Chapter 12: The Grand Balcony
The private elevator dropped us smoothly toward the heart of the Grand Royal, the muffled hum of the string quartet growing louder with every floor. When the brass doors slid open, we didn't step back into the service corridors or the dusty archives. We stepped out onto the wide stone balcony that overlooked the grand ballroom from the southern mezzanine.
From up here, the gala looked like a painting made of gold light, crystal chandeliers, and expensive silk. Hundreds of guests in tuxedos and evening gowns moved in slow, polite circles below, holding crystal flutes of champagne, laughing at jokes that didn't mean anything, and smiling for the cameras that lined the perimeter of the room. In the center of the floor, standing near the dais where the charity's founders usually gave their speeches, was Evelyn Sterling. She wore a silver gown that caught every glint of the chandelier light, her blond hair pinned back in an immaculate twist, looking every bit the untouchable queen of the high-society world.
She didn't know we were there yet. None of them did. To the people down below, the balcony was just architectural decoration—a place for VIPs to catch their breath or look down on the kingdom they owned.
Jax didn't hesitate. He walked straight to the stone balustrade, his heavy leather vest scuffing against the polished granite. He placed both hands on the cool stone, his knuckles scarred and dark against the pale marble, and looked down at the sea of expensive clothes and blank, smiling faces. I stood beside him, resting my chin on the edge of the railing, my hazel eyes scanning the crowd until I found the blonde woman from the rainy night outside—the one who had asked me why I was standing there. She was holding a glass of wine, laughing at something a man in a tuxedo had just whispered in her ear.
"Jax," I whispered softly, tugging at the edge of his sleeve. "She's down there."
"I see her, Toby," Jax said, his voice low, steady, and carrying a quiet resonance that seemed to cut right through the chatter of the room below.
He didn't shout. He didn't bang his fists against the stone. But he reached into his inner pocket, pulled out the faded photograph—the one showing a young, long-haired biker holding an eight-pound baby wrapped in a flannel blanket—and held it up against the light of the chandeliers.
The movement was slow, deliberate, and entirely unmissable from the lower level. A few guests near the front of the dais noticed the tall, bearded man in the leather vest leaning over the mezzanine railing. A ripple of confusion passed through the front rows. Heads turned. Conversations began to taper off, the polite hum of the ballroom dying down like a radio being slowly turned knob by knob.
May you like
Evelyn Sterling stopped mid-sentence, her champagne glass halfway to her mouth. She turned her head slowly toward the staircase, then upward toward the balcony. When her eyes locked onto Jax standing there in the amber light, the color drained completely from her face, leaving her looking as pale and fragile as porcelain.
The string quartet tried to keep playing for another two bars before the first violinist noticed the silence spreading outward from the center of the room. Then, the music simply stopped, leaving the Grand Royal ballroom in a heavy, breathless hush that you could have cut with a knife. Every eye in the room was fixed on the balcony, waiting to see which ghost had finally come back to claim the floor.
