Page 18 of Ruthless Desire

The words are leaden on my tongue, resignation and despair mingling with the lingering bile. I've seen what happens to pretty little things that catch Dante's eye then try to scurry away. They all end up the same—chopped up and spit out, yesterday's garbage to be crushed and burnt.

I'm dead. I know it. They know it. It's just a matter of when and how bloody at this point.

Weasel looks away, jaw ticking. Beef sighs, a sound as weary as time itself. "We'll do our best to keep you safe," he says quietly, but it rings hollow. A platitude, nothing more. Protect and serve, just another fairytale we tell ourselves to keep the monsters at bay.

And this monster? He's the Big Bad Wolf, the Boogeyman, and the Devil himself all rolled into one Armani-wrapped package. And he's already at my door, huffing and puffing and ready to reenact mankind's original sin between my thighs.

The cops clear out with a few more empty reassurances, leaving me alone in my shitty walkup. Alone with the knowledge that I've got a target on my back the size of Times Square and it's open season for one psychopathic rich boy.

I sink into the couch for a long moment, head in my hands, trying to remember how to breathe past the anvil on my chest. Think, Natalie. You sorry excuse for a free-thinking woman. There's gotta be a way out of this mess that doesn't end with you as the tragic headline on the evening news.

Europe's out—too easy for him to track me down in any major city thanks to his family's frankly obscene network of money and ill-gotten influence. Same with South America. Maybe somewhere remote, off the grid completely?

Escape plans whirl behind my eyes, each more desperate and far-fetched than the last. In the end, I keep circling back to one inescapable truth:

He'll find me. No matter how far I run, now well I hide, Dante Corleone will hunt me to the ends of the fucking earth. Because in his blighted, blackened heart, I belong to him. His magnum opus, his monstrous muse.

I'm bound to him now, with ropes of sin and ruin, desire and despair. And like the Devil himself, he'll never let me go. Not until I've fulfilled my role in his grand design—the beauty to his beast, the twisted Eve to his Serpent.

So I've got two options—run like hell and pray for a miracle, or stare into the abyss and wait for it to blink first.

Spoiler alert? I've never been the kind to place my bets on divine intervention. If there is a God, she fucked off a long time ago. No one's coming to save me, least of all the Big Woman upstairs.

Which leaves me with Option B. Face this fucker head on, meet him on the battlefield of his choosing. If I'm gonna be the sacrificial lamb, might as well march to the altar with my head held high.

The pieces are in play. The board is set. And I am about to play the most dangerous game of my misbegotten life.

Winner takes all, loser takes a dirtnap.

And the devil himself is fixing to be my Opponent.

I just pray I'm ready to pay the price of victory.

Because it's a checkmate or soul mate for me now. And I know too damn well which way the tide of destiny is pulling.

Chapter 8 Dante

The lights of Accel City blur into a neon smear as I barrel down the highway, the roar of the Lambo's engine drowning out the static in my skull. But even at 120 miles per hour, I can't outrun her face. Those haunting storm-gray eyes, boring into my blackened soul.

I snarl, slamming my fist against the dash. Five thousand fucking miles away, and still, she torments me. A raven-haired invasion, an itch under my skin I can't scratch.

The private jet idles on the tarmac, a gleaming beast ready to whisk me away from temptation. To a sit-down with the bratva, a meeting stained with blood and bad intentions. But as I stare up at its polished exterior, all I can see is her reflection. Mocking me. Daring me to embrace the madness pulsing through my veins.

"Boss?" Alonzo's voice grates on my last nerve, his meaty hand clamping down on my shoulder. "We gotta go. The bratva doesn't like to be kept waiting."

I shrug him off, my fingers tightening around the vibrator cord in my pocket. The one I'd taken from her as a trophy, a talisman of my conquest. It's not enough. It's never enough.

But then, a flicker of reason pierces the red haze of my obsession. The bratva deal is important, a crucial piece in the chessboard of power I've been meticulously arranging. To blow it off now, to show weakness in the face of my own unhinged desire...it could undo everything I've built.

I take a deep breath, forcing the beast back into its cage. Natalie Quinn is mine, branded into my very marrow. She'll keep. The bratva won't.

"You're right," I mutter, the words like ashes on my tongue. "Let's go."

Alonzo blinks, surprise etched onto his craggy face. He knows better than to question my abrupt change of heart. "Yes, Boss. Right away."

I settle into the plush leather seat of the jet, my body thrumming with coiled tension. The scotch in my hand does little to dull the edge of my need, the clawing hunger for my dark madonna.

Smoke and mirrors. That's what this life is, when you strip away the gold-plated veneer. A constant dance of deception, a high-wire act with no safety net. And I'm the ringmaster of this fucked-up circus, the puppet master pulling the strings.

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