Page 13 of Made for Vengeance (Dark Dynasties #3)

GRACE

T he alarm blared like a foghorn, dragging me from the depths of sleep. I fumbled for my phone, squinting at the screen through bleary eyes.

Shit.

I rolled out of bed, limbs heavy and strange, like I hadn’t slept at all—or had slept too deeply or too hard. There was a faint throb between my legs, low and pulsing. A kind of soreness I couldn’t quite place…like I had been dreaming of something I shouldn’t.

The details were gone, just impressions remained. Dark eyes, a whisper too close to my ear, a pressure I could still feel if I stopped to focus. I didn’t.

I made it to the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Disaster. Hair tangled, eyes shadowed, the crease of my pillow still pressed into my cheek like a scar.

I splashed cold water on my face, brushing my teeth in record time, trying to shake the heaviness clinging to my skin. My thighs felt tight. Sensitive.

I pulled my hair into a bun that would’ve horrified my mother and shoved myself into leggings, a sports bra, and an oversized Harvard sweatshirt. No makeup. No coffee.

Just the ghost of something I couldn’t name, humming low in my body.

6:52 AM.

If I ran, I might make it. The studio was only three blocks away.

I grabbed my water bottle, phone, and keys, mentally calculating the fastest route. Down the elevator, cut through the alley behind the building, across Massachusetts Avenue, and I'd be there with maybe a minute to spare.

The elevator seemed slower than usual this morning, the ancient machinery groaning as it made its way up to my floor. I tapped my foot impatiently, checking my phone again.

6:55 AM.

Come on, come on.

The doors finally opened with a cheerful ding that felt like mockery. I stepped inside, pressing the lobby button repeatedly as if that would make the elevator move faster.

As the doors began to close, a hand shot out, stopping them. A man stepped in—tall, wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his face, a maintenance uniform that looked vaguely familiar.

I moved to the corner, the way women instinctively do when alone in elevators with strange men. He nodded politely but didn't speak, keeping his eyes on the floor numbers as we began our descent.

Something about him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Something familiar yet wrong, like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite grasp.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, trying to place him. Had I seen him in the building before? Was he new maintenance staff?

Before I could decide, I felt it—a sharp sting against my neck, like an insect bite but more precise. My hand flew up automatically, fingers brushing against something small and metallic protruding from my skin.

"What—" I began, but my tongue suddenly felt too large for my mouth, the word slurring as it left my lips.

The man turned to me then, and in the moment before my vision began to blur, I saw his face clearly for the first time.

Rafe.

Recognition hit me like a physical blow, followed immediately by fear—cold and sharp and clarifying. I tried to reach for my phone, to scream, to fight, but my limbs wouldn't cooperate. My knees buckled, my body suddenly impossibly heavy.

He caught me before I hit the floor, one arm around my waist, holding me upright as if I weighed nothing. Through the rapidly descending fog, I felt him lean close, his breath warm against my ear.

"Shh," he whispered, the sound distant and distorted. "Don't fight it, Grace. It's easier if you don't fight it."

I wanted to tell him to go to hell. Wanted to scream for help. Wanted to claw at his face until he let me go.

But darkness was closing in from all sides, my vision tunneling until all I could see was his face—those dark eyes watching me with an intensity that burned even through the haze of whatever drug was coursing through my system.

The last thing I remember is the gentle way he brushed a strand of hair from my face, the tenderness of the gesture at odds with the violence of what he was doing.

Then nothing.

I woke to softness.

That was my first conscious thought—that I was lying on something impossibly soft, like clouds or cotton candy or those expensive sheets my mother used to import from Italy.

My second thought was that my mouth tasted like I'd been sucking on pennies.

My third thought was pure, undiluted panic.

I forced my eyes open, blinking against the dim light. The ceiling above me was unfamiliar dark wood beams crossing white plaster. Not my apartment. Not any place I recognized.

I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it as the room spun violently around me. Nausea rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit. Whatever drug he'd used was still in my system, making my movements sluggish, my thoughts fragmented.

Him. Rafe. The elevator.

