Chapter 4 – The Line She Crossed

The dressing room still smelled like perfume, powder, and desperation.

Sera peeled off her fishnets with shaking fingers, every muscle in her body humming with the leftover charge of his presence.

*Valerio Moretti.*

She hadn't meant to walk into that lion’s den. Hadn’t expected her manager to knock on the door and say, *“Mr. Moretti’s requested a private.”*

Requested.

Like he didn’t already expect obedience.

As if her name was just another on his list.

Her "no" had been spontaneous, hot, unscripted. But the instant the word *no* had left her lips, it was like a first breath of air after being under water.

And now she was shaking.

Not with fear.

With heat.

With rage.

With that deep, low voice saying, *You will.*

Her hoodie clung to her bare shoulders as she shrugged it on, sweat and glitter clinging to the material. Her phone buzzed once from her bag.

She didn't answer it.

She was halfway unpinned her hair when the door creaked open behind her.

Not a knock.

Not a warning.

Just the door—*opening*.

She froze.

All the nerves erupted at the same time. Her heart went racing. She scented him first—leather, spice, and something shadowy, like rain over blazing pavement.

Valerio leaned in the doorway, sin sculpted into bone and muscle. His black suit was fit to his frame like a lover, his open collar showing the rim of a tattoo curling across his chest.

And those eyes—black as a piece of obsidian and unyielding—were fixed on her like she was prey, and he was bored enough to play first before devouring.

"Didn't I say no?" she snarled, trying to summon the same blaze she'd had just moments before, though her voice trembled.

He closed the door behind himself with a soft little *click*, and the sound was louder than it should have been.

No, he said with a nonchalance, as if it amused him. "You didn't say no *to this*."

"To crashing into my dressing room like it's your own private boudoir?"

He took a deliberate step closer. "I own the building."

Sera stood up, hair still half-up, glitter dusting her collarbone. She looked like a mess. She felt like a storm.

"You don't own *me*."

Something shifted in Valerio's eyes. Not anger. Not offense.

Interest.

Amplified.

He stepped closer again, the space between them shrinking like the heat in the room was consuming it whole.

"You really believe that?" he snarled, low and gritty. "That I don't already have my hands around you?"

Sera's chest lifted and dropped. "Get. Out."

He stopped inches from her, his gaze flashing down to her lips, her throat, the skin revealed showing under her hoodie where the zipper sat low.

"You don't even know what I could give you."

"I don't *want* it," she spat.

There was a beat.

And then she shoved him.

It wasn't hard—her palms slapped against his chest, firm and swift—but it was enough to push him back a step. Not because of the collision.

But because of the shock.

Valerio blinked.

Sera stood in front of him, her breathing harsh, her cheeks red, her fists bunched at her hips.

“You think I’m like the rest of them,” she said, voice shaking now. “Like I’ll fall into your lap because you’ve got money and a name that makes men piss themselves. But I’m not here to entertain you. I’m here to survive.”

Valerio stared at her.

And then—

He laughed.

A deep, amused, *genuine* sound that rolled from his throat like smoke.

Sera gaped at him, stunned.

“What’s so funny?”

He wiped a hand over his mouth, the ghost of a grin still lingering. “You. No one—*no one*—has ever done that to me.”

“You deserved it.”

He looked at her like she was a myth he couldn’t wait to unravel.

“I like the fire in you, *piccola.* But be careful.”

She swallowed.

“Careful of what? You’ll ruin me?”

He leaned close again, not touching, never touching. But his voice was a blade dragged across velvet.

No," he whispered. "I'll make you want it."

A shiver ran through her, and she hated the way her body responded—how her nipples hardened beneath her skimpy bra, how her thighs pressed tight against one another without her even meaning to.

"Get. Out," she breathed, her voice low and strained.

This time, he listened.

He turned slowly, each step deliberate, like a man who'd already decided this wasn't goodbye—it was foreplay.

At the door, he paused.

You think chucking me out puts you out of my system," he said without stirring. "But all you managed to do was make me desire you more."

And then he was gone.

Sera shut the door behind him and slid to the floor, thudding heart, crashing adrenaline.

She was shaking all over.

But for the first time… it wasn't fear.

It was something a whole lot more dangerous.

---

Valerio stalked down the hallway, jaw clenched, need searing through his veins like flame.

That girl.

That *woman*.

She didn't drop to her knees for him.

Didn't beg or flirt or even cringe.

She kicked him out.

Told him no.

*Again*.

And that should have been enough.

But all it did was pour gasoline on the spark already smoldering in his blood.

He'd come here to take her.

Now?

He wanted to *break* her.

Not viciously.

Not painfully.

But with pleasure.

With obsession.

With the kind of seduction that was scarring well after he had moved on. 

Sera Devlin was more than a dancer in his club now.

She was a test.

A battle he was determined to win.