Page 9 of Where the Wicked Reign

Nico:Only if you’ll burn with me.

I watched her sneer at her phone, then stuff it back into the pocket of her suit jacket.

As she started for the entrance doors, I drank her in one final time—at least for tonight.

Her wavy auburn hair that I remembered being so silky to the touch that night was in a half-up, half-down style that added an element of wildness to her otherwise chic and sophisticated look. Her black Versace pant suit with gold embellishments and a bustier beneath did her compact and curvy body amazing justice. She was wearing a pair of her favorite Vivier pumps, the way she moved in them giving off a commanding edge that I’d observed her developing more and more over the last few years.

She’d made a mark on the business world as she’d intended. She’d risen from the ashes of the deal I’d nixed for her with the steel factory and come out of it all the stronger. Fiercer. More determined than ever. What I’d done hadn’t just provided the space to my brother-in-arms to buildhisclub, it had also pushed Caterina in ways that had been needed in order for her to survive and succeed with her father—unbeknownst to her—hellbent on stopping her progress and making her fail.

In fact, she’d done so well that she was slated to receive an award celebrating her as Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Tolhurst Annual Business Forum in the next few weeks.

She’d always been scrappy, but she’d lacked the power years ago, because her father had kept his from her through his antiquated views on a woman’s role in our world.

That had most definitely been his loss, because since he’d driven her away, she’d thrived.

She really was something.

When I’d first taken note of her during her eighteenth birthday celebration wherein her father had invited all key figures across the three families—rather than her actual friends—as more of a business gathering than a party actually for her, it had been her demeanor that had drawn my attention.

She was a true beauty, without a doubt.

She had a natural grace about her.

A radiant sophistication.

And a softness.

The latter inmyhands was dangerous.

I maimed with these hands.

I made my enemies scream with these hands.

I murdered with them.

And I got off on it too.

I was a brutal and twisted bastard.

Dangerous.

Monstrous.

I didn’t dosoftness.

Nor gentle and careful.

How fortunate it was that I’d discovered there’d been much more to Caterina Leone than the impression that she’d put forth back then.

A fuck of a lot more.

In her rage, she’d unwittingly revealed it to me that night atIl Forno.

I’d never had any woman come close to meeting me on my level.

When things had taken a sexual turn that night, I’d expected her to surrender to me like the rest.

Instead, she’d seen it as a challenge and risen to it and even fought me for control and dominance.

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