I should’ve walked out before the morning could see me.

The glass wall of Dominic Valente’s penthouse turned the sunrise into a judgment—Miami gold spilled across Biscayne Bay, illuminating every choice I’d made in the last twelve hours like a spotlight on a crime scene. My red dress from last night clung to my body as if it, too, refused to let go. My heels were in my hand. My hair was a mess. My heart was worse.

I reached for the brass handle.

And his voice hit me before my fingers could close around it.

“You should have left when I told you to, Piccolola.”

Low. Controlled. Certain.

The kind of voice that didn’t ask for obedience.

It assumed it.

I froze with my palm against the door, breath trapped in my throat. The air still smelled like cedar and expensive whiskey and something darker—something that had nothing to do with cologne and everything to do with power.

I didn’t turn around. Not yet.

If I turned, I would see him again. I would remember what he did to me. What I let him do. And the worst part—the part my pride couldn’t stand—was that my body still carried the echo of his hands like a secret I couldn’t wash off.

“I’m leaving,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. “This was a mistake.”

Behind me, the sound of his footsteps was unhurried. No rush. No panic. Dominic Valente didn’t chase. He didn’t plead. He didn’t scramble.

He moved like the world waited for him to finish.

A shadow fell over me. His hand pressed flat against the door above my head, blocking it with casual dominance. His chest brushed my back—warm, solid—and the contact sent a sharp, humiliating pulse through my stomach.

“Turn around.”

The words were quiet.

And somehow, that made them more dangerous.

I swallowed. Forced my shoulders to settle. Forced my spine to straighten. If this was going to end, it would end with me looking him in the eyes.

I turned.

And instantly regretted it.

Dominic was already dressed, like he hadn’t spent the entire night unraveling me. Navy shirt, sleeves rolled, collar open, the faintest hint of ink peeking from his forearm like a secret. His hair—dark with silver threaded through it—was pushed back as if he’d done it without thinking. His jaw was clean-shaven. His eyes were sharp.

Too sharp for a man who’d just slept.

As if sleep was something other people needed.

His gaze traveled down the length of me with slow, precise appraisal—like a man inventorying something he’d acquired. Like he didn’t care if I hated it.

Like he knew I would feel it anyway.

“You came to me for revenge,” he said.

I forced a laugh that sounded hollow. “You’re giving yourself a lot of credit.”

His thumb traced my jaw, tipping my face up. Not gentle. Not cruel. Possessive. Familiar, already, in a way it had no business being after one night.

“I’m giving you credit for being honest,” he corrected. “You walked into my suite with murder in your eyes.”

I flinched.

The memory surged forward—the hotel corridor, the chandeliers, the music drifting up from the ballroom, and the taste of betrayal so sharp it burned. Dominic’s private lounge door open like it had been waiting for me.

And his eyes.

Watching me like he’d known I would come.

“You got what you wanted,” he continued. “Serena will be devastated.”

The name cut deeper than it should have.

Serena Valente—my best friend since college. The woman who’d held my hair back when I drank too much. Who’d slept on my couch after a fight with her father. Who’d helped me pick out the ring I thought meant forever.

Who had moaned my fiancé’s name like it was a trophy and looked right at me while she did it.

I inhaled slowly, forcing the rage back into its cage. “Then let me go.”

Dominic’s expression didn’t change.

“No.”

The word landed like a slammed lock.

I stared at him, disbelief turning hot in my chest. “You can’t—”

“I can.” His hand slipped from my jaw to the side of my neck, fingers pressing lightly against the pulse he could absolutely feel racing. “And I will.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

His mouth tipped into something close to a smile. Not humor. Not kindness. Hunger, barely masked.

“I decide a great many things.”

He leaned closer. His voice dropped even lower.

“You don’t get to use me and disappear, Iris.”

My name in his mouth sounded like ownership.

“That’s not how this works.”

I should have pushed past him. I should have shoved his arm off the door, marched into the elevator, called a car, gone back to the safe life I’d built with my own hands.

But then Serena flashed in my mind—Serena’s smirk, Serena’s eyes, Serena’s voice in that doorway upstairs.

She’s so boring.

Honestly, you’re welcome.

And instead of running, I lifted my chin.

“And if I want to stay?” I asked.

Something flickered in Dominic’s eyes. A brief flash of surprise, then satisfaction—like a predator pleased its prey had stepped closer on its own.

