Chapter 1 — You Don't Get to Run Twice

Bela

“LET GO of me!”

I dug my heels hard into the wet asphalt of the back alleyway behind the club. Rain drizzled over my burgundy hair, soaking into my thin work uniform.

Seb didn’t even look back at me. He kept moving with long strides, his large hand wrapped around my wrist like a cuff of iron, dragging me along behind him like an afterthought.

Three heavily armed Ricaforte soldiers formed a moving wall around us, shielding us from the streetlights and prying eyes.

To them, I wasn’t a person. I was a high-value asset being retrieved from the dark.

A sleek, black armored sedan idled at the curb, its engine humming low and steady. A bodyguard pulled the rear door open.

“Get in,” Seb commanded, his voice a gravelly vibration that sent a cold shudder down my spine.

“No!” I wrenched my arm with everything I had, but his grip only tightened, bruising my skin. “I am not getting in a car with you, Sebastian! You have no right—”

Seb turned fast. His dark, bloodshot eyes flashed with a dangerous, possessive heat that pinned me to the spot.

He stepped directly into my space until I was trapped against the side of the vehicle, smelling his expensive scotch, tobacco, and lethal anger.

“I have every right,” he whispered, his face inches from mine.

His large palm cupped my jaw, forcing my head up. His thumb pressed hard into my pulse point, feeling the frantic pounding of my heart.

“You think I am doing this to punish you, Bela?” Seb rasped, his black eyes burning with a raw, terrifying intensity. “If Don Bernardo Moretti sees your face in a cheap club, a sniper puts a bullet in your head before sunrise! You are the last of the Dela Costa line. You stay under my hands because it is the only place you fucking breathe! Get. In.”

Before I could scream, Seb shifted his grip.

He grabbed me around my waist, physically lifting me off the wet pavement, and shoved me into the leather interior of the backseat.

I tumbled across the plush seats, scrambling toward the opposite door, but the electronic locks clicked shut before my fingers could touch the handle.

Seb slid in right behind me, slamming the heavy armored door shut, sealing us in pitch darkness.

The car lunged forward into the Milan rain.

Seb didn't hesitate. He reached out into the dark, his broad hands pinning me flat onto my back against the leather seat.

“Look at me,” he growled, his face hovering over mine. “Don’t look away from me, Bela. Not after a year of nothing but a casket with other woman's corpse and a grave.”

“Seb, stop—”

His hand slid up my thigh, the heavy heat of his palm searing straight through the thin fabric of my work skirt.

He squeezed, his fingers digging into my flesh with a possessive intensity that made my breath hitch in my throat.

I trembled, bringing my hands up to push at his broad chest, but my fingers traitorously curled into the expensive wool of his suit jacket.

“Let go,” I whimpered, but the protest lacked all strength.

“Never again,” Seb snarled against my neck.

His teeth grazed the sensitive skin right beneath my jaw, making my toes curl inside my shoes. His hand moved higher, cupping my breast through my bra, his thumb sweeping over the hardened peak with deliberate, torturous slowness.

“You belong right here,” he rasped, his breath hot against my collarbone. “Under my hands. You don’t get to run twice.”

Thirty minutes later, the sedan pulled into the quiet underground garage of his private penthouse.

The moment the doors unlocked, Seb pulled me out of the car, carrying me straight toward his private high-speed elevator.

I didn't even have a chance to fight. The doors opened directly into the dark, cavernous master suite of the penthouse.

Seb tossed me onto the massive king bed. Before I could scramble back, the weight of his broad body followed me down, pinning me flat against the plush mattress.

He was completely unhinged.

His hands were everywhere at once, tearing away my cheap waitress uniform with a frantic, desperate hunger.

The buttons popped, the thin fabric ripping under his raw strength until my skin was exposed to the cool air of the bedroom.

He pinned both of my wrists high above my head, locking his broad fingers around them like steel cuffs.

“Seb,” I gasped, my chest heaving violently against his.

“Quiet,” he growled into my neck.

He didn't kiss me. He bit down gently on the slope of my shoulder, marking his territory, making me gasp as a sharp shock of pain and intense pleasure shot straight down to my thighs.

My body remembered him. My soul hated his suffocating control, but my skin burned for his touch like a starving person.

Seb released my wrists, using his hand to part my knees, settling his heavy hips between my legs.

“Tell me you don't want this,” Seb rasped into my lips, his voice trembling with raw grief and dark demand. “Tell me your body forgot how it feels to have your husband inside you.”

“I hate you,” I choked out, tears finally spilling over my lashes as I looked up into his dark, bloodshot eyes.

“Hate me all you want,” Seb growled low into my mouth. “You are still mine.”

He shoved deep inside me in one swift, punishing thrust.

A sharp, breathless scream tore from my throat, instantly swallowed by the heavy pressure of his mouth claiming mine.

The kiss tasted of scotch, rain, anger, and a year's worth of unmitigated agony.

I arched my back off the mattress, my hips lifting to meet his cock. My legs wrapped tightly around his waist, locking him to me as he began to drive into me with heavy power.

“Ah... Seb...” I moaned, my hands tangling into his dark hair, pulling his face down into the crook of my neck.

Every thrust was an interrogation without words.

Every stroke of his body demanded answers for the year I had spent hiding in the dark.

He moved inside me with a fierce, possessive rhythm, anchoring my hips to the bed, driving himself deeper and deeper until I was crying out his name into the empty room.

The physical tension built into a suffocating, unbearable heat.

I arched into him, my inner muscles tightening around his thick length, pulling him flush against my skin.

“Fuck, Bela...” Seb groaned, his forehead thudding against mine, his broad shoulders shaking with raw effort.

The climax broke over us like a violent storm.

My body shattered first, sharp, aching waves of intense pleasure rippling through my veins, making me sob against his mouth.

Seconds later, Seb let out a low, guttural roar, his body going rigid as he poured himself deep inside me, shuddering violently in the aftermath.

For two long minutes, we lay tangled together in the dark, our chest heaving in short, ragged gasps, our skin soaked in sweat and tears.

Then, the illusion of closeness shattered.

Seb pulled out of me slowly, the mattress shifting as he rolled away to the far edge of the bed.

He didn't pull me to his chest. He didn't brush the damp burgundy hair from my forehead.

He turned his back to me, staring silently into the dark wall as I pulled the cold silk sheet over my bruised, trembling body.