I pull the midnight-black silk robe from the foot of the bed and wrap it tightly around my bare body, knotting the sash at my waist. I need water. More than that, I need to know what happens now. Last night, in the dark, his possessiveness felt like a shield. In the cold light of day, the reality of being held captive by the head of a crime syndicate presses down on my chest like an anvil.
I walk to the bedroom door and press my hand against the heavy oak. I expect it to be locked. When the brass knob turns smoothly in my grip, a small jolt of surprise runs through my arm. A test? A calculated privilege?
I pull the door open and step out into the long, vaulted hallway of the brownstone. The air out here is different—colder, carrying the faint metallic tang of gun oil beneath the rich aroma of dark roast espresso. The hardwood floors are chilled against my bare feet. I move silently, following the low murmur of voices echoing up from the grand staircase.
As I descend, the voices become clearer. I recognize the deep, gravelly rumble of Dominic's voice, absolute and unyielding, contrasting with the louder, more volatile tone of Fabio, his towering brother.
I reach the landing and press my back against the cold plaster wall, just out of sight of the massive open-concept kitchen and dining area that the Costa men have clearly repurposed as a war room.
"They burned her shop, Dom." Fabio's voice is raw, stripped of any tactical polish, the harsh scrape of a whetstone against acombat knife punctuating every word. Even in the middle of a mafia war, the aggressive giant is apparently tending to his steel. "Petal and Stem. Down to the foundation. There is nothing left but ash and melted glass. They've had eyes on L'Ombra long enough to make her the moment she pulled into that alley—this wasn't some overnight miracle. This was weeks of patience, and they've been waiting for exactly this kind of opening."
"Let them celebrate," Dominic's voice is ice. "The Bellantis can waste their matches on empty buildings. It means nothing."
My lungs tighten.Matches? Empty buildings?
"It means they had a man watching that restaurant before she ever walked through the door," Fabio argues, the scraping stopping. "Vincenzo was still scrubbing her records when they hit. They had her plates, her name, her lease—all of it—before he could finish the erasure. It was a race, Dom, and we missed our window by twenty minutes. If they find out you have her secured in this house?—"
"They won't," Dominic cuts him off, the sheer lethal force of his authority vibrating through the floorboards. "Sweep the ashes. Pay off the arson investigators. Have it officially listed as an electrical fault. I'll buy the entire lot by midnight through the Ghost Fund. I want the wreckage bulldozed before the sun comes up."
"She's going to find out, Dom."
"She won't," Dominic says, his tone vibrating with that obsessive, possessive edge I've come to fear as much as I crave. "The shop is irrelevant. She is here. She is safe. That is the only variable on the board that matters."
A cold, sickening dread drops like a stone in my stomach.
Burned to the foundation.
My shop. My grandmother's antique wooden counters. The back room where I spent hours carefully cross-breeding peonies. The photo of my mother taped to the register. The independence I had starved and bled and scraped together for six years. Gone. Reduced to ash by a syndicate of murderers, simply because I delivered flowers to the wrong restaurant and this silver-templed monster decided to claim me.
And he wasn't even going to tell me. He was going to bulldoze the ashes and buy the dirt, erasing my past the same way he stripped off my clothes.
I don't think. I just step out from behind the wall and walk into the massive kitchen.
Fabio sees me first. The giant of a man freezes, his massive hand still gripping the handle of a combat knife, standing over the whetstone on the counter. Matteo is at the far end of the kitchen. I almost miss him—he is the kind of still that does not announce itself, the kind you walk past three times before your eyes finally register the shape. He is holding a coffee cup with both hands. Not drinking from it. Just holding it. His eyes are on the empty chair at the head of the long table—the one nobody sits in—and then, as if he felt me notice, he looks away. Very deliberately. His thumb moves once across the handle of the cup. Then he sets it down on the counter and turns to face the window, and his expression is exactly nothing, and I do not know why that is the most unsettling thing I have seen since I walked into this compound.
His dark eyes dart to Dominic.
Dominic turns. He is fully dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit, no tie, the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt undone. The silver at his temples catches the harsh overhead lighting. The moment his dark, predatory eyes lock onto me, the cold, calculating mafia Don vanishes. His pupils expand, swallowing the irises. His posture shifts, instantly re-orienting his massive frame toward me, drawn by that sick, biological magnetism that tethers us.
He takes a step forward, his gaze raking over the black silk wrapped around my body, cataloging the flushed skin of my neck, the bare line of my legs.
"Sienna," he says, his voice dropping an octave, softening into a heavy, possessive caress. "You should be in bed. You need to rest."
"You lied to me," my voice shakes. It's barely a whisper, but in the echoing silence of the war room, it sounds like a gunshot.
Dominic stops. The hard lines of his face lock into absolute immobility. He gives Fabio a sharp, subtle tilt of his head.
"I'll be in the armory," Fabio mutters, wiping the blade on a towel and walking out, the heavy thud of his boots fading down a secondary hallway.
We are alone.
Dominic closes the distance between us with smooth, unhurried strides. I want to back away, but my bare feet are rooted to the floor. The sheer, overwhelming physical mass of him eclipses the room. He stops just inches from me, radiating heat and dominance. He reaches out, his large, calloused hand curving over the side of my neck, his thumb brushing against my jaw.
The touch sends a treacherous, liquid heat straight to my pussy. My body recognizes its master, betraying my fury in a heartbeat. I jerk my head away from his hand, stepping back.
His eyes darken, a flash of pure, unadulterated warning flashing in his gaze. He doesn't like the distance, and he sure as hell doesn't like the rejection.
"You claimed you paid the rent for five years," I say, my voice rising, the absolute devastation of my reality clawing up my throat. "You said you secured my clients. You told me my life was waiting for me out there, even if I couldn't go back to it right now."
