Page 41 of Brutal Crown

“Have I made you speechless,Stellina?”

His hand slides over my waist, and I don’t push him away. I’m too tired to resist him. I don’t want to resist him.

But when he leans in, his mouth hovering over mine, I blurt out the words troubling me.

“You Romanos,” I say. “You’re not just mafioso. You’re something else. Aren’t you?”

Everything about him stills.

The lazy, flirty gleam in his eyes extinguishes like a flame smothered by a storm. His grip on my waist tightens, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind me he could. That hewantsme to feel it. For the first time, I see something dark and dangerous flash in his gaze.

Then, slowly, his other hand rises to my chin, thumb pressing beneath it, tilting my face up until I have no choice but to look at him.

“What did you just say?” he asks, low.

The air around us feels heavier. Denser. Like the night itself is holding its breath.

“There’s something else your family’s hiding,” I whisper. “Something older. Something your folks didn’t want coming out into the light. What is it?”

His eyes glint but not with anger. With something colder. Something like reverence.

He leans in until his lips graze my cheek. His breath is warm. His voice isn’t.

“That knowledge,” he murmurs, “isn’t for you.”

His hand slips higher on my waist, fingers splaying possessively over my ribs.

“It’s not for girls who poke their noses where they don’t belong, playing detective,” he breathes. “It’s for those whobelong. Who can handle what that knowledge comes with. Those who can bleed for it. Who kneel for it.”

My pulse spikes.

He turns my chin slightly, lips grazing the shell of my ear now, barely touching me but stealing every breath I have.

“You want to know the truth?” he growls. “Then say goodbye to everything you were before tonight. Because if I give you even a taste of the things I hide in my closet, you’re mine in ways you don’t come back from. Mine to protect. Mine to punish. Mine to ruin.”

His mouth drags back to mine, slow, threatening, hot.

“You must think you’re clever. But you haveno ideawhat you’re digging into, Lia.”

My heart hammers. I should be terrified. Iam. But there’s heat twisting low in my belly, curling around the fear like itlikesit there.

“I think your family murdered mine,” I breathe, “to keep your empire intact.”

There’s a flicker in his expression, something that almost looks like pain. Rage. Guilt?

And then he shuts it all down behind a slow, venomous smile.

“You don’t want the truth,Stellina,” he says. “You want a villain to hate because hating is easier than accepting what your father really was.”

My breath catches. “That’s not?—”

“You don’t know what’s true anymore,” he says, brushing his thumb across my lips.

“Did your family kill him?” My voice cracks. “Did they slaughter my father like an animal to protect their precious secret?”

His jaw clenches. His eyes—those maddening, piercing eyes—look right through me.

“He knew the cost,” he says finally. “Hechosehis fate.”