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So I tug my hanky from my pocket. Wipe it off. Then I kiss her throat.
And whisper: “Tomorrow, you’ll start earning your way out.”
Dahlia
Dante doesn’t letme sleep in.
He wakes me before dawn with a command in my collar—turns out it’s electronic, the bastard—and a single word vibrating through the device like silk-wrapped steel.
“Up.”
I jerk awake, disoriented and aching in places I shouldn’t be.
By the time I stumble out of bed and find the oversized walk-in closet, he’s already laid out what I’m supposed to wear.
Black pants. Slim, tight. A sleeveless blouse in sheer ivory silk with nothing to hide under it. No bra. No underwear. Just my skin and the cool air and the weight of his gaze when I step into the main room, trying not to cross my arms over my chest like a self-conscious coward.
He doesn’t comment.
But his jaw tightens. His eyes drop to my nipples, hard and visible through the fabric, and somethinghungry and savageglints in his gaze before it disappears behind that smooth, terrifying composure.
“This is day one,” he says. “Today, you learn how we work.”
We.
It’s the first time he’s spoken as if I’m not just a possession. As if I mightmatterto his goals.
But I don’t let myself feel anything like pride. Not with the way he stares at me. Not with the way he taps the tablet in his hand and displays the blueprint of the building we’ll be targeting. Rathe Tower. Obsidian Corp’s crown jewel.
“A test run on my building. You’ll get limited access,” he says. “Enough to set up the electronic scaffolding. No direct taps yet. No extraction. I want to see how you move. How you improvise.”
“And if I don’t play nice?”
He looks up, slow and deliberate, charcoal-gray eyes burning with something cold and deadly. “Then I teach you obedience. Again.”
My body flares with a memory—his fingers, his voice, the wicked precision of his denial. I flush. He sees it.Of coursehe sees it.
His mouth curves, and then he nods toward the worktable.
“Start here. Crack the gatekeeper protocol.”
I lean in. “Blind? No salt strings? No decoys?”
He tilts his head. “Did I stutter, Specter?”
Heat licks my spine. I want to fly at him, rip him apart with nails and words, but it’s been over a day since I was properly online, and dammit, I’ve got withdrawal symptoms in the worst way. And I have a feeling he knowsthattoo.
I move to the terminal, hands already dancing over keys, diving deep into encrypted net-structures. And I feel it the moment I brush the ghost of a backdoor—custom coded, tangled in his fingerprints.
Hewantsme to see it. Just enough to bait me.
My jaw clenches. I don’t take the bait.
Yet.
Over the next three days,Dante pushes me hard.
There’s no rhythm, no comfort zone. One minute, we’re side by side parsing security strings and brute-forcing obsolete defenses.