Page 182 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

Nowhere was safe. Nothing was off-limits. There were no guards and no security measures that could keep him safe. His own home had been invaded while he slept nearby. The state of Rux’s bedroom would indicate that Ardelean had no idea what happened under his roof, or for how long, or to what end.

For a man who considered himself an unassailable king, this would be unsupportable.

It would drive him mad.

And Jovi knew men like this all too well. Ardelean didn’t have to give one shit about his daughter to lose it over what something like this represented.

Jovi drove through the early morning streets of Prague efficiently. He did not speed or crawl. There was absolutely nothing worth noticing about the vehicle he drove or the way he drove it, aside from the fact that it was bulletproof, suggesting that he was expecting to be fired upon.

He fully expected Ardelean to access Prague’s CCTV. And when the cameras were played back to find the registration number of the Range Rover, it would, of course be false. And he had a particular blurry tint on the windows of this vehicle that would keep the Policie Ceské Republiky from making his life difficult, but he’d made certain to let Boris Ardelean’s personal cameras catch his face.

The real pictures of him would be there for Boris Ardelean to see once he understood his daughter had been taken.

Antonio wanted the man to know exactly who had come for him. Who could have walked directly into Boris’s room, if he’d wished, but had not. Who had instead wandered about Boris’s house as if he owned it and helped himself to a little treat on the way out.

What Antonio really wanted was respect, but fear would do.

Jovi wound his way through the ancient city and then on into one of its less tourist-friendly neighborhoods. He found the house in question, opened its gates with the remote app on his mobile, and backed into its garage.

Only when the garage door was closed did he turn the engine off, then exit the vehicle so he could attend to his passenger. When he opened the hatch, Rux was curled up right where he’d left her beneath her blanket. And her eyes were open, so there was no escaping the immediate blast of her curiously direct slate gray eyes.

Jovi could not comprehend why everything about handling this woman was different. He had spent his whole life adhering to certain protocols, the number one of which was to never, ever personalize these experiences. He never had.

If asked—and Carlo had certainly asked him—he said he had never seen the need to personalize anything.

One more thing his cousin hated about him. If Jovi had cared that his cousin thought he was a freak, that would be the kind of personalization he didn’t do. He didn’t. He’d only shrugged.

This was why he was so good at what he did. This was why his uncle kept him alive.

And yet Rux defied every last protocol.

Or maybe he was the one who was defying them, because he was the one who reached out and untied her ankles first, rubbing them briskly with his hands, in case she’d gone numb. Her skin was cooler than it had been in her bedroom, even with the blanket, and he didn’t like that. It made his treacherous heart…react.

He reached behind her to untie her hands, too, rubbing them in the same matter-of-fact manner. And then, even as she made a noise in the back of her throat, he took his time pulling her forward until she was sitting on the lip of the bumper. He checked her hands, making sure that the tiny pinpricks he’d put in her fingers were no longer bleeding and that her skin was not turning blue.

When he was satisfied, he released her so he could take the gag out of her mouth, too.

And it was only when he cupped her chin and rubbed his thumb over her lips—an urge he did not understand—and then pressed it between them so she almost had no choice but to suck on it—he understood this even less—did it truly dawn on Jovi what he was doing.

Not that it stopped him.

Gray eyes met his, widened in something far smokier than simple shock, and then it was her turn to suck.

The way he had in her bedroom, learning each of her fingers. She sucked on him, and he felt her tongue move over his thumb, and slowly, the dryness of her mouth abated.

He told himself that had been his only aim.

But there were other distractions when he pulled his thumb back, and then, with a swift glance at the concrete garage, swept her up into his arms.

Rux looked startled, but she slid an arm around his neck. And then he was carrying her into the house, for all intents and purposes a parody of a romantic clinch.

He could not account for the effect this one had on him. He would have considered her a sorceress or this some kind of witchcraft—but he believed in neither.

The consequences of real life were too dire and impossible to escape. What little magic he’d ever known had died out, long ago.

Jovi almost stopped short at that, because he never thought about such things on the job.

He tried not to think of such things at all.