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The tears come fast. Hot. Messy. I swipe at them with the back of my hand, but Dante is already there, cupping my face.
“I know I’ve fucked up by not telling you sooner,” he says, softer now. “But this part? Where safety comes first? I meant it. I’d burn the world before I let anything happen to you. Or those you love.” His thumb brushes under my eye, slow and firm. “And you don’t have to like every move I make, Dahlia. But you will accept that sometimes I’ll act without your permission.”
My breath catches. “Dante?—”
“Tell me why that is, little thief.”
My breath shakes my soul. “Because you’re my Sir?”
His head tilts. “Is that a question?”
“You’re my Sir.”
“Good girl. And too fucking right.”
I take a breath, scared of the upheaval. Thewant. “Why?”
His eyes burn. Sears. “Because I love you.”
Bare. Raw. Powerful.
The words hit like impact trauma—no warning, no softening. My breath stutters. My lips part, but nothing comes out. Just heat behind my eyes, and the thunder of my pulse.
I wasn’t ready. I didn’t expect it. Not ever. But…even if a molecule dared to contemplate it—not like this. Not when we’re standing in the ashes of what we thought we could control.
He watches me—like a man waiting for a verdict. Like my silence might kill him.
I step forward, just an inch. Maybe it’s enough, maybe it isn’t.
“I love you, Dahlia,” he repeats.
Dante
She’s goingto leave me.
I see it in the shift of her eyes. The way she inhales, sharp and pained. Not because she doesn’t feel something—but because shedoes. Because she’s brilliant enough to read between the silences. To see what I tried—and failed—to bury.
I could probably fuck her into forgetting the last five minutes. Into forgetting my love. Into obedience. But Dahlia Wynn doesn’t forget. She doesn’t yield unless it’s on her terms.
And now I’ve shown her the one thing I swore never to give anyone again.
My heart.
She looks at me like she doesn’t know what to do with it. Like maybe she wishes I hadn’t handed it over. Like she’s already halfway out the door. And maybe I should let her go. Maybe it would be the right thing. The decent thing. To release her from the danger, from me, before I pull her so far under she can’t find her way back.
But I can’t do it. I can’t watch her walk out of my life, not when I’ve already imagined a thousand ways to keep her in it.
The silence between us is brutal.
Unforgiving.
The kind of silence that tears at the seams of a man already unraveling.
“I know you want to run,” I say, voice raw. “Hell, maybe youshould.”
Her lips part again, but I press on.
“But I need you to understand something, Dahlia. This thing between us—it’s not just sex. Not just power. Somewhere along the way, I stopped playing the game. I stopped pretending.”