MasukELENA’S POV I stepped out of the shower dripping wet, my skin still tangling from the cool water and the lavender-and-vanilla oil I’d poured into the bath. The bathroom smelled like a luxury spa; expensive, intoxicating, exactly the way I wanted to smell for him tonight. Pregnancy books kept warning that sex drive could crash, that husbands sometimes pulled away when the bellies of their wives grew round, that marriages drifted once the baby arrived. I refused to let that happen to us. I was Lorenzo DeLuca’s spoiled princess now. I intended to stay that way forever. I didn’t bother with lingerie, it felt like too much fabric between us. Instead I wrapped myself in the black silk robe he’d bought me during our honeymoon trip, the one that clung to every curve and barely reached mid-thigh. I left it loosely tied so it would fall open the second he touched me. I heard the low growl of the Maserati rolling into the underground garage. My pulse jumped. He was home. I dropped the robe
LORENZO’S POV The message came while I sat in the kitchen staring at my phone like it owed me answers. Unknown number. One line.I’m back, Master. For you.My thumb froze over the screen. The kitchen lights suddenly felt too bright, and the air too thin to breathe. Valentina. The name alone dragged up memories I’d paid good money to bury—her kneeling in the red room years ago, obedient and eager, until jealousy turned her sharp and unpredictable. She’d been my first real submissive after I took the reins from Don Antonio. Back then the power felt clean and intoxicating. She followed every command, took every mark I gave her, and for a while it was perfect.Valentina introduced us. Isabella was her cousin, a girl who’d run away from home back in Spain. Not because her family was cruel or broken—Mamma Rosa and Papa loved her fiercely—but because she was young, headstrong and drowning in her own rebellion during one of the darkest chapters their family had ever faced. She landed in M
ELENA’S POV I woke up to darkness pressing against the windows. The room felt too quiet, too still, and my body ached in that heavy, satisfied way that reminded me how thoroughly Enzo had wrecked me the night before. I rolled over, expecting to find him stretched out beside me, but the sheets on his side were cool and untouched. How long had I slept? The clock on the nightstand glowed 7:42 p.m. Shit. I’ve been asleep for hours. My heart kicked up. Matteo. Enzo had taken care of the situation at the mall, but what happened after? What had he done to Matteo once I fell asleep in the car?I threw the covers off and hurried downstairs barefoot, the marble cold under my feet. The house smelled faintly of coffee and gun oil. When I reached the kitchen doorway I stopped short.Enzo sat at the island counter with his back to me, his elbows braced on the granite, staring down at his phone. The screen light carved harsh shadows across his jaw. His shoulders were locked tight, knuckles white
ENZO’S POV The lawyer’s office still smelled of old paper and expensive cigars when I walked out with the deed packet tucked under my arm. Don Antonio’s properties were mine now, every acre, every building, every hidden account, signed, sealed, and transferred the second the marriage certificate cleared probate. My brothers, Marcini and Giovanni, had tried every dirty trick to block it, from forged documents, several attempts to end her life, and even a bullshit injunction claiming I’d coerced the union. None of it stuck. I was legally Elena’s husband, and the old man’s will had been crystal clear. Marry the girl, claim the empire. I did both.I loved her more than the inheritance, more than the power, but I wouldn’t pretend the inheritance hadn’t been the original spark. Now the spark was a wildfire and she was the center of it. I slid into the driver’s seat of the black Maserati, tossed the packet onto the backseat, and dialed her number as the engine roared to life.She answered
ELENA’S POV Sunlight sliced through the curtains and landed across my face. I blinked awake slowly, my body heavy and deliciously sore from the night before. Every muscle remembered Enzo, his hands, his mouth, the way he’d finally given up on restraint and fucked me until the world blurred. The sheets still carried his scent, smoke and leather mixed with that dark spice that always lingered on his skin after a long night. I stretched one arm across the mattress, expecting the solid warmth of him beside me, but my fingers met only cool, empty cotton.I sat up quickly. This was our bedroom, not the red room. The heavy black door at the end of the private wing was nowhere in sight. He must have carried me back here sometime before dawn while I slept like the dead. My cheeks warmed at the image of him cradling me through the house, careful not to wake me, tucking me into our bed like I was something fragile and precious. My naked skin slid against the satin as I swung my legs over the
ENZO’S POV My dick jerked hard against my zipper at the word Master still hanging in the air from her earlier whisper. I stood up, looking around at the room that had started off as a contract between us, the room that brought us to this moment. For one stupid second confusion slammed into me. She wanted this now? After everything? After knowing the reason why I made this room? The red room had always been our escape, our filthy little church, but we hadn’t stepped foot in here since before the world tried to rip us apart. Then she said it again, quieter, almost reverent. “Fuck me, Master.” Something inside me snapped clean in half. Confusion burned away. Hunger roared forward so fast my vision tunneled. She was offering herself, on her knees, in my shirt, pregnant with my child. Asking me to take her the way I used to before things changed between us. I was going to ruin her tonight, carefully, mercilessly, but I would ruin her. I moved closer until the toes of my shoes brushe







