LOGINCATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE
“I should go,” I murmured softly, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. Luca stood the moment I did. “Of course.” I smiled at him, small and warm. “Thank you for the company, Luca.” His lips parted like he might say something more, but he nodded instead. “Anytime, Ca-Catalina.” I turned before he could speak again. The house loomed quiet as I entered, but the path to our bedroom told me everything I needed to know. Blood. Not his. But his clothes wore it like second skin. His trousers had been tossed over the edge of the bed, belt still looped, one leg stained deep red. His shirt, the same white one clinging to his chest earlier, lay half-crumpled near the dresser. Red streaks across the collar, like someone had tried to wipe a dying breath there. His jacket was draped across the floor, discarded like a body. The tie he wore was still wet, flung over the back of the chair. And his briefs sat by the bathroom door, barely clinging to the wall like they, too, had been stripped in a frenzy. I didn’t say a word. I moved. Quietly. I opened the drawer, took out a clean towel, the softest one. My fingers smoothed over the fabric once. Then again. I didn’t even know why. I pushed the bathroom door open. Steam clung to the walls. He stood by the tub, head bowed under the spray. Water beat down on him, tracing through blood and ash, but he wasn’t washing. Just… standing there. Steam rising. Muscles tight. Rage barely hidden under skin. I stepped inside. Folded the towel neatly. Reached to place it by the edge of the tub. And that was all it took. His hand shot out, fast, merciless. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around before I could even gasp. My back hit the marble wall with a thud, dress fanning slightly at the hem as water misted my face. “Where were you?” His voice was low. Rough. My breath hitched. “In the gar-” He didn’t let me finish. His palm slid down between my thighs, under the fabric. He removed my panties with ease. Then his fingers trailing the inside of my leg until they found the curve of my cunt. There he felt it, just soft, bare skin, still warm from the sun. “You laughed.” His voice tightened. “With him.” I opened my mouth. He shoved two fingers inside me. “Ah-!” My cry broke the silence. He pinned me there, hard, his knee nudging between my legs, widening me. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” His mouth was close to my ear now, breath hot, words unhurried. “You wore that fucking smile. That softness. That sweetness that you never gave to me.” His fingers curled. My hips jolted. His other hand slammed against the tile beside my head, water cascading down the curve of his back, over the bruises he gave me days ago. “You think you can laugh like that in front of another man and then come back to me like nothing happened?” I tried to shake my head, but my voice caught somewhere between breath and moan. He shoved deeper. “Say it.” “D-Dante-” “Say you’re mine.” “You know I-” He pressed his thumb to my clit. The shock hit me like fire. My head fell back. The tile was cold behind my neck, but the rest of me burned. He rubbed slow, cruel circles, fingers buried deep. “Say it, Catalina.” “I’m-” My thighs trembled. “Yours-!” “Again.” “I’m yours! I’m-yours!” He kept going. Every motion precise. Brutal. Designed not to please me but to destroy the echo of someone else’s name in my head. “Cum for me.” I shook. He didn’t wait for permission. He pushed, relentless. My legs buckled, a scream caught between my teeth as release tore through me. He watched me fall apart under his hand. Watched my dress cling to my soaked body, my face contort, my moans break like glass in the steam. And only then did he speak again. “Good.” He pulled his fingers out, slow, slick. Tasted them. And then? He didn’t speak again. Didn’t give me a second to breathe. His arms swept under my thighs and back like I weighed nothing. My soaked dress clung to me like a second skin, plastered with heat and the remnants of him. Steam still rose from our skin as he stepped out of the bathroom, trail of mist and fury following behind. The bedroom lights were low. But I saw it all. His shadow stretched across the bed, tall and wild, framed by the chaos he left behind, blood-stained shirt curled near the dresser, trousers half-fallen off the mattress, the black tie still swaying from the chair like it was hung there to dry a noose. He didn’t set me down gently. He dropped me onto the mattress, legs open, dress hiked up above my waist. I bounced slightly against the plush, the springs creaking under the weight of what was coming. Water soaked the sheets beneath me. My hair was wet, lips parted, breath sharp. I looked up at him. And he looked like sin, unwashed and righteous. Dante Lucchese. My husband. My storm. His chest rose and fell with something that wasn't desire, something deeper, darker. Possession. Like no matter how many times he took me, how many bruises he left, how many screams he wrung from my throat, it still wasn't enough. He needed more. He needed all of it. He hovered above me now, hair dripping, fists clenched at his sides as if trying to decide whether to fuck me or punish me first. As if there was ever a difference with him. And I? I didn’t beg. Didn’t plead. I just laid there, drenched, flushed, eyes soft and lips slightly open, like I had nothing left to give… and everything left for him to take.CATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE AFTERNOON Nikolai placed the leather folder on the table with quiet efficiency. I shifted closer to Dante, letting my thigh brush his, before opening the documents. The earlier noise in the suite, Carlos’s clinginess, Nico’s smirks, fell into silence the moment I spoke.