“Then we have a lot to discuss,” he murmured. “Piccola.”

His thumb brushed my bottom lip, and my breath caught despite myself.

“Starting with how you ended up in my arms,” he said, “and why I’ve been watching you for months.”

Months.

The word should have disgusted me. Should have sent me back to the door in a panic.

Instead, heat curled low in my stomach.

The thought of Dominic Valente—Miami’s most feared, most untouchable man—watching me while I wasted three years on a fiancé who never truly saw me…

It should have terrified me.

It didn’t.

But I was getting ahead of myself.

Because if you want to understand why I stood there in his penthouse at dawn, willing to bargain my dignity for revenge, you have to know what happened twelve hours earlier.

You have to know about the door I should never have opened.

The Valente estate had been dressed up like a dream.

My engagement party was held in one of Miami’s most exclusive waterfront venues—white lights strung across palms, champagne towers glittering like frozen waterfalls, valet attendants lined up like soldiers outside. Guests from Brickell and Coral Gables drifted through the courtyard, laughing, glittering, smelling like expensive perfume and generational wealth.

Two hundred people celebrated my future.

I wore a crimson silk dress because Luca once said white made me look cheap.

Tonight, I wanted to look expensive.

Untouchable.

Like the kind of woman who didn’t get betrayed.

Like the kind of woman who didn’t build a life from nothing and then watch it get ripped apart by people who were born with everything.

I’d built my gallery brick by brick—long nights, unpaid internships, brutal negotiations, quiet humiliation swallowed with a smile until it became fuel.

Chen Gallery had become a name in Miami art circles.

And Luca DeSantis—my fiancé—was supposed to be the man who believed in me. The man who cheered for me. The man who promised we were a team.

Serena had been beside me all night, laughing, touching my arm, calling me “babe” the way she always did.

The ring on my finger was heavy.

Comforting.

A symbol I’d fought hard to earn.

And then I heard her.

A sound—soft, breathless, unmistakable.

Not laughter.

Not conversation.

A moan.

The hallway to the guest suites was quiet compared to the party downstairs. Marble floors, gold-framed art, silence thick enough to swallow footsteps.

At first, my brain rejected it. It made excuses. It tried to protect me.

But something in my body went still, like a prey animal sensing a predator before it sees it.

I moved toward the sound. Slow. Controlled. In my heels, my dress whispering against my thighs. My champagne flute was cold in my hand.

The guest suite door was cracked.

Just enough.

I looked through.

And my world ended without making a sound.

Luca’s back was to me. His shoulders tense. His hands braced against the wall like he couldn’t hold himself up.

Serena was beneath him.

Hair sprawled across the bed like spilled ink. Mouth open. Eyes half-lidded.

Then she opened them fully.

And looked straight at the door.

Straight at me.

Her lips curved into a smile.

Not surprised.

Not ashamed.

A smile that said she had planned this.

That she wanted me to see.

“She’s so boring,” Serena breathed, loud enough for me to hear. “Honestly, you’re welcome.”

Luca laughed.

The same laugh he used when he proposed.

The same laugh he used when he promised I was the only woman he wanted.

“She’s so frigid,” he said with lazy cruelty. “Three years and she still acts like I should be grateful for her permission.”

The words landed in my chest like bullets.

I didn’t scream.

I didn’t burst in.

I didn’t throw the champagne.

I didn’t do anything dramatic.

Because grief doesn’t always explode.

Sometimes it freezes.

Sometimes it turns you into a statue while your heart cracks quietly and no one notices until it’s too late.

I stepped back from the door and walked away.

Not downstairs.

Not to my guests.

Not to my parents and their proud smiles.

Not to the future everyone was toasting.

I walked down the private corridor reserved for VIP suites, the part of the estate where the most powerful people stayed, where doors were guarded and hallways were silent.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I just knew I needed air.

I needed space.

I needed something that wasn’t betrayal.

Then I saw the open door.

Warm light spilled into the corridor, amber and soft. I heard the clink of ice in a glass, a low voice speaking to someone on the phone, and the sound of a man who didn’t care whether anyone was listening.

I paused.

Looked inside.

And saw him.

Dominic Valente stood at the window with whiskey in his hand, gazing out at the Miami skyline like it belonged to him.

