Page 182 of Corrupting Camille
“I need you to listen to me,” he says, voice hoarse. “Don’t leave this house. Not with Javi. Not with Joaquin. Not even with Diego. I don’t give a fuck what anyone says.”
I nod.
His breath brushes my lips. “I don’t care what you hear. Don’t flinch. Don’t speak. Don’t fucking run.”
“I won’t,” I whisper.
“I’ll lock you in a room if I have to, Camille. I swear to God. I need you safe.”
Tears sting the backs of my eyes, but I hold them back. I force myself to meet his gaze and keep it steady.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His mouth finds mine again. This time it’s slower. But somehow deeper. He kisses me like a man who’s already killed for me. And would do it again in a heartbeat.
When he finally steps back, his expression is already shifting.
Closing.
Sealing shut.
And when he turns toward the doors Diego disappeared behind, I see it for the first time in full:
Not just Kane Rivera, the man who wrecked me in a penthouse and put my soul back together midair.
But the ruthless, calculating force Miami calls jefe.
And I…I’m the woman who walked straight into his war.
Kane
My study breathes darkness. Quiet, lethal. Dangerous. Shadows cling stubbornly to the corners, defiant even against the Miami sun lurking just beyond heavy curtains. The scent of aged leather and cigar smoke coils thickly through the air, mingling sharply with the metallic bite of gun oil, familiar, soothing, like blood on my knuckles after a good fight.
Five men wait silently, spread like chess pieces around the massive mahogany table. Diego stands near the towering bookshelf, hooded eyes unreadable, body coiled and lethal beneath deceptive stillness. Joaquin paces by the window, restless and volatile like a predator starved for blood. Elías lounges deceptively casual, flicking his blade in rhythmic impatience against his thigh, craving violence, itching to strike. Javi stands rigid, fingertips pressing deep into the polished wood, shoulders locked in tension.
None speak when I enter. They know better. They’ve seen me ruthless, seen me cold. Seen the kind of quiet that precedes bloodshed.
My footsteps echo softly against marble, deliberate, controlled. My fingers trail along the carved back of my chair before I finally sit, sprawling deceptively loose, eyes sweeping the room slowly.
“Tell me,” I murmur quietly, voice smooth but lined with steel.
Javi hesitates just long enough for the tension in the room to sharpen into a razor’s edge. He slides an unmarked folder toward me, gaze carefully neutral.
I don’t touch it yet. I let silence hang, heavy and threatening.
With a breath that shakes just slightly, Javi flips it open, spreading photographs across the dark polished surface like tarot cards revealing a cursed fortune.
My gaze dips down. Slow. Methodical.
Something lethal twists inside my chest.
Camille stares back at me, oblivious, unprotected, utterly unaware of the danger circling her. One photo captures her outside the Langford, curls tousled by the wind, eyes narrowed with instinctive unease. Another image shows her rigid beside her mother at their sprawling estate, that carefully constructed polite mask she wears barely concealing discomfort. Another still, lit by neon and shadows in a crowded nightclub, shows hersmiling freely, beautifully reckless, fucking vulnerable. There are dozens more, each shot intrusive, each invasion more intimate than the last.
Camille, exposed. Targeted. And I didn’t fucking know.
My pulse doesn’t quicken. My breath remains even. Instead, an icy, devastating clarity settles over me. A quiet fury rises, controlled, deadly. Twitching beneath my skin like a muscle trained for violence.
“When?” The question drips from my lips, colder than ice, quieter than death.
