"You own me," I remind him. "Let them look. They can't touch."
He turns in my arms. He sets the glass down.
"Take it off," he says.
"The dress?"
"Everything."
I reach back and unzip the dress. It falls to the floor. I step out of it.
I am naked, save for the diamonds around my neck and the platinum tracker on my ankle.
Silas looks at me. His gaze is heavy, tactile.
"Beautiful," he murmurs.
He picks me up and carries me to the bedroom. He throws me onto the bed—the massive bed that sits in the center of the room like an altar.
He looms over me, stripping off his jacket, his tie, his shirt.
I watch him. I watch the muscles ripple under his skin. I watch the scars.
I think about Kane. I think about the threat. I think about the secret I’m keeping.
It turns me on. The danger is an aphrodisiac.
"Silas," I whisper.
"What?"
"Make me forget," I say, echoing the words from the bunker. "Make me forget everything but you."
He crawls onto the bed. He pins my wrists above my head with one hand.
"I will be the only thing in your world," he vows.
He kisses me. It is deep, claiming.
But as he moves down my body, as his mouth finds my breast, my mind drifts back to the business card hidden in my dress in the laundry hamper.
Detective Thomas Kane.
Silas thinks he is the only danger in my life.
He’s wrong.
And I can't wait to play.
CHAPTER 28
THE PULSE OF TREASON
POV: SILAS
Trust is a fragile architecture. You build it brick by brick, layer by layer, sealing it with blood and shared violence. But one crack in the foundation—one single, hairline fracture—and the whole tower threatens to come down.
I am sitting in the boardroom of Vane Enterprises, fifty floors above the city I conquered. Ten men in expensive suits are talking about logistical supply chains and quarterly projections.
