The city glitters beyond the windows. Indifferent. Uncaring.
That primalness. I know it well. Usually I channel it after hours—with the Marisols, the girls Lorenzo sends, women I don’t give a fuck about. Nothing personal about any of it. A physical release, mechanical and forgettable, and then back to work.
But Bea has fucked up my schedule. What just happened back there is proof of it. I don’t touch women I work with. I don’t skip galas for them. I don’t invent reasons to keep them close.
I don’t slip my hand into their bras in my office and feel something other than simple want.
How the hell would this night even end?
I could go back. Be what I’ve always been. Take what I want and deal with the consequences later. I’m a criminal, for fuck’s sake. I’ve done worse things than this before breakfast.
But she feels like she needs... more. A ceremony. Something I haven’t figured out yet.
It’s going to happen. I know that now. The inevitability of it sits in my chest like a stone.
I just?—
Fuck.
The phone buzzes again. Vincenzo. Persistent.
I’ll see what the old man needs.
I open the phone.
8
BEA
I try to focus on the Martinez file.
My hand drifts to my chest instead.
I catch myself doing it—pressing my palm against the spot where his hand was, like I’m checking if the sensation is still there. It is. Warmth radiating through the silk, phantom pressure where his fingers cupped me, the ghost of his thumb brushing across my nipple. The memory of it tightening under his touch.
Stop touching yourself.
I drop my hand. Pick up a pen. Stare at the witness statement without seeing it.
Where did he go?
The thought arrives uninvited. He walked out without a word, without explanation, and now I’m sitting here in this empty office, thighs pressed together, wondering when he’s coming back.Ifhe’s coming back. Like some desperate girl waiting for a man to come and?—
No. That’s not what this is.
But my body doesn’t seem to agree. It keeps replaying the moment: his hand slipping beneath the fabric, the heat of hisskin against mine, the way my breath caught and my back arched and Ileaned into itinstead of pulling away. The ache between my legs that started when he touched me and hasn’t gone away since.
Why didn’t I pull away?
He’s the man who kidnapped me from my own life and told me I belonged to him. Of course he was going to do this eventually. Of course, the mafia lord in the expensive suit was going to put his hands wherever he wanted—was going to touch me, claim me, make me wet with nothing but his fingers and that voice. Did I actually convince myself this wasnormal?
I stand up. Sit back down. My legs won’t stay still. The silk slides against my thighs and even that feels like too much right now.
The office feels too quiet. Too empty. He’s somewhere in this building—down the hall, in the conference room, wherever he disappeared to—and I’m sitting here like an idiot, slick and wanting, waiting.
Waiting for what?
For him to come back and finish what he started.
