And I feel it coming like the moment before a confession turns into a threat.
I break first.
“What the hell did you mean,” I say, voice low, barely controlled, “when you said you came to take something back?”
Her eyes spark.
Not with fear.
With victory.
She steps closer—one measured step, deliberate as a blade sliding deeper between ribs. My heartbeat stutters, then spikes, reacting before logic can catch up. She rises onto her toes with the grace of someone who knows exactly how to breach a man’s defenses.
Before I can retreat, her mouth nears my jaw.
Not touching.
Hovering.
Her breath drags across my skin, slow and warm, and it knocks the air straight out of me. My fingers curl at my sides,every nerve standing on edge, every instinct trying—and failing—to reassert control.
Then her whisper comes.
A whisper meant only for me.
“Your father hid things in this church. Dark things. Things I intend to find.”
My world stops.
My pulse slams against my throat. My body locks so hard I feel the strain in every tendon. The surrounding church—the flickering candles, the moaning storm, the cold stone—disappears.
There is only her voice, and the truth she should not fucking know.
No one outside the family knows this.
Not the priests.
Not Giovanni’s men.
Not the enemies who hunted him.
Not even the cops, who spent a decade trying to bury the Rivas name.
No one.
Until her.
My hand snaps out before I think—fast, fierce, instinctive. My fingers close around her wrist. Easy enough to hurt, but hard enough to warn.
“Who told you that?” The words rip out of me, gravel and fire. “Who the hell gave you that kind of information?”
She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t pull back.
She doesn’t even blink.
She watches my grip instead. She sees the tension in my forearm. She sees my tightened breath. She sees the fracture in my composure. Her expression changes subtly, intrigued, almost hungry.
