Chapter 2 - The Collapse of the House of HayesConnor finally found his voice, though it cracked with undisguised panic and incandescent rage.
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” Connor stepped forward, his finger trembling as he pointed it at Roman. “Falco—you don't know her. You’re just—this is some kind of sick stunt—”
Roman didn’t even look at him. He kept his arm loosely draped around Harper’s waist, positioning her securely at his side as if she were the only person in the room. Only then did he turn his head, his gaze sliding over Connor with the detached disgust one might reserve for a maggot on a clean kitchen floor.
“Stunt?” Roman’s voice cut through the murmurs of the crowd like a razor. “Mr. Hayes, you brought your kept distraction to a charity gala to publicly degrade a woman who is ten times the professional you will ever be. What I am doing is correcting a aesthetic imbalance in the room.”
Paige's face burned crimson. “You—you can't talk to him like that! Connor’s firm handles millions in commercial real estate—”
“Connor’s firm,” Roman interrupted smoothly, “handles whatever scraps my holding company decides to throw their way through third-party shell corporations.”
Connor blanched. The color drained completely from his face, leaving him looking sickly under the crystal chandeliers. “That’s—that’s confidential—”
“Nothing in Chicago is confidential once I decide to look at it,” Roman stated, his tone flat and absolute.
Harper looked up at Roman, a sudden wave of realization washing over her. She knew Connor’s firm—Sterling & Hayes—had been aggressively pitching for a massive commercial logistics contract for months. They needed that account to secure Connor’s partnership status for the upcoming fiscal year.
And Roman Falco owned Falco Holdings—the exact parent company vetting those bids.
Connor realized it too. His knees buckled slightly, his previous arrogance entirely evaporated, replaced by the shivering terror of a man who had just realized he kicked a sleeping dragon.
“Mr... Mr. Falco,” Connor stammered, his voice dropping an octave as he tried to salvage whatever scraps of dignity he had left. “There’s been a misunderstanding. Harper and I... we had an amicable parting. We were just coming over to say hello—”
“You said hello,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, chilling register. “Now, walk away. Before I decide your firm’s bid isn't just rejected, but blacklisted from every port from here to Milwaukee.”
Connor didn’t argue. He couldn't. Dragging a humiliated, fuming Paige by the arm, he practically fled through the parting crowd, the whispers of three hundred people crashing over them like waves of poison.
The execution had failed. The executioner had been slaughtered.
Harper stared after them until they vanished into the foyer. Then, she turned back to Roman, her mind racing to process the sheer scale of the chess match she had just been dragged into.
“You didn’t just save me a headache,” Harper said quietly, stepping back out of his embrace, though she kept her eyes locked on his. “You just declared war on Sterling & Hayes.”
May you like
Roman smiled, a slow, predatory expression that sent a delicious shiver down her spine.
“Correction, Ms. Bennett,” Roman said, lifting a glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and handing it to her. “I didn't declare war. I just took your side. And trust me... you’re going to want to see what I do next.”
