Page 82 of Made for Saints

I leaned back in my chair, my gaze drifting toward the city lights again. Below, the world moved with its usual rhythm—business deals forged in shadow, betrayals whispered indarkened alleys. My world. Dangerous, ruthless, and utterly mine. Here, I was untouchable. Up here, in the sanctity of my penthouse, everything should have been still, predictable.

But tonight, the order I prized so deeply was fractured. I could feel the crack widening with every thought of her.

I closed my eyes briefly, letting the day replay in vivid detail. The way she had stood in front of me, fire in her eyes, daring me to rise to her challenge. The mall. The fucking lingerie store. The way she held up that damn red lace, taunting me, her lips curving into a mischievous smile that she knew would undo me. She had been testing me—pushing me. And I’d let her.

I should’ve walked away. Should’ve left her standing there, defiant and flush with victory. Instead, I’d lingered. I’d let her slip beneath my skin, let myself imagine how that scrap of fabric would look stretched across her bare skin. Let myself wonder how she’d sound if I tore it off her.

My hand tightened around the arm of the chair, the leather creaking in protest. This wasn’t just desire. Desire was easy—something I could take, extinguish, and leave behind when it suited me. Emilia was something else. Something more dangerous.

She was a fucking spark in a room full of gasoline, and I wasn’t sure I cared if she burned it all down.

I rose from the chair, pacing toward the windows, the city sprawling before me like a kingdom. My kingdom. The life I had built with blood, discipline, and precision. I had spent years ensuring nothing could shake me—no threat, no betrayal, no temptation. My power wasn’t just about brute force; it was about control. The ability to bend the world to my will while remaining untouchable.

And yet, Emilia had unraveled me with a single glance.

She thought she was untouchable, that her defiance made her immune to the rules of my world. But she didn’t understand how dangerous she was—not just to herself, but to me.

I should’ve been annoyed. Emilia had no sense of self-preservation, no understanding of the power dynamics at play. Any other woman in her position—surrounded by men like me, raised in a world where alliances were everything—would’ve known better than to push. To challenge. To provoke.

But she wasn’t like any other woman.

She didn’t cower. She didn’t simper. She didn’t try to win me over with false sweetness or calculated charm. No, Emilia fought. She argued. She met me blow for blow, refusing to yield even when she should. That defiance should’ve irritated the hell out of me.

Instead, it intrigued me.

I clenched my jaw, forcing the thought away. Emilia Ricci was a complication I didn’t need. She was the daughter of a man I did business with, a woman who had no place in my world beyond whatever strategic use I could find for her. Keeping her close should’ve been about control—ensuring she didn’t become a liability. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

She wasn’t just a distraction. She was a temptation.

And temptation made men weak.

I’d seen it happen before—powerful men brought to their knees because they let themselves care too much. I had spent my entire life ensuring I wouldn’t make the same mistakes. Feelings clouded judgment. They made men reckless, vulnerable. Weaknesses like that got men killed.

And yet...she got to me.

I pressed a hand to the glass, the cool surface grounding me for a moment. I told myself it was just a passing fascination. A momentary lapse in discipline. She was beautiful, yes, but I’d been with beautiful women before. This wasn’t about that.

No, it was the fire in her that pulled me in. The way she refused to be intimidated. The way she stood her ground, even knowing exactly what kind of man I was. She was chaos, and I had spent my entire life trying to extinguish chaos. But Emiliamade me want to let it burn.

I turned away from the window, striding back to my desk. My glass sat there, half-empty, the amber liquid catching the light. I picked it up, swirling it absently as I forced my thoughts into order. Emilia was a risk—a risk I couldn’t afford to take. My enemies would see her as a weakness. A liability. Something to exploit. That should’ve been enough to put an end to this before it spiraled out of control.

But it wasn’t.

I drained the glass in one slow swallow, the burn grounding me even as my thoughts spiraled.

Emilia Ricci was going to be my most dangerous mistake yet.

Chapter 28

Emilia

The bar was dimly lit, the kind of place where shadows clung to the walls and secrets whispered between strangers. It wasn’t my usual haunt, but that was the point. After the whirlwind of shopping with Dante—his smirks, his infuriating comments, the way his eyes lingered on me in the green dress—I needed to escape. To breathe. To remind myself that I was still my own person, not some accessory orbiting around Dante Conti’s gravitational pull.

So here I was, perched on a barstool in a place I’d never been before, sipping a whiskey sour and scanning the room for a distraction. The air was heavy with the scent of spilled beer and old wood, the low hum of conversation blending with the faint strains of a bluesy guitar from the overhead speakers. It was the perfect setting to lose myself, to forget the way Dante’s voice had wrapped around me like a noose, pulling tighter with every word.

I had called my Uber, met the driver down the road - a very nice lady who told me I looked stunning in my outfit. I tipped her twice as much as I usually did just for that alone.

I spotted him near the pool table—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sharp jawline and an easy smile. He wasn’t bad-looking, and he had that casual confidence that suggested he either didn’t know or didn’t care how attractive he was. Perfect.

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