Page 2 of The Enforcer (Damn! #2)

She coughed, stumbling forward, her vision tunneling before she caught herself.

Her lungs burned as she sucked in a ragged breath, pulse erratic, every nerve in her body still screaming run, but she couldn’t move.

Not yet. Not when the force of his presence still bore down on her like a storm rolling in, thick with warning.

A single word.

Low. Rough.

“Lily?”

She froze.

Recognition slammed into her chest, stealing whatever air remained. Her stomach dropped, a sickening freefall that left her lightheaded, her fingers twitching as numbness crept into her limbs.

No. No, it wasn’t possible.

That voice, deep, edged in steel and barely leashed fury, she knew it.

Her head snapped up just as he tore his glasses off, and the world tilted sideways.

Zane Dante was overwhelming in every sense of the word.

He was massive, shoulders so broad his sheer size dictated the space between them, thick arms corded with muscle beneath his black leather jacket and the beginning of colorful tattoos that disappeared beneath his collar.

His black t-shirt stretched taut across his chest, doing nothing to hide his raw energy.

Dark hair, cropped short on the sides but just long enough to be unruly on top, framed a face made for sin, high cheekbones, a squared jaw, a mouth that looked almost too sensual for the brutal force he carried in his body.

But his eyes were the real threat, dark, cold, cutting through her like he could strip her apart with a glance.

And his body, God, his body was pressed into hers, solid and unmoving, the heat of him seeping through her thin shirt.

She knew him. Not just from whispered stories of the Dante Enforcer, but from Jazz’s wedding. She’d met him there and then the next morning at the family brunch. He was Titus Dante’s brother. Her sister Jazz’s brother-in-law.

“Zane?”

He hesitated, his expression darkening, his entire body going unnaturally still, like a hunter zeroing in on its target.

The air between them thickened, charged with something electric, something lethal.

For a long, agonizing beat, neither of them spoke, the silence pressing in like a vice, stretching the moment until it felt unbearable.

His gaze flicked over her face, the tension in his body hardening into an unreadable mask. He wasn’t just looking at her, he was assessing, calculating, piecing together a puzzle she didn’t even know existed. And whatever conclusion he reached? It wasn’t good.

His voice dropped, lethal and quiet.

“What the fuck did you do?”

She flinched, her pulse still skidding madly. The way he looked at her, like she was a miscalculation that had gone wrong, like she’d made a mistake so big it had upended his entire world, sent a shudder through her chest.

“I—” Her voice broke, throat raw from his grip. She swallowed hard, licking her lips. “I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The temperature in the room plummeted.

Zane pressed closer, his body a solid wall of heat and muscle, blocking out everything else. The space between them disappeared, his presence pulsing against her, stealing the air from her lungs.

His scent, leather, spice, and something darker, wrapped around her, invasive and consuming.

Every inch of him radiated dominance, a force that made her insides churn with something raw, something primal.

Her back hit the wall, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

He was suffocating, overwhelming, an unmovable force trapping her in place.

“Try again.”

She shook her head, heart hammering against her ribs. “I swear, I don’t—”

His hand shot out, fingers gripping her jaw with just enough force to hold her still.

His touch felt firm, unrelenting, his skin rough against hers, radiating heat.

He tilted her face up, leaving her nowhere to look but at him, nowhere to escape the intensity of his stare.

His thumb brushed the edge of her cheek, not soft, not gentle, but possessive, like he was securing her there, compelling her to meet the focus of his scrutiny.

Her breath caught in her throat, trapped between fear and the unbearable strength of his stare.

It was as if the room had shrunk, the air pressed too thick against her skin, every nerve inside her seizing in response to the intensity of his gaze.

She tried to swallow, but the effort felt impossible, her lungs straining against the silent command to stay still, to not make a move that could shift the balance of whatever was unfolding between them.

His dark eyes burned into hers, relentless and unyielding, dragging over each nuance of her face, every flicker of fear, confusion, or defiance.

He wasn’t just staring, he was dissecting, peeling her apart layer by layer, sifting through her expression for a single tell, a single weakness to exploit.

His gaze was a scalpel, cutting into her, exposing her vulnerabilities, making her feel naked beneath the sheer force of his scrutiny. It wasn’t just unnerving, it was invasive, like he was reaching inside her, untangling her thoughts before she could even voice them herself.

And whatever he saw there only pissed him off more.

“You don’t even know,” he muttered, almost to himself.

His grip flexed, his fingers pressing into her skin for one last moment, as if testing the truth of what he already suspected.

