Semua Bab The Ceo’s Unwanted Claim: Bab 31 - Bab 40

The morning sun hitting the glass walls of the penthouse felt different today. It wasn't the soft, golden light of a lazy Sunday. It was sharp, white, and clinical like the light in an operating room before the first incision.I woke up alone in the massive bed. The sheets were cold. The memory of the Warehouse… the strobes, the bass, the vodka burning my throat felt like a fever dream I had hallucinated.But the bruise on my neck was real.I touched it as I walked to the bathroom. It was darker today, a blooming violet mark that no amount of concealer could fully hide.Dante was already gone. There was no note. No coffee waiting. Just a garment bag hanging on the valet stand.Inside was a suit. Charcoal grey. Severe. The skirt was pencil-straight, the jacket tailored to cinch my waist aggressively. It wasn't a "soft" look. It was armor.I put it on. I brushed my hair until my scalp tingled, pulling it back into a tight chignon that left my face exposed. I applied the red lipstick.I

The ride back from the auction house was a suffocating exercise in silence. The partition was up, sealing us into the leather-lined capsule of the limousine. The air smelled of Dante’s cologne sandalwood and cold ozone and the metallic tang of my own fear. Outside the tinted windows, New York City was a blur of rain-streaked lights, but inside, time seemed to have stopped. I sat pressed against the door, my body still humming with the confusing, shameful aftershocks of what had happened in the hallway. My lips felt swollen. My skin felt raw where his beard had grazed me. The gold dress, which had felt like armor an hour ago, now felt like a casing I wanted to shed. Dante sat on the other side of the seat. He was calm. Terrifyingly calm. He held a black velvet box on his lap. The jade necklace. The Qing Dynasty artifact he had just purchased for four million dollars, not because he wanted it, but because he wanted to take it away from the man who had looked at me. He wasn’t lo

Breakfast was not a meal. It was an interrogation disguised as dining.Dante took me to a small bistro two blocks from the tower. It was the kind of place where the eggs cost thirty dollars and the silence cost even more. He sat across from me in the booth and watched me with eyes that felt like physical weights pressing on my skin.He had not let go of my hand since we left the Archives.He held my fingers trapped against the white tablecloth. His thumb rubbed over my knuckles in a slow and rhythmic circle that was meant to be soothing but felt like a threat. He was checking for a pulse. He was checking for a tremor. He was checking for the lie he knew was hidden somewhere inside me.I tried to eat the toast on my plate. It tasted like sawdust. Every time I swallowed, I felt the phantom sensation of the sticky note burning against my chest even though I had left it hidden in the box.I had left the address of the Yakuza front in a cardbo

The carpet in Dante’s office was rough against my knees. It was a high-grade wool blend that probably cost more per square foot than my first car but down here on the floor it felt like sandpaper.I did not look at Dante. I looked at the polished leather of his shoes. I looked at the sharp crease of his trousers. I focused on the physical details because if I focused on the reality of what I was doing I would shatter.I was kneeling.I was kneeling in a glass office in the middle of Manhattan in broad daylight with the door unlocked.Dante sat on the edge of his desk above me. He was silent. His hand rested heavy and hot on the crown of my head. It was a benediction and a curse all at once. He stroked my hair with a slow and rhythmic motion that made my scalp tingle.“You want the card,” he said.His voice was not angry. It was contemplative. He sounded like a scientist observing a rat in a maze who had finally found the cheese.

I screamed It was not a scream of pleasure. It was a scream of pure unadulterated terror mixed with a fury that felt like it was tearing my throat apart.Dante did not stop.He took the scream as an invitation. He took it as a surrender.He pinned my wrists to the mattress with one hand. His grip was so tight I could feel the bones grinding together. With his other hand he stripped the ruined remains of the grey dress from my body. He did not undress me.He unveiled me. He treated the fabric like it was wrapping paper on a gift he had already paid for.“Look at you,” he hissed.He was looming over me. His chest was heaving. His skin was flushed with a dark and violent heat. He looked like a god of war who had just descended to burn a city to the ground.“You let him touch your hair,” Dante whispered. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back exposing my throat. “Did you like it? Was he gentle