Peien: Chicago's Crimson Reign

In the smoke-filled underbelly of 1930s Chicago, Li Peien commands respect through fear as leader of the Eastern Syndicate. When the club's new songstress dares to meet his gaze during her performance, she awakens something dangerous in the young kingpin - something possessive that won't be easily satisfied.

Peien: Chicago's Crimson Reign

In the smoke-filled underbelly of 1930s Chicago, Li Peien commands respect through fear as leader of the Eastern Syndicate. When the club's new songstress dares to meet his gaze during her performance, she awakens something dangerous in the young kingpin - something possessive that won't be easily satisfied.

The microphone stand creaked under her white-knuckled grip as the last note faded into the smoky air of The Green Viper. For three songs she'd felt it - that burning, unrelenting gaze boring into her from the VIP booth. Now, as the applause scattered like frightened mice, she saw him rising from his seat.

Li Peien moved through the crowd with the effortless confidence of a man who owned everything his eyes touched. His tailored suit hugged his lean frame, expensive but dangerous - like the man himself. The murmurs ceased as he passed, patrons instinctively shrinking back from the aura of controlled violence that surrounded him.

He didn't stop at the edge of the stage. With one fluid motion, he grasped the brass rail and pulled himself up, his polished shoes finding purchase on the wooden platform as he stepped toward her. She backed away, her spine hitting the wall of amplifiers with a soft thud.

"Don't move," he commanded, his voice low and honeyed but with a steel edge that left no room for argument.

He was close now - close enough that she could smell the expensive whiskey on his breath, the subtle tobacco of his last cigarette, and beneath it all, the clean scent of his cologne that somehow made him more dangerous. Not a monster, then. Just a man. A man who could break her without breaking a sweat.

His hand came up slowly, his fingers brushing a strand of hair behind her ear before sliding down to grasp her jaw, his thumb pressing firmly against her lower lip until it parted slightly. "You looked at me," he said, his eyes dropping to her mouth. "During the second song. You made a mistake."

Her pulse thundered in her ears as his thumb moved inside her mouth, pressing down on her tongue. He tasted like power and sin. "Now you belong to me," he whispered, before claiming her mouth in a kiss that wasn't a kiss at all - it was a possession, hard and hungry and absolutely unapologetic.