And maybe it did.

Everyone in Miami knew the name Valente.

The old money newspapers called him a billionaire investor. The society pages called him “mysterious” and “reclusive.” The whispered stories—the ones you heard at private dinners or in the back corners of high-end clubs—called him something else entirely.

L’Ombra.

The shadow.

Fifty years old. Untouchable. Dangerous enough that people lowered their voices when they spoke his name.

Serena’s father.

He turned before I could retreat.

His eyes—dark, sharp, too old for the face they lived in—locked onto mine.

His gaze traveled down my red dress, my trembling hand, the tears I hadn’t realized were still wet on my cheeks.

And he didn’t look surprised to see me.

“You’re Serena’s friend,” he said, not a question.

His voice was deeper than I expected. Rougher. No practiced charm.

Just authority.

“The art dealer,” he added, like he remembered my face the way he remembered investments.

I swallowed. “I was.”

He tilted his head slightly, studying me. “And what are you now?”

The question wasn’t cruel.

It was curious.

It was worse.

My throat tightened. “I’m not sure.”

A pause.

Then he asked the most dangerous question of all.

“Why are you crying outside my door, Iris Chen?”

And because I had nothing left to lose, I told him the truth.

“Because your daughter just destroyed my life,” I said, my voice cold and steady, “and I’m deciding what to do about it.”

Dominic Valente watched me for a long moment.

The same way I’d once watched him in my gallery months earlier—when he’d walked in unannounced, bought a piece worth more than my apartment without blinking, and left without giving his name.

I hadn’t known who he was then.

Just a wealthy man with dangerous eyes.

Now I knew exactly what he was.

Dominic set his glass down.

Then he took one step toward me.

“Come in,” he said.

It wasn’t a request.

But I walked inside anyway.

He poured a second whiskey and slid it across the table toward me without asking.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

So I did.

I told him about Luca. About the ring. About the three years I’d spent building a life with a man who was upstairs right now destroying it with my best friend.

Dominic listened without interrupting.

His expression didn’t change. But something in his eyes grew colder with each word—and I realized the cold wasn’t directed at me.

When I finished, silence stretched between us like a wire pulled too tight.

Then Dominic spoke, slow and deliberate.

“The man is blind.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Blind,” he repeated. His gaze dropped to my neckline, traced the curve of my waist with brutal calm, then returned to my eyes. “And stupid. To have you.”

Heat flashed through me, immediate and humiliating.

Dominic didn’t smile.

He continued like we were discussing a business deal.

“You want revenge,” he said. “I can see it.”

I swallowed. “What do you mean?”

Dominic moved closer until he stood directly in front of me, close enough that the warmth of him pressed into my space.

Close enough that his cologne wrapped around me like a threat.

“I mean my daughter has always taken what she wanted without consequence,” he said softly. “Perhaps it’s time someone took something from her.”

His hand lifted.

Cupped my jaw.

His thumb wiped away a tear I hadn’t felt fall.

My skin burned under the touch.

“The question,” he murmured, “is how far you’re willing to go.”

I should have slapped him.

I should have stood up and left.

I should have remembered every warning I’d ever heard about him.

But I didn’t.

Because my grief had already burned away.

And what was left was cold, ruthless clarity.

I leaned into his touch.

“Try me,” I whispered.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed.

And then his mouth was on mine.

It wasn’t tender.

It wasn’t cautious.

It was a kiss that claimed.

A kiss that said he’d been waiting for permission, and now that he had it, he intended to use it.

His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wanted it.

My body answered before my mind caught up.

I should have stopped him.

I should have thought of Luca downstairs.

I should have remembered my guests, my future, my life.

But Luca had never kissed me like this.

Luca had never made me feel like I mattered.

When Dominic finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.

“My driver is outside,” he said, controlled again as if the kiss had been nothing more than a test. “You can go back to your party. Smile for your guests. Pretend you didn’t see what you saw.”

His thumb traced my swollen lip.

“Or,” he continued softly, “you can come with me.”

The word or was a door opening.

My heart hammered.

“If I come with you…” I whispered.

Dominic’s eyes held mine.

“Then I take you to my penthouse,” he said. “And I make you forget his name.”

The hallway lights seemed too bright. The party music below seemed too distant. Everything felt unreal, like I’d stepped out of my life and into a different one.

