WHERE ANGELS BURN

Grace barely had time to breathe.

Cain spun her around, pressing her against the glass wall that overlooked the city like a kingdom beneath his feet. He pulled the straps of her lace bra down her shoulders slowly, as if savoring the reveal.

“You walk around my world like you don’t know what you do to me,” he muttered, voice low and rough. “But I think you *do*.”

His mouth found her neck again, biting down harder this time, drawing a gasp from her lips as his hands slid lower—gripping, claiming.

“I should ruin you for touching him,” he whispered against her collarbone, dragging his fingers beneath the lace of her panties. “But then again… maybe I like it when you lie.”

His fingers slid between her thighs.

*No teasing.*

Just filthy, wet friction. Deep, slow, exact.

Grace moaned, arching against him, breath fogging the glass. The city blurred behind her. Nothing mattered but the way he touched her—*owned* her.

Cain lifted her effortlessly, carrying her to the black granite counter in his open kitchen. She barely had time to catch her breath before he was between her legs, dropping to his knees like a man ready to sin.

And God, did he sin.

His mouth was wicked—hot and greedy, tongue flicking and curling, sucking like she was a secret he planned to consume.

Grace cried out, fingers gripping his hair. “Cain—God—don’t stop—”

He didn’t. Not until she came hard and fast, thighs trembling against his face.

He rose, eyes dark and wild, lips glistening.

“Your turn,” she whispered, voice wrecked.

He smirked, dropped his pants.

She wrapped her legs around him, nails raking down his back as he thrust inside—*deep,* unrelenting, stretching her open with brutal precision.

They didn’t make love.

They *tore* each other apart.

Every thrust was punishment. Every kiss a war. The sounds of skin on skin echoed through the penthouse, feral and uncontrolled.

When they came, it was like falling into fire—messy, loud, addictive.

---

After, Cain didn’t speak.

He just stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, nude, smoke curling from the cigar between his fingers as Grace lay in his bed, bare and marked and utterly undone.

“I should send you back home,” he said finally. “Let you crawl into bed next to that little husband of yours.”

Grace sat up, sheets sliding off her breasts. “He doesn’t ask where I go anymore.”

Cain exhaled slowly. “Maybe he’s not as clueless as you think.”

---

**Later that night...**

Ryan stood in their bedroom, holding Grace’s phone.

She had left it unlocked.

There were no texts. But there *was* a location history app—tracking her last known place.

A penthouse on the edge of the city. Not Ava’s. Not Sam’s.

His stomach twisted. And then clenched harder when he saw *who* owned it.

*Cain Russo.*

Ryan had done business with Cain once—briefly. A debt restructuring deal that went south. He knew the name. The reputation.

He stared out the window, rage building.

His wife wasn’t just *lying.*

She was in bed with the devil.

Cain leaned on the edge of the bed, his body still warm, still humming with the satisfaction of what they’d just done.

But something about the silence between them felt sharp. Unsettled.

Grace lay on her side, watching him, one finger tracing the edge of a bruise blooming on her thigh. His mark. His punishment.

“You didn’t ask me to leave,” she said softly.

“I’m not done with you yet.”

He turned toward her, and there it was again—that flicker in his eyes. Hunger, yes. Possession. But also something colder. Calculating.

“You think I fuck women like you for love?” he asked.

“No,” she said, sitting up slowly, baring herself without shame. “You fuck women like me to forget something you can’t kill.”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, Cain stood, poured himself another drink, and pressed a button on the wall. A voice crackled through the speaker.

“Bring her clothes. Her ride is waiting.”

Grace slid off the bed and moved toward him. Naked. Unapologetic.

She took the glass from his hand, drank from it, and whispered against his lips, “You’ll want me back before morning.”

He said nothing.

But when she left, he watched her all the way to the elevator.

---

**Meanwhile…**

Ryan stood outside the building. Same penthouse address. Same name on the security registry.

*Cain. Fucking. Russo.*

He had come straight from work, still in his suit. But now his hands were fists in his pockets, jaw tight enough to crack.

He didn’t go up.

He stood in the shadows and waited.

And when Grace finally walked out of the building in a black trench coat and heels—hair tousled, mouth slightly swollen—he *knew.*

He didn’t call her name.

He didn’t follow.

He just stepped back into the dark and watched his wife slide into a black car and disappear into the city like she belonged to someone else now.

---

**Back at Ava’s apartment…**

Ava was sprawled across her velvet couch, a man’s shirt barely covering her thighs.

Luca had just left. But he hadn’t taken all of her.

She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers, heart pounding. She told herself this wasn’t real. That none of it was. That Cain and his men were a temporary lie.

But then her phone buzzed.

**Message from Cain:**

*“You’re up next. 9 PM. Club Inferno. Red Room.”*

She swallowed hard.

Ava knew what the Red Room was.

And if she went in, she wasn’t coming out the same.

---

**Back at Cain’s penthouse…**

He stood at the window again, watching the city pulse with secrets.

Luca stepped beside him, shirtless, holding a file.

“The husbands are watching,” Luca said. “Ryan tailed her tonight. Didn’t make a move—but he knows.”

Cain didn’t flinch. “Let him stew.”

“And if he explodes?”

Cain smirked, cold and dark. “Then we break him.”

He took a slow drag from his cigar.

“And if she begs us not to?”

Luca raised an eyebrow.

Cain exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “Then I’ll *make* her beg.”