Elena Vitiello POV:
"Well done, my Queen."
The heavy oak doors of the conference room clicked shut behind us.
Before I could take another breath, Dante’s hand shot out. His large fingers wrapped around my wrist like a steel vice. He pulled me hard against his chest and dragged me into his private adjacent study.
He kicked the door shut. He reached behind him and twisted the deadbolt. *Click.*
The noise of the headquarters was instantly severed. We were completely isolated.
Dante’s territorial instincts were suffocating. His eyes were completely dilated, black consuming the blue. He didn't want a single man out there looking at me for another second.
He grabbed my waist with both hands. He lifted me off the floor with zero effort.
He set me down hard on the edge of his massive mahogany desk.
Stacks of ledgers and files cascaded off the edge, hitting the thick carpet with heavy thuds. Neither of us cared.
Dante planted his hands on the desk on either side of my hips, trapping me. He leaned in, his chest heaving, his breathing rough and jagged.
"The way you slaughtered them," Dante whispered, his voice a dark, vibrating growl. "The way you looked at them while you ripped their lives apart. It was the most beautiful fucking thing I have ever seen."
I didn't shrink back. The adrenaline from the boardroom was still rushing through my veins.
I reached out and grabbed the lapels of his suit. I pulled him down to me.
Our lips crashed together. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a violent collision of teeth and heat, fueled by the metallic taste of power and absolute control.
Dante groaned into my mouth. His large hand moved up my arm, his rough thumb tracing the band of the pigeon-blood ruby ring on my left hand.
He was feeling his mark. His brand.
My breathing hitched. My chest rose and fell rapidly.
Every wall I had built in that dark Chicago basement, every defensive spike I had grown to survive Luca’s cruelty, crumbled into dust. Dante wasn't trying to cage me; he was handing me the keys to the kingdom.
Dante’s hands moved to my shoulders. He roughly pushed my tailored suit jacket off my arms. It dropped to the floor.
His calloused fingertips dragged down the bare skin of my back, sending a violent shiver down my spine.
The temperature in the study skyrocketed. Behind Dante, the floor-to-ceiling windows displayed the glittering, sprawling Manhattan skyline, a silent witness to our chaos.
My back hit the polished mahogany. The wood was freezing cold against my heated skin. The contrast made me gasp.
I arched up, my fingers desperately gripping the crisp collar of his dress shirt.
"I will kill anyone who stands in your way," Dante murmured against my neck, his lips burning my skin. "I will burn this whole city down if you ask me to."
The pull between us was magnetic, inevitable. It was the ultimate surrender of two apex predators.
Hours later, the adrenaline finally faded into a heavy, intoxicating exhaustion.
Dante picked up his oversized black suit jacket from the floor. He wrapped it tightly around my bare shoulders, cocooning me in his scent of gun oil and expensive cologne.
He lifted me into his arms and carried me to the wide leather sofa in the corner of the study.
He set me down gently. He walked over to the liquor cabinet, poured two fingers of amber whiskey into two crystal glasses, and walked back.
He handed me a glass. Our own private celebration.
I took a sip. The liquid burned a pleasant trail down my throat.
I rested my head against his solid chest. I listened to the steady, rhythmic thud of his heart. For the first time in my entire life, I felt completely, utterly safe.
We fell asleep on the sofa, tangled together, completely unguarded.
The next morning, the bright sunlight pierced through the sheer curtains of the Manor's master bedroom. We had been driven back in the early hours.
I woke up buried under the heavy duvet, wrapped in Dante’s warm embrace. I stretched my legs, my muscles sore but relaxed.
Suddenly, the sharp, violent buzzing of my cell phone shattered the quiet.
I frowned. I reached my arm out from under the covers and grabbed the phone from the nightstand.
The screen displayed a new anonymous email.
I tapped it open.
There was no text in the body of the email. Just an attached image.
I clicked the image. It was a blurry, grainy screenshot from a security camera.
The timestamp in the corner read 2:00 AM. The location tag was a known underground black market in Queens.
In the dark corner of the frame, a woman wearing a heavy hood was handing over a shiny object to a dealer.
Her hood was pulled back just enough to reveal the right side of her face. It was a horrific, twisting mass of burned, melted flesh.
My pupils dilated.
Sofia.
I scrolled down. Below the image, a single line of text finally loaded.
*She came looking for you.*
The warm, safe feeling in my chest vanished instantly. My blood turned to ice, and then immediately boiled over with pure, unadulterated killing intent.
"Death wish."
