LOGINKIRA’S POVI stood frozen, my chest heaving with fear and something far more dangerous twisting in my gut. Ecstasy. Dread. Lust. I didn’t know what the hell I was feeling anymore.I blinked hard, trying to breathe, trying to focus… and that’s when I realized Adrian was staring straight at me.The music, which had paused during the commotion, resumed playing. I glanced down through the glass to see the regulars already dancing again… like my husband hadn’t just murdered a man right above them. I tore my eyes away from Adrian, glancing toward the door. But it was just us in the room now..well, us and minus the pervy bastard bleeding out on the floor.Adrian stood up abruptly, his force nearly knocking my breath out of my lungs. My breath caught when he stepped forward—not hurried. No rush. Just this dangerous and confident movement, and just like that, I remembered how to speak.“You shot him,” I whispered but I knew he heard me.He didn’t answer. Not right away.“I did,” he said final
Kira’s POVWhat the hell just happened?“Hey… move it!”Someone shoved me. Two girls, grinding against each other, bumped into me and jolted me back into reality.The noise of the club, the music, the lights, the chaos. Everything came crashing back into my senses all at once and I struggled to stay upright. Something was different now.Adrian.It was like his touch had soaked into my skin, deep into my bloodstream. I felt weightless. Like I was floating. But still… still… incredibly turned on. My insides tingled with leftover tension, throbbing like I’d been wired for a release that never came.It felt like I was going to explode.I started moving, weaving through the crowd looking for him. Where the hell did he go? Did he really just do that? In public? And worse… Did I let him?I frantically searched the faces, my eyes roaming trying to make out faces over the blinking lights, when I crashed into something hard.“Whoa, whoa… I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”Antonio.His voic
KIRA’S POVMy eyes fell on Adrian and our gazes locked. Everything around me.. the music, the chaos, the crowd suddenly disappeared. It was like the whole world paused… and in that stillness, all I could see was him.Waves of them. Endless. Relentless.He stood there in his signature black suit, his hair slicked back like always. Those eyes of his… they roamed over my body with a slow, lazy sort of curiosity that made my skin shiver.I suddenly felt exposed, almost naked under his gaze, even though I was barely clothed. I could feel the heat of his stare burning through the thin fabric of my dress. My fingers itched, almost instinctively, to tear at the top of it, to rip it off like it didn’t belong to me anymore. Not with him looking at me like that.“Wh…What are you—” I struggled to form words. The music was loud, pulsing, drowning out my voice… but somehow, his presence was louder.He stepped closer, and I took a step back instinctively. Not because I was scared of him… but because
Kira’s POV“Are you sure about this?” I asked Gia, for what felt like the hundredth time. Maybe the thousandth.Gia, of course, didn’t pause for a second as she walked out of the car. “Girl… yes.”“I don’t know, Gia,” I hesitated. “We should probably go back home. It’s almost time for dinner.”She whipped her head toward me so fast. “Dinner? You’re thinking about dinner right now?”“Yes,” I replied, tugging down the hem of the dress she practically forced on me. It was very short. Very, very short. Like, if-I-sneeze-it’s-over short. The fabric clung to my body like a second skin, and for what felt like the millionth time, I tried to pull it down and cover something. Anything.“Gia, seriously, I don’t think—”“No, Kira. Don’t start.” She cut me off with a finger pointed in my face. “We’re doing this. I can’t believe you’ve never gone clubbing before. That’s actually embarrassing.”I looked up ahead at the large building. The pulsing red and blue lights bled out of the entrance and pain
ADRIAN'S POV“All of them?” I asked, sinking into my chair.“Yes, boss. All of them,” Ted confirmed, his voice tense.“What the fuck is going on?” I growled, leaning forward, my palms flat against the desk.“They think you called it,” Ted said, not meeting my eyes. “My informant at the Monteverros says their youngest son was shot. And they think you called the hit. Somehow, it has all our prints on it.”“What?” I snapped. “How?”“I don’t have more details yet. But—”I raised my hand, cutting Ted off mid-sentence. He stopped talking immediately. I pressed my palms to my face, forcing myself to breathe through the pressure building in my skull.“Shit.”I turned my attention to Steven, my legitimate secretary who stood stiffly beside Ted like he didn’t know where to place his hands.“What was that important info you had for me?”The moment I stepped into VPN, Steven chased after us. Before I’d even arrived, he’d blown up my phone with SOS messages. I was neck-deep in other things and had
KIRA’S POVI read the message for the umpteenth time: a secret in the basement.The basement?What could possibly be waiting for me down there?Was this Adrian’s weird idea of a gift?No. Something told me this wasn’t from Adrian. He didn’t even know I was aware of the super creepy, torture-chamber-of-a-basement. I’d only ever been there once… when I saw him drilling a man like it was nothing.I turned to where the person had come from, my eyes scanning the empty hallway, ears straining, waiting for a maid or one of Adrian's men to pop out and say this was all a prank. A voice in my head probed, " Do people in this house look like they know what a prank is?”Ok, so not a prank!Maybe Adrian had planned something dramatic and romantic and a maid was going to appear any moment now to lead me down to the basement with some cryptic mafia scavenger hunt.But nothing.The hallway, which had been bustling with maids earlier, was now eerily silent.Do I go to the basement?Was this some kind







