LOGINElena's Point Of ViewTwo guards hauled Jaxx up off the harsh gravel. He looked like a wreck… his jacket torn, dark crimson trailing down his jawline, his breathing heavy and ragged. Every muscle in my body twitched, desperate to break away from Graham and sprint straight across that courtyard to hold him up.My throat closed around a scream I didn't dare release, and I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep it there, trapped where it could do no harm. Then Jaxx tilted his head up. His swollen eye fluttered open, locking right onto mine. For one suspended heartbeat, the entire courtyard seemed to vanish… the guards, the gravel, Graham's suffocating presence at my side, until there was nothing left but the two of us and the impossible distance between us. In that fraction of a second, I saw everything I'd been trying not to feel: the terror, the fear, the desperate need to close the gap and never let go. Instead of showing agony, his bloody lips twitched upward into a faint,
Elena's Point Of View"What?" The word barely escaped me. It was just a thin, hollow breath that dissolved in the air between us, swallowed whole before it could mean anything. My ears rang so loudly I thought my eardrums might burst, but beneath the high-pitched hum, the dull, wet impact of another boot hitting Jaxx's ribs echoed like thunder across the courtyard.Every fiber of my being wanted to run to him, to throw myself between his broken body and the men still circling him, but my legs refused to move, frozen in place by a terror I had never known before, a paralysis that felt like betrayal in itself. Graham smiled, his eyes soft, almost gentle, which only made the skin on the back of my neck prickle with absolute revulsion. He raised his hand, his thumb resting against my jawline while his fingers cupped my chin. He rubbed the bone with a slow, deliberate pressure, tilting my face up so I had no choice but to look at him.There was something obscene about the tenderness in h
Elena's Point Of ViewGraham didn't even flinch. He just stood there, letting me shake him, a slow, sickening bubble of laughter building in his chest until he finally let it out. He looked down at my hands clutching his shirt as if I were a stray kitten claws-deep in his favorite sweater, something to be tolerated rather than feared. There was no fear in his eyes, no flicker of doubt… only that maddening, patient amusement, as though my desperation were a mildly diverting show staged solely for him. "Me?" Graham chuckled, his hands rising to calmly wrap around my wrists, his grip like steel bands. "Sweetheart, I did absolutely nothing to him. I've been right here with you the entire time. You're my witness, aren't you?" "You monster!" I screamed, the word ripping from my throat, raw and ragged. Tears were finally rolling down my face now, hot and fast, blurring the sight of his smug, handsome face. "You ordered it! You knew he was out there! You absolute psychopath, let me go!" "
Elena's Point Of ViewThe heavy wooden door clicked shut, the sound echoing through the cavernous space like a gunshot. I stood completely frozen in the center of the grand room, my breath catching in my dry throat. The silence that followed was suffocating, pressing against my eardrums until I could hear nothing but the frantic thudding of my own pulse.I waited, counting the seconds in my head, hoping against hope that I was just having some horrific, vivid nightmare, that I would wake up in my own bed in Dallas with nothing worse than a bad hangover to deal with. But the sharp, throbbing ache behind my temples was all too real, and so was the cold marble beneath my bare feet. Slowly, I forced my legs to move. The expensive, champagne-colored silk slip dress clung to my skin, shifting with a soft rustle that made me want to rip it off and burn it, to erase every trace of the hands that had dressed me while I was unconscious. I walked toward the massive door, my bare feet sinking i
Jaxx's Point Of ViewLiam gave a tight, grim nod. His large hand reached into his tactical vest to pull out his own suppressed weapon, the metal catching the faint Italian sunlight filtering through the high pillars. He started to step out into the corridor to take an angle, his boots perfectly silent on the stone, every muscle in his body coiled with the discipline of a man who had done this a hundred times before.I could see the old scars on his knuckles, souvenirs of missions he never talked about, and for a moment I envied the calm that seemed to live permanently behind his eyes. I reached out an arm, catching his chest to stop him. "Don't worry," I breathed, my voice barely a whisper against the stone wall. "I'll handle it." Liam stared at me for a fraction of a second, evaluating the sheer, unadulterated venom in my eyes. He knew better than to argue when I looked like this. Something in my expression must have told him that words would only waste precious seconds. He simpl
Jaxx's Point Of View"Who the hell are you?!" he shouted, his voice echoing sharply across the stone patio. The other nine men spun around, weapons raising in unison, eyes locking onto me. I could hear the metallic clack-clack of safety switches being flicked off, a sound that usually made a sane man freeze in his tracks. But right now, sanity wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse. Somewhere behind my ribs, a cold, focused fury had taken the wheel, and it didn't care much for the odds stacked against us. I thought of Elena, of the last time I'd heard her voice, and the fury sharpened into something almost sacred. I didn't stop walking. Instead, I raised both hands in the air in a mock gesture of surrender, palms open, fingers loose. I plastered a calm, almost lazy smile on my face, rolling my shoulders casually as I continued closing the distance. My boots crunched softly against the gravel, each step deliberate, unhurried, designed to unnerve rather than provoke. Behind me, Liam and th
Elena’s Point Of ViewMy fingers trembled around the phone, my breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. What the hell was wrong with him?One minute, he was gone, vanished like a ghost, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the way his hands had felt on my skin, the way his voice had sounded in the dar
Jaxx’s Point Of ViewThe conference room was a tomb of dark wood and polished steel, the air thick with the scent of cigar smoke and expensive cologne. The leaders of the minority clans under The Moretti Syndicate sat around the long mahogany table, their faces a mix of respect and barely concealed
Elena’s Point Of ViewLexy didn’t wait for me to gather my thoughts. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small, velvet box, tossing it onto my desk with a clink."What’s this?" I asked, eyeing it warily."Open it," she said, her grin turning wicked.I flipped open the box. Inside was
Elena’s Point Of ViewThe tears came without warning.One second, I was talking… voice steady, hands clenched in my lap, and the next, my chest was heaving, my vision blurring, my entire body shaking with sobs I couldn’t stop. It was like something inside me snapped, like the last thread holding me







