LOGINNICO.The moment we touched down in New York, Dante had already arranged for us to be moved.Not the old compound. Not the mansion with its particular atmosphere of controlled tension, every hallway feeling like it was waiting for something to go wrong. This place was different. Still in New York, tucked away from the noise and the kind of attention none of us needed right now. There were guards and cameras and enough weapons nearby to start a small war, but it did not feel like we were living inside one. It felt, strangely, like a home.Dante had changed.Not in the obvious ways — he was still the same stoic man who could make a room go quiet just by walking into it, still the kind of presence that reorganized every space he entered. But something had shifted in him since Sofia and the children, and you could feel it in how this place was set up. Isabella and Matteo running somewhere inside, Sofia's voice drifting from another room. A real home. One where his children could make nois
LUCANico had always been my person.Before Dante, before the empire, before all the blood and chaos and the years of building something out of nothing in Colombia — there had been him. My twin. My shadow. The other half of whatever I was. We had been inseparable in the way that only two people raised by the same absence can be, relying on each other not because it was convenient but because for a long time it was the only reliable thing either of us had.If something happened to me, Nico knew. If he had a problem, I was the first person he called. We shared everything — secrets, plans, stupid jokes at the worst possible times, and even the things we were too ashamed to say out loud to anyone else. That was us. That had always been us.But now?My brother had turned into a fucking vault. And I genuinely did not understand when that happened.I sat back in my seat, staring at the empty space where Nico had been sitting moments ago. His phone had vibrated. He'd looked at the screen, gon
NICOSilence had never been uncomfortable between Luca and me. Not genuinely. We could spend hours without speaking and it would sit easy between us — the silence of two people who have been in enough rooms together that they do not need to fill every moment with sound. But this was different. This silence was full. Packed with everything my brother wanted to ask and everything I was not saying and the specific friction of both those things existing in the same small cabin at thirty thousand feet.I sat by the window staring at the clouds below us. My mind was nowhere near this flight. It was in a room in Russia. Vivian's face. Her bruised body. The way she had looked at me when I promised to get her out. The way she had grabbed my wrist and begged me not to give the Alchemist what he was asking for.I closed my eyes.I was running out of time.Across from me, Luca sat with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on me with the specific expression of a man deciding where exactly to insert
VIVIAN"He wouldn't."I shake my head, the movement pulling at the pain in my back but I do not care. "Nico would not give you the ledger."The Alchemist laughs. Low and amused and the kind of sound that gets under your skin regardless of how much you prepare for it. "Yes, he would.""No.""Because of you."My stomach twists. He steps closer and I make myself hold still, made myself not move back, because giving ground to this man — even a single step — feels like losing something I cannot afford to lose right now."You know by now that he is my son, don't you?"I glare at him. "That doesn't make him anything like you."His laughter fills the room again, easy and unbothered, the laughter of someone who finds being contradicted genuinely entertaining. "He is just like me.""No.""I see it in his eyes, Vivian." He taps a finger against his temple. "The darkness follows in his blood."I shake my head. "Nico is nothing like you."The Alchemist tilts his head. "You know that's not true." H
VIVIANI had never felt this helpless before.Not when I was young. Not when I had lost everything that had ever meant anything to me. Not when I had been forced to learn how to survive in a world where weakness was something people smelled on you before they decided what to do with it. I had been in difficult rooms. I had been in dangerous situations. I had been afraid in ways that required me to function anyway because there was no alternative.But this was different.I was locked inside a room with no windows and no clock and no way to know what was happening on the other side of the door. I had no information. No tools. No ability to move or plan or act on anything. Just four walls and the particular weight of not knowing, which I have always found more difficult than knowing even the worst things.I hated it. I hated every second of it in a specific and thorough way.But knowing Nico was out there made it easier. Not completely — nothing could make this situation actually easier.
NICOThe call ends.For a few seconds I stand in the middle of the corridor with my phone still pressed against my ear like the conversation is going to continue if I just hold on long enough. Then I slowly lower it.What the fuck does Dante know?That is the first question. The second is how. Dante had been away, deliberately kept away from all of this, by me specifically. As far as I had structured things, the only people who knew what was actually happening here were me, Vivian, the Alchemist, and whoever was working behind the scenes on pieces I still didn't have the full picture of. So how had information reached Dante? And more importantly — what had reached him?My grip tightens around the phone.Dante doesn't get angry without a reason. Especially not with me. We have a working relationship that has survived eleven years of impossible situations and it runs on a particular kind of trust that is not easily rattled. But the voice on that call had been too calm. Too controlled. T
“NOT ALL DEMONS LIVE IN HELL.”SOFIA.I must have dozed off at some point because I woke to the sound of my bedroom door opening.My eyes snap open and I sit up quickly, my heart already racing before I'm even fully awake. The room is still dark but there's a stream of light from the hallway, and M
“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
IF I CAN STILL BREATHE, I’M FINE.SOFIA.I can't sleep.I should be sleeping. I should have taken a pill or had a glass of wine or done something to knock myself out so I wouldn't be lying here obsessing over things that aren't my business. But I can't. My mind won't stop racing, won't stop wonderi
SOFIA.IF I TOLD YOU MY SECRETS YOU WOULD NEVER LOOK AT ME THE SAME.The thing about living with a man who doesn't love you is that you become very good at reading silences.I can tell the difference between Marco's "I'm working" silence and his "I wish you weren't here" silence. Between his "I'm t







