I left the bathroom and made my way down the short hallway, smoothing my hands down my dress as I stopped right at the mouth of the main room of the gala. There were clusters of people milling around together, champagne flutes filled with bubbly liquid held in their hands, smiles showing off perfect, white teeth. The beauty right in front of me was almost too much.

Out of my element.

I looked at the table Arlo and I had been seated at, and aside from a man and a woman taking up residence across from our chairs, the table was empty. I scanned the room in search of my big Russian, his body tall and broad enough that he’d tower over most. But after three sweeps around the room and no sight of him, I started making my rounds. This prickling feeling tightened the back of my neck before dripping down my spine, something I told myself was because I felt everyone staring at me.

Could they know I was a woman who’d come from nothing, living in the bowels of Vegas? Could they smell my lack of money, that I didn’t truly belong here?

Did they see me as a lamb amongst their pack of wolves?

I should have gone back to the table and waited for him. That would have been the smart thing to do. I wasn’t a foolish woman, wasn’t too stupid to live. I’d had to do things I wasn’t proud of in order to survive. For fuck’s sake, my own father had pawned me off to the men he’d owed debts, simply to save his own skin, and I’d escaped that nightmare.

I spied Lucian and Leo Morelli standing off to the side. I was tempted to ask if they had seen Arlo, but their expressions were fierce as they were clearly in conversation, and I decided against bothering them.

So despite not wanting to sit down and wait with patience I didn’t feel I had, I found myself at the table once more, the couple across from me giving tight-lipped smiles before promptly ignoring my existence.

I didn’t know how long I sat there, but it was enough that I’d drunk two glasses of champagne and still didn’t see Arlo. My worry wasn’t because I thought he was in danger. It was never that. Arlo was the person the men in this room would fear. No, what worried me was that I knew something had to be wrong. He’d never leave me like this, his possessiveness over me so strong, and his need to keep me safe a priority he never deviated from.

The couple paid me no attention as he lavished the side of the woman’s neck with kisses. She made obscene moans, ones that could only be called erotic and what she’d make in the bedroom.