Page 17 of Crown Of Blood

“Don’t touch me,” I snap, jerking my arm free. Pain shoots through my fingers, but I ignore it. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yeah,” one mutters. “That’s the problem.”

I spin on him, blood still trailing from my temple. “You think this is going to stop me? You think some overpaid goons and a fancy view are enough to—”

The door slams open behind me.

And suddenly, the room shifts.

He fills the doorway.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Charcoal dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms.

Eyes like smoke and storm clouds.

Dante Moretti.

I’ve seen him before—at charity galas, across courtrooms, in news photos where men like him wear smiles like masks.

But up close… he’s something else entirely.

Cold. Controlled. Terrifying.

And somehow, still breathtaking.

Every instinct in my body screams danger, but my breath catches anyway.

He moves like a predator who doesn’t need to hunt—because the world already kneels.

The men who brought me here straighten, shoulders stiff.

“What the hell is this?” I demand, trying to sound steadier than I feel. “You send people to kidnap me, and now you’re just going to stand there and—”

“Be quiet,” he says softly.

The words are barely above a whisper, but they cut through me like a blade.

“Excuse me?”

He steps closer. The air feels thinner.

“You’re here because you don’t know when to stop,” he says. “Because you couldn’t mind your own business.”

“I was doing my job,” I snap.

His jaw ticks. “Your job is to write about the world. Not to walk into it with your throat bared.”

“You mean not walk into yours?”

Something dark flashes in his eyes. “Exactly.”

I square my shoulders, refusing to step back. “If you think I’m going to be intimidated by a man who hides behind armed guards and blood money—”

He takes another step forward, and I stop talking.

Because now I can see him clearly—see the shadow of rage in the sharp lines of his face, the faint stubble along his jaw, the weight of something far more dangerous than anger burning behind his eyes.

And then I see it—that shift in his expression. His gaze goes from my eyes to my temple.