MasukVIVIAN“Fuck, princess—strip.”The command lands like a slap and a caress at the same time. My pulse is still racing from the kiss, from the way he pulled back and looked at me like he was deciding whether to throw me out or fuck me senseless. I don’t move fast enough for him. Nico’s eyes darken.“I said strip.” His voice is low, rough. “Every piece. Now. Or I do it for you and you won’t like how I do it.”I hold his gaze for three stubborn heartbeats, then start unbuttoning my blouse with deliberate slowness. His jaw tightens. When the fabric slides off my shoulders he steps in, fists the material of my bra and yanks it down so my breasts spill free. The cool air hits my skin a second before his hands do—rough palms, thumbs dragging over my nipples until they harden under his touch.“Already so responsive,” he mutters, almost to himself. “And you still tried to tell me you’re just a good time.” He pinches one nipple hard enough to make me gasp. “Liar.”I open my mouth to snap back, b
"The cruelest thing you can do to someone who loves you is make them believe they imagined it.”VIVIANNico offered to drive me back home after we were done with our planning, even though I tried to avoid it as much as possible. The man was so insistent saying no to him was like speaking to a wall. Nico turns the music on low as we continue speaking and arguing over topics some might call childish, which it kinda was but still it felt like it was worth talking about. We went back and forth like that for most of the drive — light, easy, the kind of conversation that does not require effort and therefore feels like relief after a day that required too much of it. He tells me something about Luca from earlier that day that I only half follow but that builds into something absurd enough that I am genuinely laughing by the end.Then we stop outside my building.The engine stays on.He does not reach for the door handle.."After tomorrow," he says.I stop. His voice has changed. The easy q
"The most exhausting lies are the ones you have to maintain in rooms full of people who trust you."VIVIANNico does not question me further.That is the thing that catches me off guard.I prepared for questions. Had the answers arranged and ready in the particular way I arrange answers when I know what is coming — layered, each one able to support the next, nothing that contradicts itself under pressure. I was ready for Dante's scrutiny through the phone, for Luca's instinctive suspicion of anything new, for the general wariness of people who have been operating in dangerous spaces long enough to know that good information from unexpected sources is also the shape that traps take.I was ready for all of it.What I was not ready for was Nico looking at me across the kitchen table and saying simply:"We are going to brief Dante."And then picking up his phone.Like that was settled.Like the decision had already been made before the sentence finished.I watched him dial and felt someth
"The hardest thing about almost telling the truth is carrying the almost."VIVIANThis wasn't supposed to happen..He wasn't supposed to look at me like that.He is looking at me like that right now. Those eyes steady and certain and entirely without the performance of uncertainty that most people wear when they say things this large. Nico does not perform uncertainty. When he knows something he knows it and he says it and he looks at you like the knowing is simply a fact he is reporting.I wasn't supposed to want him to.I reach up, I take his hand from my face.Not quickly. Not coldly. Carefully, the way you move something that matters, both of my hands around his one and lowering it slowly until it is not on my face anymore.I feel him go still.I look up at him."Don't make promises," I say quietly, "that you don't know if you can keep Nico"He looks at me for a long moment."Try me," he says.Two words.The particular certainty of them lands somewhere I cannot immediately close o
"The most inconvenient thing about feelings is that they arrive without asking permission."VIVIANThe apartment is dark when I got upstairs after Xander dropped me off.Or it should be.The lights are on.I stop in the doorway for exactly one second — the particular stillness of someone whose body recognises a situation before their brain has fully processed it — and then I step inside and close the door behind me because standing in the doorway is not safer than being inside and at least inside I can control the space.Nico is in the armchair.Again.I have changed the locks four times since he first appeared in my apartment like furniture I did not order. Four different locksmiths, four different mechanisms, one of them a brand that the security firm I used to work for rated as near impenetrable.Because we have had that conversation and it goes nowhere and I have accepted that Nico Barbieri exists in a world where locks are more of a suggestion than a rule and fighting that partic
"Freedom is not a destination. It is something you fight for every single day, usually in the dark, usually alone."VIVIANThe heavy bag swings back toward me and I pivot and drive my elbow into it hard enough that the chain holding it creaks in protest.Again.And again.The warehouse is empty except for the sound of impact — fists and leather and the particular rhythm that takes over when you stop thinking and just move. This is the best thing about training. The best and only thing that has worked consistently since I was seventeen years old and discovered that when your body is fully occupied your mind gets a few minutes of quiet.I need quiet right now.Behind me Xander works his own bag with the methodical consistency of someone who treats training the way he treats everything — as a problem to be solved through repetition and discipline. Neither of us speaks. We never have to. Words were something we both learned early were a liability and the habit of silence stuck even in pla
“IT IS TIMES LIKE THESE I CHERISH THE MOST.”SOFIA.I am still in my clothes — a light cotton dress, no shoes — which in retrospect was my first mistake because I should have known the moment I got within three feet of the water what was going to happen.I crouch at the edge, intending to sit and d
“I WANT HIM TO KNOW THAT I AM HERE FOR HIM WITH OPEN HEART, OPEN MOUTH AND OPEN LEGS.”SOFIADante didn’t waste a second.He dragged me across the seat and into his lap, one big hand cupping the back of my neck as his mouth crashed down on mine. The kiss was deep, hungry, seven years of pent-up nee
"She walked in and the whole world forgot to breathe. So did I."DANTEI'm standing at the bottom of the staircase checking my cufflinks when I hear her.Not footsteps exactly. More like the air in the house changes. The way a room shifts when something significant enters it.I look up.And I forge
“EVEN IF YOU ARE FIRE, I'M READY TO DROWN IN YOUR FLAMES.”SOFIA.I'm walking toward the back rooms. The area where the fighters go after their matches. I shouldn't be back here. Shouldn't be seeking him out.But I need to see him. Need to know he's okay.The hallway is dimmer, quieter. I can hear







