"What is it?" I ask, moving closer.
"Stay there," he orders, but I'm already at his side, looking at the message.
It's from an unknown number: "Check your mail. We need to discuss Frances. Or should I say Emma?"
My blood turns to ice. The name hits me hard, making my knees weak. Alessandro catches me, pressing me back against his desk, his body caging mine.
"How?" I whisper. "How do they know?"
"Doesn't matter." His voice is deadly calm, but I feel the tension thrumming through him. "I'll fix it."
A knock at the door interrupts us. "Package for you, Mr.Rosetti," Maria calls through the door, her familiar voice steady but concerned. "Courier said it was urgent. Left it with security."
Alessandro retrieves the package, a manila envelope with no return address. His movements are controlled, but I see the slight tremor in his hands as he opens it. Photos spill out onto the mahogany surface, and my world tilts.
There I am. Emma Pitt, servant girl, scrubbing the Hewson's floors. Another photo of me in my servant's uniform, head down, trying to be invisible. And worst of all, a photo of me fromTommy's sentencing day, standing outside the courthouse, tears streaming down my face as they led him away in shackles.
"Oh God," I breathe, my hand flying to my mouth.
Alessandro studies each photo with cold precision before sliding them into his safe. When he turns back to me, his expression is carved from stone.
"Stellina," he says, crossing to where I stand frozen. "We have a problem. Someone knows exactly who you really are."
The words hit me hard, but before I can even process them, Alessandro's fist slams into the mahogany desk with enough force to crack the wood. The violence of it makes me jump, but then he's pulling me against him roughly, and I feel he's still hard from our interrupted encounter in the shooting range, his cock pressing insistently against my stomach.
"No one," he growls, his hand tangling in my hair to pull my head back, forcing me to meet his dangerous gaze, "takes you from me. Not the Hewsons, not my family, not God himself."
His mouth crashes into mine with bruising force, teeth and tongue claiming me even as danger circles us. I taste blood, mine or his, I don't know, and the metallic tang only makes me kiss him harder. My body, still primed from earlier, responds instantly, melting against him despite the terror coursing through my veins.
When he pulls back, his eyes are pure murder and pure want combined, green fire that promises violence and pleasure in equal measure.
"We're going to find whoever sent these, stellina. But first," his hand slides down to cup me through my jeans, finding me still wet, still aching from our unfinished business, "I'm going to finish what we started downstairs. Because if the world's ending, you're going to be screaming my name when it does."
His fingers press harder against me through the denim, and I can't help the moan that escapes. The danger, his possessivefury, the promise of violence all combines into something dark and irresistible that makes my pussy clench with need.
"Alex," I gasp against his mouth. "What if they tell everyone? What if…"
"Let them," he snarls, backing me against the desk until I'm sitting on its surface, photos from the blackmailer scattered beneath me. "Let the whole fucking world know that Emma Pitt belongs to Alessandro Rosetti. That I chose you, claimed you, and will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me."
His hands are already working at my jeans, and I lift my hips to help him, beyond caring about danger or consequences. All that matters is his hands on me, his cock inside me, this proof that whatever comes next, we face it together.
"Mine," he growls as he spreads my legs. "No matter what name you wear, what truth they expose, you're mine, Emma. And I protect what's mine."
The sound of my real name on his lips while his fingers find my clit makes me cry out, pleasure and fear and belonging all tangled together in a perfect storm of sensation. He thrusts inside me, and I throw back my head and scream.
21 - Alessandro
Tonight, I finally snapped.
My white shirt is painted with arterial spray from tonight's work, but I still haven't traced the fucking blackmailer.
I stand over the surveillance photos spread across my mahogany desk. My knuckles throb, split open from persuasion that got me nowhere. The compound feels different at two thirty in the morning. Every door sealed with electronic locks, their red lights pulsing like wounds. The usual nighttime sounds, guards joking, kitchen staff prepping breakfast, replaced by tactical whispers and chambering rounds.
The photos tell a story I'm only beginning to understand. Each one shows different angles of the Rosetti compound, but there's something specific about them I can't quite pinpoint.
My phone sits silent on the desk, waiting for the next call. The blackmailer's escalating. First just threats, then demands, now promises of exposure that would destroy everything I've built with Emma. Guards doubled at every entrance, but someone got close enough to photograph us. Someone who knew exactly where to look.
Distant gunshots echo from the warehouse district. My men handling tonight's latest target. The sound barely registers anymore, just background music to the symphony of violence that's become my life since those photos arrived. Three bodies tonight alone, and still no closer to the truth.
