Dante's hand tightened on my waist, and I knew he felt it too—this fierce, terrifying love that transcended possession or control.
"Together," I whispered.
"Always," he answered.
The city glittered below us, ours to command.
And we were just beginning.
EPILOGUE
Dante
Seven months later.
I stand on the private balcony of The Apex, bourbon in hand, watching the city pulse beneath a midnight sky. The skyline glitters—glass and steel monuments to ambition, desperation, and the brutal machinery of survival. My casinos. My warehouses. My streets.
But the power doesn't hum from the concrete or the neon. It hums from the woman moving through the high-roller room three floors below.
Through the one-way glass, I watch Julietta cross the casino floor, her emerald silk dress clinging to curves that pregnancy has softened and enhanced. Eight months along, and she still commands a room like a general surveying conquered territory.
A little over a year ago, she was Lorenzo Altieri's unwanted daughter. A pawn destined for slaughter disguised as marriage.
Now she's a queen.
Men who once questioned her authority now step aside when she approaches. The pit boss straightens his spine. A dealer fumbles his shuffle. Viktor materializes at her elbow, listening intently as she points toward the security station.
She was never meant to fade into the background. I see that now. She was always destined to rule—she just needed someone ruthless enough to hand her the crown.
Or maybe I needed someone fierce enough to take it.
I drain the bourbon and set the glass on the marble ledge. The burn in my throat does nothing to quiet the possessive hunger that's only grown sharper over the past twelve months.
Julietta glances up, as if she can feel my gaze through three floors and reinforced glass. Her hand settles on the swell of her stomach, and even from this distance, I see the small smile that curves her lips.
Mine.
The word echoes in my chest, primal and undeniable. She's mine. The child is mine. The empire we've built together—ruthless and brilliant and unstoppable—is ours.
I move toward the elevator.
The casino floor is controlled chaos. Chips click against felt. Slot machines chime their mechanical promises. Cigarette smoke curls toward the vaulted ceiling where crystal chandeliers throw fractured light across polished surfaces.
Nobody looks at me directly. Eyes slide away. Conversations pause. The path clears before I've taken three steps.
But they watch her.
Julietta stands near the baccarat tables, reviewing something on Viktor's tablet. Her auburn hair is swept back in an elegant twist that exposes the line of her throat. Diamonds glitter at her ears—the pair I'd given her after we'd absorbed the last of Lorenzo's holdings.
She doesn't wear her power. She embodies it.
A dealer shifts his weight nervously as Julietta studies the screen. She taps a column of numbers, says something too quiet for me to hear. Viktor nods, his expression carved from granite, and gestures toward the cashier cages.
She built this efficiency. Restructured the entire security protocol, identified weak points in our money flow, turned three marginal operations into profit centers. The empire grew eighteen percent in the first quarter after Lorenzo's death. Twenty-two percent in the second.
Now we don't just control the underground. We own pieces of the legitimate world too—real estate portfolios, tech investments, shipping companies with documentation so clean they could survive federal audits.
And she orchestrated most of it while growing our child.
