Page 140 of Vow Of Fire

Damn, she was beautiful when she was mad.

Spinning around, she glared at me. “You lost the right to tell me where I should and shouldn’t stay when you told me I didn’t matter. That I’m just a pawn in your stupid game. God, I hate you and your stupid family.”

There it was. The truth.

Finally.

We’d been pretending for so long it had gotten to feel like it was real, but I’d always known it wasn’t. That it couldn’t last.

This had just accelerated the inevitable.

It was almost a relief.

“I don’t care what you think of me or my family,” I retorted, steel in my voice. “But you are not leaving this suite tonight. My men won’t let you.”

I won’t let you.

Her small hands balled into fists. “Damn you, Dante.” Those emerald eyes fired angry lasers at me.

I deserved it. All of it. I should never have let things get so out of control. But I’d learned my lesson. Relationships had no place in my world. They couldn’t.

Something ugly twisted low in my chest. Damnation sounded like a breeze right about now.

“Get out,” she hissed, the words breaking on a sob.

I didn’t move. Just stood there like a fool, holding the gold watch. Angry at myself, angry at the world. Suddenly, I was hit by a need so strong it took my breath away. I wanted her to understand, but I didn’t have the words.

“Ophelia—”

“Get out, Dante.” It was a harsh whisper now, but I felt the coldness underneath. I was glad of it.

Even though hearing her say my name that softly made me want to drag her back into my arms and lock the entire goddamn world outside.

Which was precisely why I couldn’t.

Finally, I gave a short nod. “Goodnight, Evelyn.”

I placed the watch on the dresser and left her alone in her gilded prison cell.

The situation—and my mood—deteriorated rapidly, and by the early hours, one of Malakov’s senior lieutenants was dead. Shot execution-style in the back of the head outside a private gaming club in Brighton Beach.

The message couldn’t have been clearer if Los Santos Rotos had carved it into his fucking chest.

At 6 a.m., Sergei Malakov called an emergency war meeting of his inner circle. Nico’s surveillance network picked it up almost immediately. A cavalcade of black SUVs had left Malakov’s New York penthouse, destination unknown. Izzy, who’d been on her way back from one of her poker clubs, was tailing them.

“There’s increased chatter across all their channels,” Nico told us on the Zoom call that we’d been on half the night. “They’re mobilizing.”

I stood in my office that overlooked the insipid Manhattan skyline but didn’t see any of it. I’d taken to pacing, in the hopes that the movement would stop me thinking about Evelyn.

It didn’t.

Marco’s face appeared on the screen. He was still immaculately dressed despite the early hour, although I could see the tension behind his eyes.

“Let’s keep it that way,” Valentina said coolly from her plush home office. “The last thing we need is unwanted attention from the Feds.”

Nico leaned back in his chair, dark circles beneath his eyes. I knew the feeling. The retaliation hadn’t provided much of a distraction for me. Knowing Evelyn was in the guest room and not being able to go to her was pure torture.

I pictured her lying there fuming, cursing me. Hating my goddamn guts. And she had every right to.