Then, with a sharp exhale, he loosened his grip, his hand sliding to cup her throat but the touch more of a caress.

The muscles in his cheek clenched, his entire frame going rigid like he was warring with the urge to do something more.

Lily’s chest heaved as she gulped down air, her mind still reeling.

Her body wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. Every instinct screamed for her to bolt, to claw her way free and put as much distance between them as possible. But her feet remained rooted, muscles locked tight under the force of his presence.

It wasn’t just fear keeping her still, it was something darker, something primal that recognized the sheer futility of resistance.

He was faster. Stronger. If she ran, he would catch her, and then it would be worse.

So she stood frozen, every breath shallow, waiting for his next move, waiting for the moment he decided what to do with her.

Zane hadn’t come because of Jazz. He wasn’t here to deal with her father, or out of some obligation to the Dante name. If Zane Dante was standing in front of her, it meant only one thing, she had become a problem. And problems didn’t get warnings. They didn’t get second chances.

An Enforcer was the end of the line. The one sent when all other options had failed, when negotiations were useless, when a lesson needed to be taught in a way that would never be forgotten.

He wasn’t the threat before violence. He was the violence.

The silent shadow that eliminated dangers, erased liabilities, and made sure nothing slipped through the cracks.

Lily trembled, her pulse erratic. If the Dantes had sent Zane, it meant she had already crossed the point of no return.

A choice she had made. A mistake, or maybe something worse.

Whatever it was, it was big enough, dangerous enough, to draw the attention of The Enforcer himself.

Not a soldier. Not a Captain. Not a warning.

But Zane-fucking-Dante in the flesh. A man who did not waste his time unless the situation demanded it.

That alone terrified her more than the bruises blooming along the column of her throat.

A chill ran down her spine, cold and sharp, creeping in like a slow-moving tide.

It wasn’t just fear, it was understanding.

A visceral, bone-deep recognition of the reality sinking in around her.

This wasn’t a mistake she could talk her way out of.

This wasn’t something she could erase with a few keystrokes or an expertly timed lie. This was final. Inevitable.

What the hell was happening? Why was Zane here? She had spent years working in the shadows, careful, precise, always staying a step ahead. No one ever saw her. No one ever came for her.

Until now.

She had no idea what she’d done to bring him to her doorstep, but the fact that it was Zane meant she had made a mistake bigger than she could comprehend. Not a minor offense. Not a misstep. Something catastrophic.

Zane wasn’t sent for problems that could be cleaned up quietly. He was sent for the ones that couldn’t be allowed to exist at all, the ones that threatened the stability of the Dante family, the ones whose mistakes weren’t just reckless but dangerous.

Lily had heard the stories. People who crossed the Dantes didn’t get second chances. She had always told herself those stories were exaggerations, ghost tales whispered in the underworld to keep people in line. A way to make the Dante name even more terrifying than it already was.

But standing here now, with Zane’s unforgiving gaze locked onto her, she realized how wrong she’d been. The truth was worse than the stories. The truth was standing in front of her, breathing, watching, deciding.

A man who’d skimmed money off one of their operations had vanished overnight, his name erased like he’d never existed. A woman who’d tried to inform on them to law enforcement had been found in a ditch, her betrayal silenced permanently.

And now, she was standing in front of Zane, the one who made those decisions happen, the one who ensured problems never became bigger than they needed to be. If he was here, that meant she had done something worthy of elimination. And that realization turned her blood ice-cold.

So, what had she done?

She didn’t have an answer.

But whatever it was—

She knew with a sickening certainty that she wasn’t walking away from this.

Her shoulders sagged, the last of her adrenaline draining as reality crashed down.

A hollow, trembling sensation spread through her limbs, leaving her weak and unsteady.

Cold settled deep in her bones, wrapping around her ribs like a vice, making it hard to breathe.

The room felt too big and too small all at once, pressing in from every side, suffocating her with inevitability.

Her voice, barely more than a whisper, escaped before she could stop it. “What did I do?”

Zane’s expression didn’t shift. If anything, a flicker of something unreadable crossed his features. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, clipped.

“You sold information.”

Lily’s stomach turned to lead. “Information?” she echoed, her voice flat and empty.

His silence was answer enough.

She nodded, throat raw, her chest tight as a fresh wave of fear roiled in her gut.

Her gaze darted to his hands, steady, lethal, the kind of hands that had carried out sentences far worse than the one she was staring down.

She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to hear the answer, but the words hovered on her tongue, burning, impossible to swallow.

Then they tumbled out, quiet and shaking.

“Are you going to kill me?”