Page 65 of The Kingpin’s Bride

He finally lifted his head.

My nipples were wet, tight, and throbbing. The cream made them glisten under the morning light. I could barely stand the feeling of air on them. He looked down at what he had done with open satisfaction, the same dark pleasure he had worn while he watched me lick his release from the marble floor two nights ago. “Good girl.”

The words settled under my skin the same way the cream had. Slow. Impossible to ignore.

He dressed me carefully, guiding my arms into the sleeves and drawing the fabric down over my breasts with deliberate slowness. The moment the soft (still always white) material brushed my oversensitive nipples.

I bit down on another sound. Every shift of the fabric felt like a deliberate reminder of what he had just forced from me. He watched my face while he adjusted the top and made no effort to hide how much the reaction pleased him. Then he helped me step into the white tennis skirt and drew it up my legs until the waistband sat soft against my skin.

“You will feel that all day,” he said. His voice was quiet and absolute. “Every time the fabric moves. Every time you breathe. You do not try to ease it. The next time you come it will be because I decide you have earned it. You got that, right?”

“Yes.”

He left me standing in the middle of the bedroom, nipples throbbing against the soft white fabric, the empty ache between my legs sharp and insistent.

I remember I could now freely walk the penthouse. I just could not leave, could not call anyone, and could not forget the way he had made me come twice from nothing but his mouth on my breasts…

I spent the next hour moving through the space like a guest in someone else’s life. The need between my legs did not fade.

The cream on my nipples kept every brush of fabric electric. The cream between my legs kept me wet and restless and empty. I pressed my thighs together in the kitchen while I drank a glass of water and immediately stopped when the pressure only made the ache worse. I was throbbing when Matteo returned from the long table under the windows where he had been making quiet calls for the better part of an hour.

I asked the question carefully, eyes on the floor because looking at him while I said her name felt like handing him another piece of myself I could not afford to lose. “Has there been any real news?”

He looked at me for a moment too long. The pause was small. Almost nothing. But I had spent years reading the micro-expressions of men who held power over me. Something in his eyes flattened for half a second before the cold mask settled again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The words were smooth. Controlled. Practiced. “I don’t have anything new to tell you, but I swear I’m doing my best.”

I nodded. I was too afraid of what would happen if I pushed. He studied my face for another second as if checking whether the answer had landed cleanly. Then he turned and walked back toward the hallway, pulling his phone from his pocket.

I waited until his voice moved far enough down the corridor that the words became muffled. Then I followed.

My bare feet made no sound on the marble. The soft white fabric of the top brushed over my throbbing nipples with every careful step, sending fresh sparks of heat through my chest and down to the empty place between my legs.

I stopped at the corner where the hallway opened into his own sleeping space and pressed my shoulder against the wall. From here I could hear him clearly without being seen.

His voice was low. Clipped. The same flat tone he used when giving orders that ended lives. “Say that again.”

A pause. The faint sound of the voice on the other end of the line, too distant for me to make out the words.

“Both of them,” Matteo said. “Dario and the child.”

Another pause. Longer this time. I heard the soft click of him pacing. “I gave you every address. Every planted man. Every name connected to the photographs. And you are standing there telling me they vanished into thin air between one night and the next.”

The voice on the other end spoke again. Whatever it said made Matteo’s next words come out colder. “No. You do not get to tell me it is impossible. You get to find them. Expand the radius. Pull every camera within fifty miles of that airstrip. Lean on the operators who move people for men like Dario. I want names. I want locations. I want the child breathing, back home where she belongs. And I want Dario Rizzo alive long enough to understand exactly how much pain a body can hold before it stops being useful.”

Silence stretched. My pulse hammered against the collar so hard I was certain he would hear it.

“I do not care how clean the extraction has to be,” Matteo said. “I care about results. The girl is four years old. She has been used as leverage for months. Every day she stays missing is another day the woman in my penthouse looks at me and wonders whether I am capable of keeping the only promise that matters to her. Find them. Or I will replace every one of you with someone who can.”

He ended the call.

Iwoke up tasting metal. The penthouse was quiet in the way it only got when Matteo was already on the other side of the door, killing something with his voice. Coffee had been left on the nightstand. The smell hit me like a hand over my mouth. I made it to the bathroom on bare feet and dry-heaved into the sink until my eyes watered.

I stayed there with my forehead against the marble and waited for it to pass.

It did not feel like last night. Last night had been cream and his mouth and the politician’s blood still sitting behind my eyes. This was different. Deeper. Like my body had decided something and had not bothered to ask me.

I counted backward because that was the only math I still trusted.