Page 29 of King Of Order

She was chaos. Beautiful, reckless chaos.

Feeling stirred inside me when her fingers fidgeted with the edge of her glass in the bar.

That pull, that magnetic force that drove me to want to get closer despite every warning bell in my head.

When her eyes flicked up, meeting mine, I sucked my teeth, fighting the attraction.

The way she studied me like I was the devil she dared to tempt—made my chest tighten.

Damn, I should have stayed at my table. Not approached, kept my distance.

I should have found another way of getting to the Tirone family.

But there was no going back now.

She was luring me in, pulling me deeper into her essence, and a portion of me didn’t even want to resist.

But I knew better. I wasn’t naive.

A woman like her came with a price—a steep one.

The question gnawed at me:Was I willing to pay it?

Was I prepared to lose command, to let her drag me into whatever storm was swirling in her life?

Every logical part of me said no.

I had many reasons to walk. I could not afford to get close to her nor surrender my dominance of myself in the process.

Not now, because I was fuckin’ tired. Of the grief, the waiting, the wild thirst for revenge.

When she leaned forward, her lips curling into that damn smile that induced a high pulse, I felt the ground shift beneath me.

She wasn’t even trying, yet she had me teetering on the edge of something dangerous.

I tagged it in her eyes—the mess, the wildness, the trouble she carried like a weight on her shoulders.

But below that, a siren call made me want to peel back those layers and understand her in a way no one else did.

I walked through the streets that night, hands deep in my pockets, clenching my jaw as I tried to think straight.

She was a doubtful outcome for me at this crucial juncture of my mission.

Yet, I would not stay away. I didn’t want to keep away.

She was a challenge, but my past was full of them.

Hell, maybe I was as reckless as she was.

Perhaps, in my innermost being, I craved the trouble she brought.

I wanted to see how much I handled before I broke.

I was pushing the envelope on my neverending need for control.

But was it worth the risk?

Conceivably, I was past the point of no return. Likely, she’d already snagged me.

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