I should have said no.

Instead, I heard myself breathe—

“What are we waiting for?”

The drive was ten minutes.

It felt like hours.

Dominic didn’t touch me in the car.

He didn’t speak.

He just sat beside me in the darkness while Miami’s lights blurred past tinted windows, his presence filling the space like gravity.

Anticipation was worse than anything his hands could do.

When we arrived, his building didn’t have a lobby.

It had a reception hall—marble floors, art that looked priceless, security that moved like trained shadows.

The doorman greeted him by name without blinking at the woman in a crimson dress beside him at midnight.

The elevator required a key card for the penthouse.

Of course it did.

We stepped inside.

The doors closed.

And finally, Dominic touched me again.

His hand found the small of my back, steady and possessive. He pulled me against him so my spine pressed to his chest, then lowered his mouth to my ear.

“Last chance, Piccolola,” he murmured. “This doesn’t have to happen.”

His breath was warm against my skin.

“I can have my driver take you home,” he continued. “We can pretend this was just a conversation.”

His other hand slid around my waist, flattening against my stomach.

“But if you walk into my home,” he whispered, fingers tracing slow circles through silk, “you’re not leaving until morning.”

His lips brushed my neck.

“And I promise you,” he said, voice darkening, “you won’t want to.”

The elevator climbed.

Thirty floors. Forty.

I watched our reflection in the polished doors.

His dark form wrapped around mine, his silver-streaked hair near my face, his hands spread across my dress like a brand.

We looked like something beautiful.

And doomed.

“I’m not leaving,” I whispered.

I felt his smile against my throat.

“Good.”

The doors opened.

The penthouse was breathtaking, but I didn’t see it.

Because the moment we stepped out, Dominic’s mouth found my neck and his hand found the zipper at my back—

And all my careful plans, all my pride, all my rules about who I was and what I allowed—

fell apart.

He didn’t rush me.

That was the first thing that should have warned me this wasn’t just about desire.

Dominic walked me backward through the penthouse like time itself had slowed to accommodate him. My heels caught on a rug, a step—I didn’t know which—and I stumbled. He caught me without breaking contact, lifting me with infuriating ease as if I weighed nothing, carrying me through a darkened doorway.

Cool sheets met my back. Soft. Expensive. The kind of bed that expected obedience.

His hands finally pushed the crimson dress from my shoulders, slow and deliberate, as if he wanted me to feel every inch of the surrender.

“I should warn you,” he murmured against my collarbone. “I don’t do this casually.”

I laughed breathlessly. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“It’s supposed to prepare you.”

He lifted his head, eyes finding mine in the low light. There was no rush in him. No hunger that needed immediate satisfaction. There was intent.

“I’ve been watching you for months,” he continued, voice even. “Wanting you. And now that I have you in my bed, I intend to be thorough.”

He was.

God help me, he was.

The night unraveled into something intimate and relentless, built on tension rather than haste. He learned my body like a language he planned to speak fluently. There was nothing careless about him—every touch was deliberate, every pause purposeful. I lost track of time somewhere between the city lights flickering outside the windows and the way he made me forget there had ever been another man.

That was twelve hours ago.

Now I was pressed against his front door, the morning light unforgiving, my heart hammering like it wanted to escape without me.

“You planned this,” I said quietly. “You knew I’d find that lounge.”

Dominic’s expression shifted—not guilt. Satisfaction.

“The door was open for a reason.”

My stomach dropped.

“You wanted me to.”

“I wanted an opportunity.” His free hand slid to my hip, pulling me closer. “You gave me one.”

“And the months?” I asked. “You said months.”

“I’ve been watching you for three.” His thumb traced the curve of my waist like it belonged to him. “Your gallery. Charity events. Openings. Every time you smiled at that fiancé of yours, I wondered how long it would take you to realize you were wasting yourself.”

I stared at him. “I was engaged.”

“I’m not in the habit of pursuing unavailable women,” he said calmly. “But when I heard you’d be celebrating your engagement in my city, in a building I own, I thought fate might finally be on my side.”

His smile was slow. Dangerous.

“I wasn’t wrong.”

I should have felt manipulated.

Instead, I felt seen.

“So I never had control,” I said.

“You always had control,” he corrected. “You chose to walk into my suite. You chose to come here. You chose to stay.”

His mouth brushed my temple.

