Page 164 of Brutal Heir

She swatted at my hand, laughing, and for a moment, the tension between us shifted, softening.

But beneath the lighthearted exchange, something simmered.

Something deeper.

As we fell into a comfortable silence, I watched her.

She was still mad. Still hurt.

But she was here.

And for tonight, that was enough.

But I knew better than to believe in peace.

This was only a lull in the storm, a fragile moment held together by the warmth of food and wine, by the illusion of normalcy.

Because no matter how much I wanted to keep her here, safe and tucked away in my world, the truth was that danger had already found her.

Because of me.

The judge now knew of her existence.

This had been my plan all along. My carefully constructed revenge, my way of luring the bastard out into the open. She was the perfect pawn, the unknown daughter, the weakness he never saw coming.

And I had used her without hesitation.

Until now.

Because now I wanted her in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Now the thought of handing her over to fate—to the chaos I had orchestrated—unsettled me in a way nothing else ever had.

The judge would come for her.

He’d see her as a liability, something to be discarded like all the others who had outlived their usefulness.

Whether I admitted it or not, I was the reason she was in danger.

And if I couldn’t protect her, it wouldn’t be the judge who destroyed her.

It would be me.

CHAPTER 44

SABRINA

It was strange to think that eating pasta felt more intimately dangerous than sex with Sebastian.

Last night had been more of a mistake than the night before.

It made me see him as…human.

As almost…boyfriend-like.

Terrifying.

I became more determined than ever to focus on my job and on getting an apartment for my few remaining months in Italy.

So I was sitting in my office, sorting through the various email replies I’d received from the independent designers I’d approached for my first fashion shoot with the new lab-created diamond line.