My ex asked who could ever love a woman like me in front of a full restaurant, right before the city's most feared man kissed me in front of everyone.

The night air was crisp, carrying the sharp scent of oncoming rain, but the pavement beneath my shoes felt unsteady. The screen in the bodyguard’s hand illuminated his grim expression, casting a sickly blue glare across the sidewalk. I didn't need to look closely at the device to know what it contained. A dozen patrons inside the restaurant had their phones raised the second Tyler opened his loud, cruel mouth, and every single lens had caught Vincent DeLuca stepping into the frame.

"Sir, it was posted three minutes ago on a local gossip feed," the guard stated, his voice low and tight. "It already has over fifty thousand shares. The caption calls it 'The Don’s Waitress.'"

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Fifty thousand?" I choked out. "My face is on the internet with fifty thousand people laughing at me?"

"No one is laughing, Emily," Vincent said softly. His voice cut through the buzzing panic in my ears, remarkably steady for a man whose covert private life had just been detonated into the public eye.

"You don't know the internet," I countered, wrapping my arms tightly around my waist, desperately trying to shrink myself beneath my shapeless polyester uniform. "They tore me apart when Tyler dumped me on social media six months ago. Now I'm linked to you? They’re going to dissect every pound of me, call me a charity case, make me into a national meme!"

The car door swung open. A second guard stood at attention, watching the perimeter with sharp, restless eyes.

"Get in," Vincent said. It wasn’t a command laced with cruelty, but it held the immovable weight of iron.

"I'm not getting in a car with you," I protested, stepping back toward the diner entrance. "I have a shift to finish. I have tables to bus, and—"

"Your shift ended the moment I laid my hands on you," Vincent interrupted, taking a single step closer. The sheer size of him, broad-shouldered and towering, blocked out the streetlights behind him. "If you go back inside, you will be swarmed. If you walk home to your apartment, reporters will be waiting on your stoop by midnight. You do not understand the machine that has just been set in motion."

Before I could reply, the diner's glass door flew open. Tyler stormed out, his expensive leather jacket hanging loose, his face flushed scarlet with alcohol and wounded pride.

"DeLuca!" Tyler yelled, foolishly ignoring the immediate shifting of two armed guards who reached beneath their tailored jackets. "You think you can just embarrass me in there? You think taking my sloppy seconds makes you a big man?"

The world seemed to pause. The silence that followed Tyler's outburst was far more terrifying than the shouting had been.

Vincent did not raise his voice. He didn't even draw a breath of hesitation. He turned his head slowly, looking at Tyler with an expression so cold, so devoid of human empathy, that Tyler’s momentum stopped dead on the concrete.

"Walk away," Vincent whispered. The volume was barely louder than a rustle of leaves, but Tyler physically recoiled. "If I hear your voice again tonight, you will lose the tongue you used to speak it."

Tyler opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Pale and sweating, he stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the curb, before spinning around and hurrying down the avenue like a frightened dog.

Vincent turned back to me, the chilling frost in his eyes melting into something unfathomably patient. "Emily. Get in the car. Please."