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So, while thisfeelslike…everything…I refuse to let myself go to that place where I start getting all starry-eyed and emotional about it. Thinking about “the beat of his heart against mine” or anything nauseatingly romance-y like that.

Nope.

Even as I'm thinking that, though, I’m caught off guard by the way his green eyes pierce my blue ones. They're lookingthrough me, flaying open what few parts of myself I’ve never shared with him. In other words…not much.

“So,” he smirks. “Still think this was the worst way to lose your virginity?”

I huff. “In the top five, easy. Top five worst, that is.”

“Thanks for clarifying.”

I giggle under my mask.

“You bit me, by the way.”

“Did not.”

“Did so. My shoulder,” he grunts, glancing down at his muscle, where there are—whoops—teeth marks. “Definitely.”

“Well part of itwasthat I was supposed to fight you.”

“Yeah, I was expecting a knee to the nuts, not a wolverine gnawing my arm.”

“Well,” I laugh, “maybe you deserved it.”

For a moment, it’s weirdly normal. Two strangers, wearing masks, naked and entwined on a warehouse floor, catching their breath after an hour of hardcore consensual non-consent play, like this is just…something people do.

I want to take my mask off. I want to takehisoff, and look at each other without anything between us.

I'm trying to work up the courage, trying to push past the voice that says I’m being an idiot, that I’m letting my friend Evelina’s peachy-pink happy-ever-after princess perma-vibe influence me, when the sharp staccato crack of gunfire sprays the side of the building and blows out one of the windows.

I scream, my body clenching in on itself both from the gunshots and the sudden absence of his body as he disentangles himself and rolls away from me.

“Get dressed!” he roars at me, his muscles tight as he reaches for his discarded jacket and yanks a gun out. “Now!” he yells.

I scramble, heart jackhammering as I crash back to reality and grab my clothes.

“What’s happening?!” I scream.

He pulls on his pants and double-checks the magazine of his gun with practiced hands before ramming it back in.

“Go out the back.”

His voice is pure steel, devoid of emotion.

“What thefuck!?”

“Itoldyou I was mafia!” he barks at me as I pull my shirt over my head.

“So am I!” I blurt. “But this is?—”

“Not what you’re used to?” He checks the safety on his gun and then cocks it. “Well, welcome to my world.”

I shove my hair back from my face, when suddenly, I notice something, and my heart drops.

The pair of Louis Monte Noir diamond earrings, which were a gift from my mother on the last birthday of mine that I had with her.

One’s missing.