“Voronin has been busy.” My fingers flipped through the first pages. “Negotiations with the small fry in Russia. Not the dons who matter, but the ones no one notices. Look here.” I tapped the list of names. “Petty bosses, little reach, no seat at the table. And yet… he ties threads through them.”Carlos scoffed beside me, leaning lazily against the back of my chair. “That’s laughable. What good are shrimps when sharks are circling?”I turned to him, eyes sharp. “Sharks don’t notice shrimps. But shrimps see everything. Voronin’s building a web. Not power. Information.”Dante still hadn’t spoken. He skimmed the
CATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE AFTERNOON The knock came just as I expected, two sharp raps, not tentative, not commanding. Nico’s timing was precise as always, and Carlos… well, Carlos never arrived alone if he could help it.I rose from the couch, Dante still beside me, his palm heavy on my thigh, reminding me of where I belonged even as he bristled with suspicion.The door opened, and there they were, Nico in his usual relaxed posture, smirk tugging his lips, eyes already assessing Dante like a hawk circling prey. And Carlos, my Carlos, my baby brother, stepping in with a grin too bright for a world this dark.For a beat, silence. Tension coiled thick in the air.“Carlos,” I breathed, and before Dante could tighten his grip, I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around my brother. No masks. No hesitation. Just me.His arms squeezed me back, almost crushing, almost childlike. “Sorellina,” he sai
CATALINA'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE MORNING The morning light spilled through the sheer curtains, gilding Dante’s skin in a way that made him look more myth than man. My cheek rested against his chest, the steady thud of his heart still violent even in sleep, as though even his dreams fought wars. We were tangled, skin to skin, our limbs a knot that neither of us had any intention of loosening. When his lashes fluttered open, his eyes found me instantly, sharp, focused, obsessed. His palm came up, cupping my jaw, dragging his thumb over my lips like he had to remind himself I was here, not some apparition he’d dreamed up. “You’re awake,” he murmured, voice rough with the night. “I never really slept,” I confessed, pressing a kiss to the base of his throat. “Too many thoughts.” His mouth curved in that dark way of his, a smile and a
DANTE'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE NIGHTI wanted to be wrecked. I wanted to be ruined and built again and marked like property. I wanted her to take me the way she’d taken everything else she wanted, precise, brutal, personal. When the gun skittered across the floor and the metal clinked like a surrender, I felt my breath change. Adrenaline was still raw but under it something cleaner rose, want shaped like a blade.She moved first. Of course she moved first. Catalina doesn’t wait for permission when she wants to own something.She climbed me like a tide. Her mouth was at my throat before my hands had time to register, lips hot, teeth grazing the pulse there. God, the way she kissed, claiming, not asking. Her hands flattened on my chest and pushed, forcing me back into the mattress, and when her mouth found mine it wasn’t some gentle, cautious tasting. It was a hard, wet thing that tasted of blood and
DANTE'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE NIGHTThe room was too silent. My knuckles still burned from the wall I’d split open earlier, the ache crawling up my arm, reminding me of every truth she’d thrown in my face. Catalina, my wife, my enemy, my La Rosa Nera.I wanted to see it. Not just hear it. Not just believe her words. I wanted to witness her in the flesh, the woman all of Italy whispered about, the shadow that made grown men piss themselves.So I pulled my gun. Cold steel in my hand, aimed straight at her chest.Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Then I saw it, the mask slip, the wife vanish. La Rosa Nera bled through, calm, sharp, dangerous. She didn’t flinch, didn’t beg. She knew exactly what I wanted.“Show me,” I growled.She moved. Fast. Too fast. One second the barrel was on her, the next I was the one on my back, the weight of her body pinning me down, the gun already in her hands. She straddled
DANTE'S PERSPECTIVE FRANCE - SUITE NIGHTI stared at her, my wife, my enemy, my goddamn salvation and damnation wrapped in silk and lies. And then, I laughed.Not the kind that hides fury. Not the sharp edge of control. No. This laugh burned out of my chest like a release, tearing away the rage that had been choking me since the moment I put the pieces together. It was relief. Pure, savage relief.“Christ,” I cursed, voice raw, loud enough to split the silence. “That’s why. That’s why every time I laid eyes on La Rosa Nera, my body fucking reacted. My blood knew. My instincts knew. That pull, that rage, that goddamn obsession, it wasn’t split in two.” I dragged my hand through my hair, still laughing. “It was always you. Always my wife. My enemy. My obsession. The same woman after all.”She watched me. No guilt. No pleading. Her smile, the one she reserves for the moments she wants to cut me, spread slow and sure. It was the sm







