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When my eyes snap to his, reflected in the mirror, my whole world goes sideways.

Because the man pinning me to the glass…with my hair wrapped in his fist and a savage, feral glint in his haunting green eyes…the man who chased me through Greymoor the other night…

Is Nero De Luca.

8

MILENA

I stay completely,totally, paralyzingly still.

This isn’t just the man who chased me through a decaying mansion like a wild beast hunting prey the other night. Not even just the wraith who slipped into my bedroom while I slept, removed my panties, almostcertainlyput his hands on me, and then left sick, twisted reminders of that, and our chase, on my pillow.

It’shim.

The man I once wrote letters to.

The one Igave myselfto—naively, fully. Brutally and shatteringly.

And he doesn’t know it.

But I do.

Or again, at least I think I do.

I found out when I got home—wrecked, bleeding, still full of his cum—and heard my uncle say that our men had just killedAntonio and Natalia De Luca, and that they’d cornered the heir, Nero, with “some girl”, at the place I’d just run from.

In that horrific moment, capping a night of both ecstasy and horror, I learned that the man I’d been talking to through letters and notes, with whom I’d shared my every dark, filthy secret, was the son of my family’s enemies.

A week later, I went to the New York Public Library to write one last time and ask him who he was. To see if my suspicion was right, and somehow, I’d lost myself with the mad emperor Nero.

But the book where we always left our letters was gone, and I was left with my best guess and nothing more.

Now, here in the present, my body ignites with a thousand confusing signals, half of them screamingrun, the other half pleadingdon’t you dare move.

My breath catches as he teases his finger, like a lover’s touch, or aclaw, over my neck. His mouth is right at my ear when he speaks.

“I was supposed to meet someone that night,” he growls. “I doubt it wasyou.”

His hand clamps around my waist, pulling me tighter to him, his rock-hard body pinning me to the marble counter. His fingers dig into my flesh through the dress, and his coiled muscles ripple and pulse against me.

“She—” The words choke in my throat as a thousand different emotions and sensations explode through my system, all clamoring for my attention.

“She’s upstairs!” I blurt. “Alicia?—”

“Oh, I’m not interested inheranymore.”

His hand slides up into my hair, coiling my ponytail and clenching it in a fist. His lips brush my neck, causing my throat to seize up. My muscles clench and shake. My core flutters.

Horribly, my nipples tighten to throbbing electrified points.

“I've found amuchmore amusing plaything…Miss Kalishnik.”

My heart lurches.

“But what I’ve been trying to make sense of over the past few days is how a spoiled Bratva princess manages to stumble into a place like Greymoor to be chased andfuckedby a monster likeme.”

There’s a rough, feral tone to his deep voice that…doessomething to me. Not what itshould. It doesn’t inspire fear, panic, or the blood-chilling feeling that I’m about to be hurt, or worse.