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“You think you’re invincible, little thief?” he snarls, voice low and dangerous. “You hack into my system and think I won’t chain your pretty little ass to a wall?”
I look at him. And I meanlook.And for the first time, I don’t see a powerful predator, a monster who eats other monsters for breakfast. I see a control freak standing in the middle of an uncontrollable lightning storm, wondering where the next strike will come from.
“I think if you wanted to send me to jail, you’d have done it already. I think even if I hadn’t agreed to this thirty-day circus, you still wouldn’t have thrown me to the wolves. You’re the only wolf you want touching me.”
That throws him. Just a second. A flicker of something uncertain behind the anger.
“You don’t get to fucking disobey, make demands,” he snaps. “Or change terms.”
“I’m not demanding.” My tone is soft. Even. Dangerous. “I’m asking. Tell me what this is. Ironveil. Vesper. Tell me what my name is doing here. Tell me why it’s buried under five levels of encryption and why the files feel like a graveyard awaiting a reaper’s scythe.”
He says nothing.
I nod once. “That’s what I thought.” I move to close the laptop.
“You’ll know,” he says suddenly. “When the time is right.”
I freeze. My fingers still rest against the trackpad. “And I’m just supposed to trust you?” I ask quietly.
Dante exhales, long and slow, like he’s holding something back. “Yes.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to. But the tightness in his voice—the tremor in his restraint—tells me I’ve seen something I wasn’t meant to.
He steps forward.
I stand, laptop still in hand.
We’re close now, toe-to-toe. Eye to eye.
“You keep secrets, Dante. I keep plans.”
His mouth curves—not a smile. A threat. “Don’t test me, Specter.”
“Too late.”
The stare between us lasts five seconds too long. I feel it in every inch of me. My skin is hot, my stomach tight. The scent of him—leather, smoke, power—invades my lungs. I hate how much I crave it.
So I step back. Not in surrender. In strategy.
“Goodnight, Mr. O’Driscoll.”
He doesn’t answer.
Just watches me walk out of his study like a woman who didn’t just open Pandora’s Box.
The penthouse is quiet.
Too quiet.
Dante hasn’t come to bed tonight. I’m not sure if it’s restraint or punishment. Or both.
I put the plug in as per my training. And fuck if I don’t get myself wet doing it, remembering how thoroughly he fucked me last night, this morning, even in the gallery when he was one level above an automaton.
But I’m not going to let lust derail me.
He said I’d know when the time was right.
The more I think about it, the more I don’t know that I believe him.