Her lips parted, trembling, and I saw it, the fracture inside her. Disgust, grief, and something darker curling into it. She wanted to hate me, but she couldn't. Not completely.
Dimitri returned to my side with a phone in his hand, and his voice was low. "We traced part of it, but it's not enough. They're using layered servers. But boss–"
"What?" I demanded.
He held the device, and headlines screamed across the screen. Syndicate names, photos of men, bank accounts, mysignature. Every secret dragged into daylight. Social feeds are exploding, the files mirrored across networks faster than anyone could kill them.
Emilia's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my God."
I crushed the phone in my palm until the glass cracked. "Romano thinks hallucination is a weapon." My voice was ice. "He's wrong. It's a death warrant."
I turned to my men. "Every channel burned, every trace followed. Find the mole, and when you do... bring me his head."
"Yes, boss," came the chorus.
The room spun back into motion, and phones rang, maps shifting, the hum of war.
But all I saw was her, Emilia. She was standing there shaking, but refusing to back down.
I went to her again, catching her chin between my fingers and forcing her to see me. "Don't cry for them," I said.
Her voice was a whisper. "You want me to be stone."
"I want you to be mine," I growled. "That means no tears for them. They don't deserve it."
Her chest rose fast. "And what if I can't do that? What if I can't be what you want?"
"You already are."
Her breath hitched. "You're insane."
"Maybe," I admitted. "Buy you're still in my arms, Emilia. And you will be until I decide otherwise."
The room pulsed around us, men moving like shadows. But between us, there was only silence. Her eyes closed, and a tear slipped free despite my command. And yet, her voice was steady when she whispered, "I'm still here."
Chapter Eleven
Emilia’s POV.
“Oh, I don’t mean you have to bring it right now,” I pointed out, laughing.
“It’s no trouble. Ketchup shouldn’t stand in the way of you enjoying your food,” Mina insisted, shaking her head as she rushed towards the door.
Giving up, I sighed as she disappeared out the door.
I sank back into the couch, rolling my low ponytail up as I rested my head against the cool leather.
My mind drifted to the subject that invaded me whenever I had two seconds to myself: Viktor.
Our union seemed to start meaning more since Monday. I felt tantalizing tingles as I looked toward the bed with clear memories of us making love.
I chuckled despite myself when I remembered him telling me just a few days ago that I would soon be ready, and I’d lashed out, telling him I wouldn’t ever be ready.
But it would be a blatant lie if I said he hadn’t been opening things up in me before that long night.
It probably had something to do with our proximity, being in the same room and all. It became inevitable for me to see how human he was beneath the macho man exterior he wore so perfectly. It was all out there for me to see: the way he frowned when he got not-so-good news, the way he clenched his teeth whenever he was trying to hold back from saying something, and how he took his time in the bathroom at night but never took long in the morning. I couldn’t unsee how handsome and manly he looked in and out of his custom-made Armani suits. However, not even these little observations were sufficient to explain this… tenderness I felt toward him.
His unexpected spurts of kindness and care had to be the major culprit. The people (namely Karen, the cook back at my parents’ house, and Hans, the doorman at my apartment) who said I was the type that bloomed under kindness, like a flower, were right. Without a doubt, I still hadn’t gotten over my surprise at his restraint when I explicitly asked him to have sex with me, being his forcefully wedded wife. It was a clear contrast to the lack of control typical of men like the guy I dated in college.
