Page 44 of Pietro

I turn away, gripping the edge of my desk hard enough to hurt. "Get the footage. We'll review it tonight."

She leaves without another word, but I feel her hesitation at the door, feel her wanting to say something more.

When she's gone, I sink into my chair and pour three fingers of whiskey. My hands shake as I lift the glass.

This is insane.

I shouldn’t care.

She fucking rejected me.

NORA

I drop into my desk chair, fingers pressed against my temples. The ghost of his touch burns across my skin like I've been marked.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Three days. Three days of him avoiding me like I carry some contagious disease, and the second our fingers touch, Ipractically combust. My body betrays every ounce of common sense I've fought to maintain since walking into this office.

I can't want Pietro Sartori's mouth on mine. Can't crave the weight of his hands on my waist, can't imagine what that controlled violence would feel like channeled into passion. Can't. Can't. Can't. But I do.

God help me, I do.

I pull up the footage files, forcing my brain to function. Five hundred pounds of cocaine doesn't just disappear. Someone's stealing from the Sartoris, which means someone has a death wish.

Pietro will handle it the same way he handles everything else. The same focused intensity he turned on me in that office, eyes dark as midnight, looking at me like?—

Like Declan used to look at you before he tried to kill you.

The thought slams into me, cold water on flames. My hand goes to my throat. This is what happens when I trust my judgment. When I let myself feel. I thought Declan loved me, thought those heated looks meant something real.

But Pietro's different.

Right?

The thought whispers through my mind before I can stop it. Pietro doesn't pretend. Doesn't smile while plotting betrayal. His darkness sits right on the surface. Honest, brutal, real.

When he looks at me with that hunger, it's not calculation. It's a raw need fighting against iron control.

Which makes it worse. So much worse.

Because I can handle liars. I've learned that lesson in blood and bruises. But an honest monster? One who makes no apologies for what he is?

That's the kind of danger I don't know how to navigate.

The smart thing would be to run. Pack my things tonight, disappear into another city, another name, another life. I've done it before.

Yep, you're good at running from your problems instead of facing them.

Coward.

PIETRO

Midnight. The office building stands empty except for security and us.

We've been at this for hours—reviewing footage, cross-referencing schedules, tracking every moment of that shipment from dock to warehouse. Professional. Focused. Except for the way she keeps pulling her hair up, exposing the curve of her neck. Except for how I can't stop watching her work.

"There." She points at the screen. "Look at the timestamp. Three-fifteen a.m. The truck stops for twelve minutes on Route 47. No reason for a delay there."