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No. Fuck no.
I take another sip and set the glass down harder than I mean to.
Because I can’t stop thinking about the other thing that has me riled.  The revelation out on the terrace. The othersomeone. My sister.
Rina.
About the last time I let someone inside.
It’s been six years.
Six long, brutal years since she died. Since the Vesper Syndicate carved a warning into her body and left it on my doorstep like a gift wrapped in horror. She was nineteen. Bright. Reckless. Full of fire and code and stupid, stupid hope.
She’d gotten too close to something she didn’t understand.
Just likeher.
Just like Dahlia.
Except Dahlia understands everything. She’s smart in ways that scare me. Clever in ways I didn’t prepare for. She walks into rooms she knows are traps and still dares you to spring them.
And when she kneels… when she obeys… when she opens her thighs with trembling pride?—
It fuckingundoesme.
Even suspecting she’s faking half of it. I know she’s playing a long game. She’s a thief, a manipulator. She’s lied to every face she’s ever shown the world, and I’d be an idiot to think I’m any different.
But the other half?
The part that looks at me like I’m more than a monster? Like she could consider trusting me with her goals and her needs and her surrender?
I want to believe it. God help me, I do believe it.
I sit on the bench across from the bed and just…watch. One arm slung over the backrest. Drink in hand. My chest still heaving like I just came inside her all over again.
I should hate her.
She breached Obsidian’s firewalls. She touchedthatfolder. She got too close to Ironveil—again. I should be punishing her, not laying her down like she’s mine. Watching her like she’s a fucking oracle.
But sheismine. For the next twenty-something days.
That thought hits me like a bullet. No blood, just impact.
She’s mine in a way that makes my skin feel too tight.
Mine in a way I never allowed anyone to be after Rina.
Because Rina believed in people.
I stopped. Went dark. Obsidian black.
I’ve spent the last six years destroying the men who took her from me. One by one. Patiently. Brutally. I dismantled the Vesper Syndicate until their name was a whisper in the dark. But ghosts still haunt and harm.
And now?
Now I’m teaching the one piece of collateral they never accounted for how to wear a plug and beg for my cock like it’s her salvation.
Because that’s what Dahlia is.