of closing shift. At three in the morning, the back-of-house was a cavern of polished surfaces and exhausted bodies. I walked the line, my footsteps silent against the rubber mats, running the numbers in my head. Headcount, cash drops, exit routes. Everything had to be perfect. Blackridge demanded perfection, and the penalty for anything less was a one-way trip to a Chicago South Side warehouse.
I paused by the dish pit, straightening a stack of stainless steel pans until their edges aligned perfectly. Diego Alvarez, my lead kitchen staffer, was wiping down the expo line. He hummed a low, erratic rhythm, tossing a rag over his shoulder.
“Everything locked up front?” Diego asked, his dark eyes flicking toward the service doors. He touched the lucky bottle opener clipped to his belt.
“Registers are zeroed. The floor is clear,” I said, keeping my voice measured and low. I glanced past him to where Hannah Reyes was nervously twisting her necklace chain, struggling with the last of the inventory sheets, and another staffer, Trapped, was hauling the heavy rubber mats toward the loading dock.
“Hey, Trapped,” I called out. “Make sure the alley door latches all the way. The wind is picking up.”
Trapped gave a curt nod and vanished down the corridor. I let out a slow breath, the cold air of the walk-in cooler washing over my skin. Every time the heavy compressor kicked on, the chill sent a phantom shiver down my spine, dragging me back four years. I could still see the face of the bartender I had sacrificed. I had obeyed a quiet directive from above, switching a ledger key to cover a discrepancy, framing an innocent man to save my own skin and secure my promotion to Night Manager. Blackridge muscle had dragged him away. He came back ruined, a ghost of a man who eventually vanished entirely. My hands tightened into fists at my sides. I had sworn on whatever soul I had left that I would never let an enforcer near my ledgers again. I would protect my people—Diego, Hannah, Trapped, all of them—at any personal cost.
The heavy metal door connecting the kitchen to the hotel’s service corridor swung open, the hinges groaning in the sudden silence.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Xavier Hale stepped into the harsh fluorescent light. He wore a tailored dark suit that seemed to swallow the glare of the kitchen, his posture radiating the kind of effortless, lethal authority that only Blackridge’s top enforcers possessed. He didn’t carry a visible weapon, but he didn’t need to; he was the weapon. His cold, dark eyes swept the room, cataloging every exit, every knife, every trembling staff member, before finally settling on me.
“Audit, Solis,” Xavier said, his voice a low, smooth baritone that vibrated in my chest.
I squared my shoulders, my pulse spiking into a frantic rhythm that I ruthlessly suppressed. “It’s three in the morning, Hale. The books are closed.”
“Then open them,” he murmured, closing the distance between us with predatory grace. “Orders from the top. We’re running the numbers. Now.”
“I run the floor after midnight,” I shot back, stepping into his path to shield Diego and Hannah from his line of sight. The scent of him—cold rain, expensive wool, and something dark and metallic—hit my senses, sparking a sudden, unwanted awareness in my blood. “If you want to look at my ledgers, you do it with me in the office.”
Xavier tilted his head, a faint, humorless smile touching his lips. “You misunderstand your position. This isn’t a request. The back-of-house is under my direct scrutiny as of this second. Every count, every drop, every key.”
Hannah dropped a clipboard. The plastic clattered loudly against the tile. She let out a small, breathless gasp, her hands shaking as she scrambled to pick it up. Xavier’s gaze snapped to her, sharp and unyielding.
“Leave her out of it,” I snapped, stepping closer to him. The proximity crackled with hostility. “You want the audit, you get it on my terms. I oversee every step.”
Xavier looked down at me, his eyes narrowing. He noted the defiance in my jaw, the absolute refusal to back down. “Fine. We do it together. But if I find a single digit out of place, Blackridge won’t care about your terms.”
Before I could reply, the harsh, electronic wail of the hotel’s emergency system blared through the overhead speakers. Red strobe lights began pulsing in the corridors. A fire-code sweep.
“Lockdown,” Diego muttered, his face paling as the heavy magnetic fire doors slammed shut at the end of the hall, sealing off the service exits. Sleet lashed against the high, frosted windows of the alley door. We were trapped in the underbelly of Blackridge’s operation.
“Empty your pockets. Keys on the board,” Xavier ordered, his voice cutting through the alarm.
My jaw clenched. I unclipped the heavy, overloaded keyring from my belt. The brass ledger key—the only key that opened the physical safe containing the unedited books—hung loosely at the end. Under Xavier’s watchful, intense gaze, I slid the brass key off the ring. I reached up and pressed it against the kitchen’s magnetic knife strip. The brass bit held firm against the magnet, gleaming under the red emergency lights. I set the rest of my ring on the stainless steel counter.
“Satisfied?” I asked, turning away for just a second as the walk-in cooler door rattled. I took two steps to check the latch, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Trapped hadn’t gotten stuck in the corridor during the sweep. The hall was empty.
I turned back to the counter.
My breath caught in my throat. The magnetic strip was bare.
I lunged forward, my hands sweeping over the empty counter. My main keyring sat exactly where I had left it, but the brass ledger key was gone.
“Where is it?” I demanded, spinning around to face the skeleton crew. Diego held his hands up, eyes wide. Hannah was frozen against the prep table.
As the hum of the coolers swallowed the last echo of the slammed walk-in door, Xavier stepped into my space. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. His eyes locked onto the empty magnetic strip, then slid down to meet mine, dark and terrifyingly calm.
“Blackridge will only believe one story by sunrise, Solis,” Xavier murmured, his voice a lethal velvet threat against my ear. “Either you stole from the family, or I did. And if we cannot conjure that key and a clean ledger out of the dark, the house will decide who bleeds for it.”