CHAPTER 5

Viola spent the rest of the day hiding in her tiny bedroom.

She didn't go down for lunch, and she skipped dinner entirely. She just sat on the edge of her bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest, waiting. She expected her mother to burst through the door at any second. She expected to be dragged to the dark storage rooms and punished for eavesdropping.

But no one came.

He had caught her sneaking, but he hadn't told her mother.

Viola couldn't understand why. Why would he keep her secret? He clearly didn't care about her. But no matter how hard she tried to make sense of it, her mind kept looping back to the forbidden name.

Diego.

She remembered the way Sebastian's posture had snapped. The lethal, murderous energy radiating off his massive frame. Whoever Diego was, the mere mention of his name had almost pushed her stepbrother to kill his own father.

By 2:00 AM, the estate was dead silent, but Viola's mind was still racing. The walls of her small bedroom felt like they were closing in. Her chest was tight with anxiety, and her stomach cramped with hunger. She needed air.

Slowly, she slipped out of her room.

She walked softly down the long, dark corridor toward the east wing. There was a large, open balcony at the end of the hall that overlooked the gardens, usually abandoned at this hour. She stayed close to the wall, her bare feet making absolutely no sound against the marble.

As she neared the balcony, the faint, quiet sound of a soft gasp stopped her in her tracks.

Viola froze.

A woman? The thought panicked her. The gasp sounded breathless, almost like someone was in pain. Her first instinct was to turn around and run straight back to her bedroom, but what if someone was in danger?

Swallowing her fear, Viola tiptoed closer, inching toward the stone archway of the balcony. She peeked around the edge, her violet eyes adjusting to the dark.

The blood instantly drained from her face.

No one was in danger.

A beautiful woman in a deep green dress had her back pressed flush against the stone wall. Sebastian's massive frame had her completely pinned. The woman's bare legs were wrapped tightly around his narrow waist, her hands desperately gripping the dark, messy hair at the back of his head.

Viola's feet froze to the floor.

Sebastian was kissing her with a brutal, consuming dominance. His broad chest pressed heavily against her, his mouth eating at hers before dragging open-mouthed kisses down the long column of her neck. The woman let out another breathless, needy moan, throwing her head back against the stone.

And something happened to Viola's body that she didn't understand.

Heat. It unfurled low in her stomach, slow and thick, spreading down through her belly and up her throat at the same time. Her skin went tight and hot all over, like a fever breaking. Her own breath turned shallow, quickening to match the woman's gasps, and she hated herself for it.

Her thighs pressed together without her permission. There was a strange, fluttering pull between them she had no name for. Her fingers curled against the cold stone of the archway, holding on like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

She was a virgin. She had never even been kissed. She had certainly never seen anything this explicit, this deeply intimate, in her entire life.

She knew she needed to look away. Every moral her mother had ever beaten into her was screaming at her to run. But her body wouldn't obey. Her body leaned forward, toward the heat, like it wanted to know more.

Shame burned through her hotter than anything. What was wrong with her?

Suddenly, the beautiful woman's eyes fluttered open.

Her gaze drifted over Sebastian's broad shoulder and locked directly onto Viola hiding in the archway.

The woman stopped moaning. She pulled back slightly, a look of pure amusement crossing her flushed face.

"Well, well," the woman said softly, a smile in her voice. "Who is this little mouse?"

Sebastian stopped.

He didn't let the woman go, but he slowly turned his head, looking over his broad shoulder. His striking amber eyes pierced through the dark, landing directly on Viola.

His hair was a messy ruin. His jaw was tense. Slowly, a dark smirk played on his lips. He let his gaze drag up and down her completely frozen, terrified form.

"Enjoying the show, dulzura?" his rough voice murmured in the quiet night.

Viola's face went up in flames.

"I was just, I didn't, I'm sorry," she stammered, the words tripping over each other.

She ripped herself away from the archway and ran for her life.

She sprinted blindly down the dark corridors, the sound of her own panicked heartbeat roaring in her ears. She threw herself into her bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.

Viola practically dove onto her bed, grabbing her pillow and pressing it tightly over her face as a silent, humiliated scream tore from her throat.

Why didn't I run sooner? her mind shrieked. Why did I just stand there? She hadn't wanted to stare, but her legs had felt glued to the floor. Now he knew she had seen them. She was never going to be able to look him in the eye again.

And the worst part, the part she buried deep under the humiliation, was that the heat in her stomach still hadn't gone away.

If her mother ever found out she had witnessed something like that, she would actually kill her.

Avoiding Sebastian Hierro became Viola's full-time job.

On Tuesday, she rounded a corner carrying clean sheets and heard his voice ahead, low and rough, talking to one of the staff. She didn't think. She darted into the nearest door, the cold storage room beneath the stairs, and stood frozen between the shelves of preserves and old boxes, her heart slamming so loudly she was sure it echoed.