Memory returned in jagged pieces. The sting on my neck. The way my body had betrayed me, collapsing into his arms. The whispered words I couldn’t quite recall.

I pushed through the dizziness, forcing myself to take stock of my surroundings. I was in a bedroom—large, expensively furnished, with heavy curtains drawn across what I assumed were windows. The only light came from a lamp on a distant table, casting the room in a soft, golden glow.

The bed I lay on was enormous, a four-poster monstrosity with dark wood and what felt like silk sheets beneath my fingertips. I was still wearing my leggings and sweatshirt, my sneakers removed but nothing else changed or disturbed.

Small mercies.

There were no obvious doors from my vantage point, just walls of dark wood paneling and built-in bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. The air smelled faintly of sandalwood and something else—something masculine and familiar that made my stomach clench with recognition.

His scent.

"You're awake."

The voice came from behind me, from a part of the room I couldn't see without turning. Low, calm, matter-of-fact—as if this were a normal situation, as if I'd fallen asleep on a couch during a party and he was simply noting my return to consciousness.

I froze, every muscle in my body tensing. Fight or flight instinct screaming at me to move, to run, to attack—but my limbs still felt heavy, uncooperative.

Slowly, fighting against the residual dizziness, I turned toward the voice.

He sat in a leather armchair in the corner of the room, partially hidden in shadow. One leg crossed over the other, hands resting on the arms of the chair, posture relaxed and confident. Watching me.

Rafe Conti looked exactly as he had in the elevator, except he'd removed the baseball cap and maintenance uniform, revealing dark jeans and a black sweater that fit him perfectly.

His face was calm, almost serene, but his eyes—those dark, intense eyes—burned with something that made my blood run cold.

Satisfaction. Possession. Hunger.

"What did you do to me?" My voice came out raspy, my throat dry from whatever drug he'd used. "Where am I?"

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, studying me with the focused attention of a scientist observing a particularly interesting specimen.

"A mild sedative," he said, as if discussing the weather. "Nothing that will cause lasting harm. And you're somewhere safe."

"Safe?" I laughed, the sound harsh and brittle in the quiet room. "You drugged me. You kidnapped me. That's your definition of safe?"

He tilted his head slightly, considering. "Safe doesn't always mean comfortable, Grace. Sometimes it means protected from things you don't even know are threats."

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, ignoring the way the room tilted. Anger was burning through the fog of the sedative, clearing my head, sharpening my focus.

"Let me go," I said, each word precise and hard. "Now. Before this gets worse for you."

His lips curved in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Worse for me?"

"My father will kill you when he finds out." The threat came automatically, the O'Sullivan name invoked like a talisman against danger. "Do you have any idea who I am? Who my family is?"

"I know exactly who you are." He stood in one fluid motion, moving toward the bed with the silent grace of a predator.

"Grace Elizabeth O'Sullivan. Twenty-five years old.

Harvard Law, top of your class. Estranged from your family but not completely severed.

Plays piano when she can't sleep. Takes her coffee black. Runs the same route every morning."

Each detail hit me like a physical blow. He'd been watching me. For how long? Days? Weeks?

"You've been stalking me." The accusation came out breathless, horrified.

He stopped at the foot of the bed, close enough that I could see the fine details of his face—the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the tiny scar above his right eyebrow, the flecks of amber in his otherwise dark eyes.

"I've been learning you," he corrected, his voice soft. "There's a difference."

I edged backward on the bed, putting as much distance between us as possible. My mind was racing, cataloging options, looking for weapons, for exits, for anything that might help me escape.

"My father—" I began again.

"Your father," he interrupted, his tone hardening slightly, "is not going to save you, Grace. No one is."

"You don't know my father."

"I know Patrick O'Sullivan better than you think." Something dark and knowing flickered in his eyes. "I know what he values and what he doesn't. I know what he's willing to sacrifice."

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. There was something in his voice—a certainty, a familiarity—that suggested he wasn't bluffing.

"What do you want?" I asked, hating the tremor in my voice but unable to suppress it. "Money? Is this a ransom thing? Because if it is?—"

"I don't want your family's money." He moved around the side of the bed, closing the distance between us inch by inch. "I have my own."