“I just made the options available.”

I hated that he was right.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, voice dropping. “You’re going to stop pretending you want to leave. You’re going to accept that last night happened. And you’re going to let me show you what it feels like to be wanted by someone who actually sees you.”

“And if I say no?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away.

Then, softly, “You won’t.”

I closed my eyes.

“Give me one week,” he continued. “Seven days. Let me into your life the way you let me into your body. At the end of it, you decide whether you walk away.”

One week.

One week with Dominic Valente.

One week to destroy my best friend—or myself.

“Yes,” I breathed.

His smile was slow. Satisfied.

“Good girl.”

He released the door, but not me.

Without another word, Dominic walked me back to the bedroom, stripped away what was left of my resolve, and pulled me into a shower hot enough to steal my breath. He washed my hair with his own hands, methodical and unhurried, like I was something precious he’d just claimed.

It was more intimate than the night before.

It terrified me how much I liked it.

Later, I sat at his kitchen island wearing his shirt, watching him make coffee like this was normal. Like men like him woke up with women like me every morning and didn’t think twice about it.

“Black,” he said, sliding a mug toward me. “Two sugars.”

I stared at him. “How do you know how I take my coffee?”

“I know a lot of things about you, Iris.”

He didn’t smile.

“We need to talk terms.”

“Terms?” I repeated.

“If you’re staying for the week, there are rules.”

My spine stiffened. “I’m not your prisoner.”

“I agree,” he said calmly. “You’re my guest. But you’re in my world now. And my world has enemies.”

He ticked them off on his fingers.

“One. You don’t disappear. If you leave a building, I know where you are.”

“You’re trying to control me.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

I swallowed.

“Two. No contact with Luca or Serena. Not yet.”

That one was easier than I expected.

“And three,” he said, stepping behind my stool, leaning down so his hands braced the marble on either side of me, trapping me without touching. “When you’re with me, you’re present. No hiding behind work. No hiding behind your phone. And no pretending last night didn’t matter.”

I turned to face him.

“And my rules?” I asked.

His eyebrow lifted.

“You don’t lie to me,” I said. “Ever.”

“Done.”

Too fast.

“I’m not a liar,” he said quietly. “I’m a lot of things. That isn’t one of them.”

He kissed me then, slow and deep, until I remembered I still had a life outside this penthouse.

“I need to go to work.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“I own a gallery,” I said. “There are no Sundays.”

I expected resistance.

Instead, he nodded.

“My driver will take you.”

I hesitated.

“My world has enemies,” he repeated. “You don’t walk alone anymore.”

That should have frightened me.

Instead, it felt like protection.

The Chen Gallery was quiet. Just me and a few million dollars’ worth of art on white walls.

I’d been there less than an hour when Meera stopped in the doorway, frowning.

“You haven’t heard a word I said,” she accused. “And you’re wearing a scarf. It’s eighty degrees.”

My hand flew to my neck.

“The AC’s aggressive,” I lied.

She didn’t believe me.

“Well,” she said, pointing to a large flat crate leaning against her desk. “This arrived. No return address.”

My stomach dropped.

We opened it together.

The packing foam fell away.

I stopped breathing.

A Kusama abstract—red and white, chaotic and beautiful. I knew this piece. I’d stood in front of it at a New York auction eight months ago, heart aching as an anonymous bidder outbid me at the last second.

There was a card tucked into the frame.

It matched your dress that night.
—D

Meera whispered, “Who sends you a Kusama?”

I didn’t answer.

Dominic arrived at exactly eight that evening.

I was waiting outside my building in black—a backless jumpsuit, sharp eyeliner, hair pulled into a severe bun. My Cartier watch glinted under the streetlights, the one I’d bought myself when the gallery hit its first million.

The sedan pulled up.

“Get in.”

“Good evening to you too,” I said, opening the door myself.

His eyes traced me slowly.

“You’re reminding me who you are,” he murmured. “I like it.”

“I had your financials pulled this morning,” he added as he pulled into traffic.

I turned sharply. “You audited me?”

“I like to know what I’m investing in.”

The word sent an unexpected warmth through my chest.

The restaurant had no prices on the menu. Private alcove. Wine that tasted like velvet.

When the check came, I placed my card on the table.

“This is a date,” I said. “Not a transaction.”

Dominic studied me for a long moment.