His footsteps approached. Slowed. Stopped, right outside the door.

Viola stopped breathing. Her fingers dug into the sheets. Dust and cold air filled her nose, and she stood there in the dark like a statue, praying to a God she wasn't sure listened to her anymore.

One second. Two.

Then the footsteps moved on.

She stayed in that freezing room for twenty more minutes, until her legs stopped shaking enough to carry her.

On Thursday, she took more desperate measures.

Sebastian was at the lunch table, sitting at Rafael's right like he already owned it. Viola's chair was directly in his line of sight. She couldn't do it. She couldn't spend an hour under those amber eyes, not after the balcony.

So when Vanessa made her usual comment about Viola's sweater, calling it something even beggars would reject, Viola did something she never did.

She answered back.

"At least beggars earn what they wear," she said quietly. "They don't steal it from their sister's wardrobe."

The table went dead silent. Vanessa's face went white, then blotchy red. Her mother's palm cracked against the table.

"Go to your room," Octavia hissed, trembling with rage. "No lunch. No dinner. I don't want to see your face for the rest of the day."

"Yes, Mother."

Viola walked out with her head down, hiding the smallest flicker of relief in her chest. Being punished was familiar. Being hungry was survivable.

Sitting across from Sebastian Hierro was neither.

But on Sunday evening, avoiding him became impossible.

Rafael had ordered the entire family to gather in the main drawing room. When Viola quietly slipped in, keeping her head down, the suffocating tension was already thick in the air.

Sebastian was sitting on one of the large leather sofas in the center of the room. He was wearing a dark black shirt, and Viola absently thought black must be his favorite color, since he was always wearing it. The top three buttons were left undone, revealing the sharp lines of his collarbone. His dark hair was messy, a cigarette resting lazily between his lips. He sat like a king, his legs spread, looking completely unbothered.

To Viola's complete shock, Rafael actually looked happy.

It was a cold, restrained kind of happiness, but he was practically glowing with victory as he stood by the fireplace.

"I have gathered you all here to share some excellent news," Rafael announced, his gravelly voice carrying easily across the room. "Finally, my son has agreed to fulfill his duties."

Viola glanced up nervously from her corner.

"Sebastian is officially shifting his base to this estate," Rafael continued, a triumphant gleam in his dark eyes. "He is taking over his rightful position as the head of the Spanish families. We are throwing a celebration next week to announce it to the cartel."

Vanessa gasped, a bright, calculating smile lighting up her flawless face. "Oh, my god! Congratulations, Sebastian!"

Octavia immediately chimed in, her tone sweet and polished. "This is wonderful news. The Hierro name will finally be exactly where it belongs."

Viola stayed completely silent, pressing her back against the wall, trying to disappear into the wallpaper.

He was moving in. Officially. The man who terrified her, the man who fascinated her, the man she had caught doing that on the balcony, was going to be living under the exact same roof. Permanently.

She swallowed hard, her chest tightening with panic.

Slowly, carefully, she let her gaze drift toward the sofa.

His striking amber eyes locked directly onto the quiet, terrified girl hiding in the corner. He took a slow drag of his cigarette, watching her through the smoke.

"Does having me here permanently terrify you?" his deep, rough voice suddenly cut across the room, completely ignoring Vanessa's smiling face.

The entire room went dead silent.

Vanessa's bright smile vanished instantly. Octavia stiffened in absolute shock, her eyes darting between the cartel boss and her unwanted daughter. Even Rafael frowned, utterly confused.

Viola stopped breathing. The blood completely drained from her face as every single furious, shocked stare in the room snapped directly to her.

Her hands started to shake. She pressed them flat against her thighs to hide it. It didn't work.

Sebastian just sat there, waiting. He exhaled a slow stream of smoke, utterly patient, like he had all night.

"Well?" he pressed, his voice dropping lower. "Answer me, Viola."

Her name in his mouth, in front of everyone. Her hands shook harder. Her mother was staring at her with dawning fury. Vanessa's confusion was already curdling into something uglier. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Nothing existed in her head except the roaring of her own blood.

And that was when she saw it.

The smile creasing the corner of his mouth.

Slow. Unhurried. The smile of a man who knew exactly what he was doing to her, and was enjoying every second of it.

Somehow, that smile was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

Because Viola understood, with a certainty that turned her blood cold, exactly what that smile was promising.

Her hiding was over. The storage rooms, the skipped dinners, the punishments she provoked on purpose, none of it would save her anymore. He was moving into this house. Her house. There would be no hallway without his footsteps in it, no dinner table without his eyes across from her, no corner left to disappear into.

And worse. He had just done this in front of everyone. Her mother was already staring at her like she had committed a crime. Vanessa looked like she wanted to claw her apart right there. Whatever Sebastian was doing, he wasn't hiding it, and the price for his attention would be collected from her, not from him.

He wasn't done with her.

He had barely started.