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Dante
Maybe I shouldn’t have doneit. Not like that. Not when I knew it wasn’t just about pleasure anymore. Not when she let me inside her in more ways than one. And yet, I couldn’t stop. Because when she whisperedI trust you, she didn’t just give me power. It felt like she gave me her heart.
Wishful thinking? Fuck it. I’m not strong enough to pretend I don’t want it.
I undo the cuffs gently.
She blinks up at me, dazed and spent, her thighs still trembling, lips swollen from kisses and begging. Her pussy the deep, satisfying pink flag I’ve accepted with every jagged edge of my black soul. I lift her into my arms and carry her to the bed like she’s breakable.
Because she is. BecauseI am.
She curls into me, arms around my waist, her cheek against my chest.
“Did I please you, Sir?” she asks sleepily. I don’t answer. I press my mouth to her forehead instead. Because what I want to say isYou own me.
And that’s the one truth I can’t afford to speak.
Not when the thirty days are almost up.
Not when I know the moment I love her out loud… is the moment I lose her forever.
Dahlia
This is it.
The moment we’ve been building toward since the first crackle of electricity between us. Since that first challenge, that first kiss, that first war waged across the sheets.
I’m crouched behind a velvet panel in the upper lounge of The Gilded Cage—the Vesper Syndicate’s playground—surrounded by shadows and luxury and secrets carved into the goddamn architecture.
But I’m not trembling. Not tonight. This was our only window, the night this club opens for the sleazy crème de la crème—billionaires, oligarchs, coked-up princes and oil-veined sheikhs.
My fingers are steady as I connect to the back-end of the private network, the tablet resting on my lap, my heart tuned to the familiar hum of focus.
This is my zone.
The code welcomes me like a lover.
The firewalls, trip alarms, and encrypted archives dance under my keystrokes. I’m breaking into one of the most securesystems in the digital underworld, and I’m doing it like I was born for this.
Because I was.
Somewhere downstairs, Dante is playing the role he was born to play too. Stoic billionaire. VIP member. Predator in a suit.
He’s managing the floor, keeping eyes off me and securing extraction routes and overseeing the distraction crew. A masterpiece in motion.
But me?
I’m here to steal a ghost.
Dante shattered the Vesper Syndicate’s soul with his previous incursions.
I’m here to ensure its heart never beats again.
That another Rina doesn’t die at their hands.
Everything we’ve done comes down to this, except I didn’t know it.
Every firewall breach, whispered command, sleepless night tangled in Dante’s sheets.