Then he handed my card to the waiter.

“Use hers.”

Later, tangled in his sheets, his hand tracing lazy circles on my hip, he spoke into the dark.

“Tomorrow, I show you my world.”

“The real one.”

I should have been afraid.

Instead, I said, “Good.”

And somewhere between the painting and the dinner and the way he looked at me like I was the most valuable thing he’d ever claimed, revenge stopped being the point.

The real world arrived quietly.

Not with violence or threats or raised voices—but with routine, with meetings held behind closed doors, with men who lowered their eyes when Dominic entered a room and spoke carefully when he didn’t. He didn’t boast. He didn’t explain. He simply moved through his city like gravity, bending everything around him without effort.

For three days, I watched.

I watched the way security appeared before danger ever materialized. The way deals were made with handshakes and silences. The way Dominic listened more than he spoke, his attention sharp, his presence enough to still a room.

He kept his promise. He showed me his world.

And the most dangerous thing about it wasn’t the whispered violence beneath the surface.

It was how quickly I learned to feel at home inside it.

We moved through Miami like a rumor. Brickell mornings with black coffee and quiet balconies overlooking the bay. Afternoons in offices that didn’t list names on the door. Evenings that blurred into silk and shadows and conversations that felt like confessions even when they weren’t.

Dominic never rushed me.

He watched. Learned. Adjusted.

He remembered things I mentioned once—artists I loved, colors that made me restless, the way humidity made my hair curl no matter how much I fought it. He didn’t ask me to shrink. He didn’t ask me to soften.

He made space.

And that terrified me more than any threat ever could.

The text came on the fourth morning.

Miss you.
Pool day at the estate. Just us girls.
We should talk.
—Serena

My stomach tightened.

Dominic was in the kitchen, shirtless, sleeves rolled as he made espresso with infuriating calm. He read the message over my shoulder without asking.

“Go,” he said.

I turned. “You want me to see her?”

“I want you to see who she is when she thinks she’s winning.”

His smile was cold.

“I’ll be there.”

The Valente estate looked different in daylight.

Less glamorous. More controlled.

Waterfront stone, manicured gardens, staff who moved like they’d been trained not to exist unless summoned. Old money didn’t announce itself. It whispered.

The same place where my engagement party had been held. The same hallways where my future had collapsed.

Serena greeted me at the pool with air kisses and a smile that never reached her eyes.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said, gesturing to the lounger beside hers. “I felt terrible about everything.”

She didn’t look terrible.

She looked pleased.

She handed me champagne I hadn’t asked for. “Honestly, you should thank me. Luca was never going to make you happy.”

I met her gaze. “So you did me a favor.”

She missed the edge in my voice entirely.

“The sex was fine,” she continued casually. “Nothing special. I don’t know what you were holding out for all those years.”

My fingers tightened around the glass.

We’d been together three years.

She talked about it like a restaurant review.

“You look different,” she said suddenly, eyes narrowing. “Where have you been staying?”

“You called my building?” I asked.

“I was worried,” she said, too quickly.

She wasn’t worried.

She was fishing.

Before I could respond, footsteps crossed the deck.

Dominic.

Shirtless. Scarred. Unapologetic.

He moved toward the pool like he owned everything his gaze touched.

Serena straightened. “Daddy? I didn’t know you were home.”

“Thought I’d cool off,” he said easily.

His eyes found mine.

Held.

He slid into the water and stopped close—too close.

Under the surface, his hand found my thigh.

My breath caught.

Serena was less than three feet away.

She kept talking. Influencers. Parties. Nothing.

Dominic’s thumb traced slow, deliberate circles against my skin.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

“Daddy, are you listening?” Serena asked.

“Always,” he said calmly.

His hand didn’t stop.

The danger pulsed between us—hidden, intimate, intoxicating.

This was wrong.

And I had never felt more alive.

Serena’s phone rang. She climbed out of the pool, muttering about a crisis, disappearing inside.

The moment she was gone, Dominic pressed me against the pool wall.

“You liked it,” he murmured. “The risk. The secret.”

I didn’t deny it.

“You’re mine,” he said, like a promise and a warning.

Then he kissed me—brief, consuming—and stepped away before anyone could see.

We left an hour later.

In the car, Dominic’s phone buzzed.

His jaw tightened.

“What?” I asked.

