LOGINSERAPHINE "Wait!" I said to Sparrow before I could stop myself. "Okay. I'll do what you want." He turned back and his smile widened. "Good girl." He took off his jacket first. Dropped it on the chair. Then his shirt, one button at a time, revealing a chest covered in ink, dark patterns I couldn't read in the dim light. He was toned, muscular in a way that spoke of violence and gyms. He was quite hot. He dropped his cigar to the floor, crushed it with his shoe, and walked to the bed. He sat down. Used his index finger to beckon me over. "Come on. Get to work. I still have better things to do." I got up. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. I walked toward him, thinking, 'This better be worth it.' When I got to the bed, I leaned in to kiss him. He pulled back. "No, there would be no need for that. Take off your clothes and get on your knees." I hesitated. His expression didn't change. He just waited. Left with no other choice, I began to undr
SERAPHINE The room smelled like expensive whiskey and older secrets. I sat on the edge of a leather chair watching the door, counting the minutes. Thirty passed. Then forty. Then fifty. Where the hell is he? I had paid two hundred grand just to get the message across. Two hundred thousand dollars I'd earned on my back, on my knees, in ways that made me wince when I thought about them too long. And now I was sitting in a back room of a club, waiting for a man called Sparrow to decide I was worth his time. The second-in-command who had taken my money kept offering me a glass. I kept refusing. I needed a clear head. At exactly the fifty-seventh minute, the door opened. He walked in. Sparrow. He was tall. Broader than I remembered from the photographs. His arms were sleeved in tattoos, dark ink that crawled up his neck and disappeared into his collar. His jaw was sharp, his eyes sharper, and when he looked at me, I felt like a specimen under glass. He said nothing. Ju
SERAPHINE My mother called at exactly the moment I was about to lose my mind. "What is going on?" she demanded. "I'm seeing people bashing your social media. Claiming you're lying. That you're not Dominic's wife." "Mom, I don't know. I'm going crazy." "Explain it to me. I spoke to you yesterday after the shooting. You told me everything was fine." "Everything is not fine." My voice cracked. "I've been lying to you, Mom. Ever since Dominic revealed himself as the chairman of Veil Holdings, he has been avoiding me. I haven't heard from him personally. I haven't seen him. He hasn't come home. The only news I hear about him is from social media." "How can he treat you this way? After everything you've been through together?" "I don't know, Mom." "Relax." Her voice softened. "Maybe Dominic just doesn't want to let the world know he's married yet. He might have his reasons for keeping things on the low. He loves you so much. He practically used to worship the ground you wal
SERAPHINE The ceiling tiles of St. Catherine's Private Wing had exactly forty-three hairline cracks. I counted them twelve times between the moment I woke up and the moment I finally accepted that Dominic was not coming. Fifteen hours. That's how long I lay in that hospital bed, waiting for him. Fifteen hours of nurses checking my vitals, of doctors telling me how lucky I was, of reporters camped outside the entrance hoping to catch a glimpse of the wife of the richest man in the city. I remembered everything. The press conference. The questions. The flash of movement in my peripheral vision. The crack of the gunshot that arrived a full second after the bullet had already torn through me. And I remembered him. The hands that grabbed me. The body that covered mine. The voice that shouted for help. Dominic He pulled me down. He saved my life. I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat. No one else would have moved that fast. No one else would have cared enough. But if h
JULIAN I got into my car and drove to meet my other contact. The one who was going to help me find the people blackmailing me. The place was a nondescript building in a part of the city I didn't usually frequent. I walked in and was led to a back room where my contact was waiting. He was a lean man with sharp eyes and a computer setup that looked like something out of a spy movie. "Show me what you've got," he said. I pulled out my phone and played the video I had already sent to him but he had not had the time to watch yet. He watched it without expression, his eyes taking in more details. "The text came from this number." I showed him again. "And they want fifty million dollars in Bitcoin." He nodded, typing on his keyboard. "Let me see what I can find." I paced while he worked. The minutes ticked by. Five. Ten. Fifteen. I checked my phone obsessively, waiting for another message from the blackmailers, waiting for my PI to update me about Celeste. Nothing. "If you fi
JULIAN I parked my car in front of Seraphine's house and just sat there for a moment, gripping the steering wheel, my heart slamming against my ribs. The video was still on my phone. I'd watched it three times already, each time hoping it would magically disappear, that I'd imagined the whole thing. But no. There I was, on that bed, that redhead's mouth wrapped around my cock, her head bobbing up and down like a professional. Crystal clear. High definition. Shot from some hidden angle I hadn't noticed because I'd been too busy thinking with my dick. Two hours. That's what they'd given me. Ten minutes had already passed. I should have known. I'd been picking up women for years and I'd always been careful. I stuck to the professionals, the ones who worked for agencies or companies that would never risk their reputation on something this shady. But last night I'd let my emotions take over. I'd been angry at Celeste, frustrated, desperate to feel something other than the hollow a
CELESTE I walked through the front door and the smell hit me before anything else. Sex. Sweat. The kind of thick, used air that comes from bodies that have been tangled together. I knew that smell. I had come home to it many times before, back when I was still stupid enough to trust Julian. I
JULIAN "Celeste!" She was now singing. I paced the bedroom with the black dress in my hand and called her name until my throat was raw and she just kept singing behind that bathroom door like I was background noise. Like I was furniture. Like I was nothing. "Celeste!" The shower cut off. I s
JULIAN I could not believe my eyes.Standing on that stage, under those lights, was my wife. My Celeste. Dressed like she was going to a whore's ball instead of a charity gala. That red dress barely covered her breasts. The slit went all the way up to her thigh. Every man in that room was looking
CELESTE Dominic stared at me, a mischievous smirk spreading across his lips. "Oohhhh. I'm curious." I turned my head toward Julian's house. Through the curtain of the living room window, I saw a shadow. A figure standing there, looking out. I could not make out who it was clearly, just the s







