Chapter 2 - The Midnight Slip
The walk-up apartment on the fourth floor of the Queens brownstone smelled of damp brick, fried onions from the street vendor below, and the sharp medicinal antiseptic of her mother's portable oxygen tanks.
Khloe sat on the edge of the sunken futon in the living room, her eyes fixed on the delivery that had arrived precisely at twelve-fifteen.
It was a monolithic matte-black box, three feet long, wrapped in a double-faced black satin ribbon that bore no brand, no logo, and no return address.
The courier who delivered it had knuckles covered in scar tissue and a heavy Colt .45 pressing visibly against the lining of his cheap windbreaker.
He had simply grunted her surname, dropped the heavy cardboard onto her faded rug, and disappeared back down the stairwell without waiting for a signature.
Khloe had not touched the box for two hours.
The ticking of the plastic battery-operated wall clock sounded like a countdown to an execution.
If she walked out of that apartment, if she attended that gala, she would be placing herself directly under the gaze of men who had tortured her father into an early grave over unpaid loan-shark debts.
The Morettis did not know she existed; her father had been a small-time numbers runner who died of a sudden coronary in a holding cell before the capos could collect.
She had spent eight years erasing her family's name, burying her mother in a clean clinic under an assumed maiden identity, and shrinking into a nobody.
And now, Roman Caster was ripping away her obscurity as a practical joke.
With trembling fingers, Khloe pulled the satin ribbon.
The knot gave way without sound.
She lifted the lid of the box, pushing aside layers of deep charcoal tissue paper that rustled like dry autumn leaves.
What lay inside was not the modest, conservative evening wear she had desperately prayed Roman's assistants would select.
It was a weapon.
Khloe's breath caught in her throat, her fingers hovering inches above the fabric without daring to touch it.
The dress was a bias-cut slip of pure, heavy midnight-blue silk, so dark that under the dim apartment lighting it appeared almost obsidian.
It possessed no embroidery, no sequins, and no lace to soften its intent.
It had a razor-thin cowl neckline, crossed spaghetti straps that were practically invisible, and a back that scooped down past the base of the spine into an audacious, low drape.
Along the right seam, a split rose from the hemline nearly to the hip bone, designed to flash skin with every single stride.
Beneath the silk rested a pair of four-inch black patent leather Christian Louboutin pumps, their crimson soles gleaming like fresh arterial blood.
Beside the shoes lay a velvet jewelry case.
Khloe flipped the brass clasp open.
Resting on black velvet was a choker composed of three continuous rows of brilliant-cut diamonds, cold and blindingly bright under the single bulb hanging from her ceiling.
Tucked into the corner of the velvet was a piece of heavy cream cardstock with Roman's sharp, impatient handwriting:
Put it on. Do not fix your hair like an old woman.
Khloe dropped the card onto the table as if it had burned her skin.
"He wants a spectacle," she whispered aloud to the empty room, her voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of terror and sudden, blinding fury.
"He wants to drag me into a room of monsters to laugh at me."
She looked at the dress again.
Roman had sent the dress expecting her to look absurd in it.
He thought she was a shapeless, lumpy girl who would look like a child playing dress-up in couture she didn't understand.
He thought she would stumble in the high heels, tug frantically at the revealing neckline, and present a miserable, pathetic contrast to the polished mistresses of his rivals.
He wanted a punchline.
Khloe stood up from the futon, walked into the narrow bathroom, and clicked on the bare fluorescent bulb above the mirror.
She looked at her reflection in the glass.
For two long years, she had deliberately starved her image.
She had worn makeup that washed out her undertones, pulled her hair until her scalp bled, and hid every single curve of her frame beneath cheap, oversized menswear.
She reached up, pulled the wooden pins from the bun, and shook her head.
A dense, cascading wave of dark mahogany hair tumbled past her shoulders, falling across her collarbones and reaching almost to the small of her back.
It was thick, glossy, and completely untamed by the strict pins that had trapped it.
Khloe stripped off the ratty gray cardigan, the oversized polyester blouse, and the loose wool slacks that masked the lines of her body.
Underneath the layers, she was not plain.
She was soft, feminine, and carved with the high-waisted, hourglass proportions of an old-money debutante whose family had run out of time and luck.
She washed the pale, graying powder from her face, exposing smooth, ivory skin that had been shielded from the sun for years.
Her jawline was sharp, her cheekbones high and defined, and her eyes were a deep, mesmerizing amber that had remained trapped behind thick, distorted glass.
She threw her tortoiseshell frames into the wastebasket and put in a pair of fresh contact lenses, blinking through the sudden clarity of the room.
She picked up the dark red lipstick she had purchased three years ago for her father's funeral and applied it with surgical, steady precision.
Then, she stepped into the silk.
The fabric slid over her hips like cool water, adhering to every curve of her waist before falling in a liquid pool around her ankles.
The cowl front rested with effortless elegance against her chest, while the low back left the smooth line of her spine completely bare to the cool air.
Khloe reached into the box, pulled out the diamond choker, and fastened the cold platinum clasp around her throat.
She stepped into the high heels, the arch of her foot instantly shifting her posture into something predatory, fluid, and aristocratic.
She walked back to the cracked bathroom mirror.
The frightened secretary was completely gone.
Standing in the harsh light was a woman who looked like she could command an empire or burn one to the ground with a single whisper.
"If you want to play games with monsters, Roman," she whispered to the glass, her eyes narrowing with cold resolve, "you better be ready to pay the price when they bite."
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At six-fifty-eight, the black Mercedes Maybach pulled up to the curb four floors below, its twin exhausts rumbling against the cracked pavement of the Queens alleyway.
Khloe took a long, steady breath, picked up the small satin clutch, and walked out the door.
