“You cost me a lot of money tonight, Lex,” she said, her voice a low, smooth whiskey. She tapped a manicured nail against the tablet in her hand. “The Miami portfolio. Gone.”

The rain stopped. The neon sign flickered once, then held steady. The war had just begun.

“Clipped my wings,” she whispered to the empty room. “Darling. I was never the angel. I was the fall.”

He turned his back on her—the ultimate disrespect—and walked toward the door.

She walked toward him, slow, deliberate. The silk of her dress whispered against her thighs. She stopped inches away, close enough that he could smell her perfume—jasmine and something metallic, like ozone before a lightning strike.