Page 63 of Of Lies and Shadows

“Let you go?” His gaze snaps back to mine, incredulous. “And what? Send you back to your father?”

I shiver at the thought. “No. He wouldn’t want me anymore. I’d be a shame to him now. A disgrace for letting you touch me.”

I lift my chin. “I’d be free. And I’d disappear. Far.”

He’s silent for a long moment. Then he shakes his head, slow and final.

“That isn’t something I can grant you.”

“Someday,” I whisper.

His eyes harden.

“Never.” He says it almost like a command before leaving the room without a look back.

And with that single word, something inside me goes still. Not dead, just buried deeper.

For now.

Chapter Fourteen

Dante

I’m a coward.

Because today, I ran—tail between my legs, like some green boy who doesn’t know what to do with the mess he’s made. I didn’t want to see her. Didn’t want to face the twins. Didn’t want to watch her laugh at something Bruno said or lean toward him like he’s still the only safe place in her world.

Even knowing he’s her brother doesn’t dull the jealousy. It just twists it deeper.

The office is quiet, blissfully so. Maybe too quiet because the silence doesn’t drown out the sound of my own thoughts. It only sharpens them.

I sit behind my desk, fingers steepled under my chin, staring blankly at the wall like it might offer me answers. It doesn’t. Not today. Not after last night.

She told me she’d try to please me next time. Like it was a chore. Like her body was something she owed me. And the worst part? I didn’t stop her. I let her say it and didn’t correct it before I walked away again.

Now that line’s been looping through my mind like a curse.

I’ll try to please you next time.It shouldn’t have hit me like it did. But it did.

Because I don’t want hertrying. I don’t want obligations. I want… hell, I don’t know. I want her to want me. Not for survival, not to keep peace, not because she’s trying to avoid my anger.

I want her to crave me the way I crave her. I want to make her laugh again. To touch her and feel her there, not gone behind her eyes. I want her to look at me like she used to before everything burned. But I scorched the ground between us, and now, all I can see is the ash.

A knock breaks the silence.

Vito strolls in without waiting, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand and his usual cocky grin in place.

“As I live and breathe, Dante Forzi... I thought maybe you forgot where your office was.”

I glare at him, though there’s no real heat in it. He’s not wrong. I’ve been neglecting this side of the empire. Toowrapped up in my personal vendetta, too consumed by the wreckage of one woman.

He drops into the chair across from me, relaxed as always. “So, how’s marital bliss suiting you? You look like shit, boss. Is the wife keeping you up all night?” His grin sharpens. “Or is she not keeping you up at all?”

I wish it were that simple. I wish being smothered between her thighs was the problem.

But it’s not.

It’s thinking about her constantly. Wanting her like a fucking lunatic. And not just her body, but her voice, her smile, the way she hums under her breath when she thinks no one’s listening.

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