I am right where I am supposed to be.
4
Dante
Gemma ison the bare mattress. I am on the floor by the door. She is swallowed by my oversized henley, her knees pulled tight to her chest, and the sight of her wearing my clothes in my space cracks something loose in my chest.
My back rests against the oak door. The wood is cold. The combat knife sits ready on my thigh.
I need to return to a tactical baseline.
Perimeter secure. Only one way in. The rusted service elevator is dead unless I call it. No signal. Fourteen floors above the Chicago pavement. Safe. We are safe.
But my blood thrums with a different kind of war.
She curls into the center of the king bed. The mattress is bare, stripped to the ticking twenty years ago. The springs groan under her weight. Every shift of her hips sends a jagged spike of arousal straight to the root of my cock.
My shirt covers her. Black cotton against golden skin. It hangs off one shoulder. The hem rides up, exposing a gorgeous thigh.
My responsibility. My obsession.
The word hangs in the empty suite, reflected in the endless gilded mirrors. and sinks into the rotting velvet drapes. She belongs to me.
My professional distance has been decimated the second she looked at me in that alley.
Her scent cuts through the stale, dusty air of the room. The need for her bypasses logic and chokes the very air from my chest. A brutal, possessive ache carves through my ribs.
I shift my stance. The hardwood bites into my boots. My discipline is a thin shield against the pulsing heat of my erection. The friction of denim against my erection is a constant, grinding reminder of what I want. What I need.
I am a specialist in violence, a guard forged in the fire of the Costa-Bellanti war.
That was me yesterday.
I’ve turned this suite into a fortress, and I’m the jailer who refuses to let his prize go.
My jaw aches from grinding my teeth. The silence in the suite is a low-frequency vibration, charged with everything we aren't saying. Outside, the wind howls against the reinforced glass of the penthouse windows. The cold draft sneaks through the cracks, stirring the velvet drapes.
She shivers on the bed.
My muscles lock. The urge to abandon my post and cover her with my body is a gnawing, physical ache. I shove it down. This is my post. My purpose. I have a job to do. The Bellantis arehunting her. They destroyed her food truck. They fired rounds into her life. The men who did this are already ghosts. I’ll ensure their end is as slow as it is certain. With my bare hands.
I’m supposed to be her shield, but my own hunger is becoming the primary danger in this room.
I rub the knotwork compass tattooed on my right arm. The ink is a shield. It doesn't work. The skull and dark roses on my left arm flex as I grip the handle of my combat knife. Lock it down. Focus.
Two decades of bloodshed have led to this moment.
Matteo's voice breaks over the phone line. The memory tries to claw its way out of the dark box in my head. Sixteen years old. Standing in the hallway of the old house. The receiver cold against my ear. Rain pouring outside. Matteo finding our father in the alley. The blood. The water.
No. Box it up. Shove it down.
I snap my eyes open. The dust motes dance in the faint moonlight filtering through the dirty glass.
She sits up.
The mattress groans under her weight, a sound that vibrates through my own tethered restraint.
"You're awake," I say. My voice is gravel. Rough. Unused to the softness required for a woman like her.
