Mag-log inEve walked to the window, looking down at the street below. Somewhere down there, Enzo Valentino was probably very pleased with himself. He'd gotten exactly what he wanted....chaos, doubt, a wedge driven between her and Dimitri right when something bigger was clearly already in motion.In the family business, loyalty is everything. But so is knowing which side of the line you're standing on.She'd already chosen her side seven weeks ago, drunk and devastated and desperate in a nightclub.She'd chosen it again when she signed that contract.And again when she told Mike she loved Dimitri.And again when she said I love you to Dimitri's face and watched him struggle to understand what the words meant.Enzo Valentino thought he could shake her certainty with cryptic warnings and dead mothers and insinuations about surviving the Devil's attention.He had no idea how strong her certainty had become."Marco," she said, still looking out the window. "When Dimitri gets here, I want you to tell
It was a reasonable explanation. Plausible.But Eve's instincts....instincts she'd learned to trust over seven weeks of living in Dimitri's world....were screaming that something was very, very wrong.Marco had moved. Just slightly, but he was closer to the desk now, his eyes locked on Enzo with an intensity that would have made most men nervous.Enzo didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't care."Mr. Valentino....""Enzo, please.""Enzo." Eve kept her voice level. "I appreciate your interest in Phoenix, but I'm not currently looking to bring on new partnerships. My focus is on organic growth and maintaining the culture we've built."It was a polite dismissal. Professional. Final.Enzo didn't move."Of course," he said, but he didn't stand. "Though I hope you'll reconsider. Sometimes the right partnership can offer... protection. Stability in unstable times."The way he said protection made every nerve in her body stand at attention."I have all the protection I need," she said
POV: EVEThe afternoon light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her office, casting long shadows across the polished mahogany desk. Eve leaned back in her chair, reviewing the quarterly reports spread before her. Phoenix Talent Agency had grown another twelve percent this quarter.....a fact that would have filled her with pride if she could focus on anything other than the knot of unease that had been tightening in her chest since breakfast.Dimitri's face this morning. The way he'd held that kiss at the elevator. Tonight. I'll tell you tonight.Something was coming. Something big enough that even Nonna had moved into the penthouse."Ms. Thorne?" Her assistant Melissa's voice crackled through the intercom, pulling her from her thoughts. "Your three o'clock is here. Mr. Valentino from Russo Holdings."Eve's fingers stilled on the contract she'd been reading. Valentino. The name sent a strange flutter through her stomach....not Dimitri's first name, but his last. Probably
She looked at him for a long moment.She could push. She could ask the question she'd been assembling since breakfast, could lay out the pieces, the distracted thumb, the careful eyes, Marco's arrival, the collar, the kiss held one beat too long, and ask him what they added up to.Instead she said: "Okay."Something moved through his expression. "That's all?""For now." She held his gaze. "But Dimitri, when you're ready to tell me what's actually happening, I'll be ready to hear it."He looked at her the way he sometimes did, like she'd surprised him, which she was beginning to understand was rare. Like she'd moved in a direction he hadn't predicted.He cupped her face."Tonight," he said quietly. "I'll tell you tonight.""Okay." She turned her lips briefly into his palm. "Tonight."The elevator opened. She stepped in.He stood with his hand on the door, holding it open for one extra second, his eyes on her with that particular attention she'd memorised, the kind that was less about lo
POV: DIMITRIThe cabinet had been nothing.He'd checked it thoroughly....every shelf, the space behind the cleaning supplies, the floor beneath. Nothing disturbed. Nothing missing. Nothing that shouldn't be there.He'd stood in the dark kitchen for four minutes, listening to the penthouse breathe around him, and found nothing except the particular silence of a building at three in the morning and his own overcalibrated instincts firing at shadows.He'd gone back to bed.He hadn't slept.By six he was in his office with coffee and Marco on a secure call, the city still dark outside the windows, running through every variable with the cold systematic thoroughness he applied to problems that actually mattered.Enzo was in the city. Had landed without advance notice, which meant he hadn't wanted Dimitri to prepare. Which meant he had something to gain from catching Dimitri unprepared.Which meant he already knew more than Dimitri was comfortable with."Location?" Dimitri asked."Hotel Noi
The coffee made slightly too strong.The hand at her back in every doorway.The way he'd started leaving his office door open when she was home, so the sounds of the penthouse could reach him while he worked.The temple kiss.She added them up and said nothing and let them be what they were.The afternoon was quiet.Nonna commandeered the living room for what she called riposo....rest...and was asleep in the armchair within minutes, a small domestic miracle that made Eve smile every time she looked over. Dimitri was in his office, door open, the low murmur of Italian occasionally drifting into the living room where Eve had set up her own work, laptop open across her knees on the sofa.She got through three contracts and two emails and was halfway through a proposal when she became aware that the murmuring from the office had stopped.She looked up.Dimitri was leaning in the doorway, watching her.Not with the assessing heat of the man who had spent six weeks systematically dismantlin
No." The devastation on her face was exquisite."But....you said...." "I said I had plans. I never said those plans included my cock inside you." He began unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, methodically, letting her watch."Tonight, I'm going to make you come until you're sobbing. Until you're begging.
POV: DIMITRIDimitri was out of his office and in the car before Marco finished speaking.Simon Ward had touched her.Grabbed her.Scared her.The rage that flooded through him was biblical. All-consuming. Violent.He'd warned Simon. Had made it crystal fucking clear what would happen if he came ne
POV: EVEMonday morning came too soon.Eve sat at her desk at Phoenix Talent Agency, trying to focus on the contract in front of her, but her mind kept drifting back to the weekend.To the warehouse.To Dimitri breaking a man without flinching.To the eleven-inch dildo stretching her beyond her lim
He broke the next finger. Then the next. Each one accompanied by screams that seemed to scrape against Eve's skull. By the fourth finger, Dante was sobbing so hard he couldn't form words. By the fifth, he'd vomited on himself.Dimitri didn't stop. When all ten fingers were broken, bent at impossibl







