Chapter 1 - The Kick
The black stiletto flashed over my head, and somebody screamed.
I bent backward so fast the crystal tray in my hand rattled. Vanessa Sterling's six-inch heel sliced through the air where my face had been a second earlier. Her scarlet satin dress snapped around her thigh. Behind her, three hundred wealthy guests stood beneath chandeliers worth more than my mother's house.
"Oh my God!" a woman cried.
I straightened, steadied the tray, and looked Vanessa in the eye.
"That was a mistake," I said.
Her blue eyes narrowed. "You don't belong here."
"I'm working. You invited the catering company."
"I invited service. Not an attitude."
A man in a midnight-blue tuxedo broke through the crowd. Dark hair, sharp jaw, the unmistakable face from the newspapers. Adrian Sterling, Vanessa's older brother and acting chairman of the Sterling Foundation.
"Vanessa, don't!" he shouted.
Too late. She whipped her right leg upward again. Her heel swept over my bun, close enough to move a loose strand of hair. I stepped aside. The black-and-white marble was polished like ice, but I knew where to place my feet.
Vanessa laughed, breathless. "Look at her dance."
I set the tray on a passing waiter's cart.
"Ma'am," I said, "please stop."
"Make me."
She moved toward me a third time. I planted my left foot and sent one controlled defensive kick toward her upper body, stopping short as she recoiled. Vanessa stumbled backward into a table of burgundy roses. Champagne spilled down a senator's jacket. A room full of people went silent.
I lowered my foot.
"I'm not here to hurt you," I said.
Vanessa stared at me as if I had pulled the chandelier from the ceiling. Adrian stood frozen. A woman wearing pearls covered her mouth.
Then Vanessa smiled. Not because she had forgiven me. Because she had noticed the security cameras.
"You attacked me," she said loudly.
"Everyone saw what happened."
"Did they?"
She turned to the guards at the entrance. "Call the police. I want her arrested."
Adrian stepped between us. "Nobody's calling anyone until we review the footage."
For the first time, Vanessa looked genuinely afraid. It lasted half a heartbeat.
"Fine," she said. "Review it."
May you like
She tilted her champagne flute toward the camera above the gold railing. I followed her gaze. Its red recording light had gone dark.
And behind the camera, in the service corridor, stood the man who had threatened my father the night he died.