“Luca,” he said flatly. “He’s been watching you. Photographing you.”

My blood went cold.

“He followed you from the gallery,” Dominic continued. “Sent the photos to Serena.”

My pulse thundered.

“She’s on her way to the penthouse.”

Fear flickered across his face—real, sharp, rare.

“She’ll be there before we are.”

The penthouse lights were already on when we arrived.

Serena stood in the middle of the living room, mascara streaked, phone clutched in her hand.

“You’re sleeping with my father.”

She screamed it like an accusation. Like a crime.

“How long?” she demanded. “How long has this been happening?”

“A week,” I said quietly.

She laughed, brittle. “A week? You disappear and this is where you are?”

“You slept with my fiancé for six months,” I said. “You made me watch.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

She faltered.

Dominic stepped forward.

“Enough.”

She turned on him, desperate. “Choose. Her or me.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“I don’t choose,” he said. “You’re my daughter. I love you. But she’s my future.”

Serena left without another word.

The silence afterward was heavy.

“The week is over,” Dominic said finally. “You can leave.”

I stepped closer.

“I don’t want to.”

His breath caught.

Before he could respond, his phone buzzed again.

Photos.

Not Luca’s.

Taken weeks ago.

Someone had been watching me long before Dominic.

“We leave tonight,” he said. “You’re not safe.”

The compound was a fortress disguised as paradise.

And Serena was already there.

Three days passed in tension.

On the fourth night, the attack came.

Gunfire. Alarms. Chaos.

Dominic pushed Serena and me into the bunker and disappeared into the violence.

Hours passed.

Then the door burst open.

I didn’t think.

I swung.

When it was over, blood covered my hands.

Dominic found me shaking.

“You survived,” he said fiercely.

Later, on the terrace, he gave me a choice.

A new identity.

A safe life.

Or him.

“I want your name,” I said.

Relief shattered across his face.

“Marry me,” he said.

“Yes.”

Three days later, Serena handed me a key.

And a year later, I walked down the aisle alone.

Not given away.

Chosen.

Loved.

The compound did not feel like a prison at first.

It felt like silence.

The kind of silence that settles only after something violent has burned itself out. The air still carried the faint scent of smoke and salt from the ocean beyond the walls. Armed guards moved with quiet efficiency, boots soft against stone. Somewhere far away, waves broke against the rocks like nothing in the world had changed.

But everything had.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room Dominic had put me in, staring at my hands. They were clean now. Scrubbed raw. No blood left beneath my nails, no stains on my skin.

But I could still feel it.

The weight of the fire extinguisher.
The resistance.
The moment something in me crossed a line it could never uncross.

I had killed a man.

Not in anger. Not in passion.

In instinct.

In survival.

And that terrified me more than anything Dominic Valente had ever done.

Three days passed like that. Suspended. Tense. Fragile.

Dominic was everywhere and nowhere. He checked on me constantly, his presence grounding, his touch steady, but his mind was elsewhere—tracking, calculating, dismantling whatever threat had dared come for us. When he came back from meetings, there was sometimes blood on his knuckles, sometimes nothing at all. I never asked. He never explained.

Serena avoided me completely.

She stayed on the opposite wing of the compound, moving through hallways like a ghost with perfect posture and cold eyes. When we crossed paths, she didn’t insult me. She didn’t lash out.

She simply looked through me.

I told myself I deserved that.

On the fourth night, sleep refused to come.

The room felt too quiet, too large, too full of thoughts. I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot down the corridor, following the soft glow of moonlight toward the terrace.

That was where I heard her.

Serena’s voice drifted from the darkness beyond the glass doors. Low. Unfiltered. The voice of someone who believed they were alone.

“He never hugged me.”

I stopped.

My hand hovered over the door handle.

“I asked him once,” she continued, her words slurring slightly. “I was twelve. I asked him why he never held me like other fathers did.”

A pause. The sound of liquid pouring.

“He said looking at me hurt too much.”

My chest tightened.

“She died giving birth to me,” Serena said. “He told me I looked too much like her. That every time he saw my face, he saw the woman he loved bleeding out in a hospital room.”

Her laugh broke, sharp and hollow.

“So I made sure he couldn’t ignore me.”

I closed my eyes.

“If he couldn’t love me for being good, he’d notice me for being a problem. If he couldn’t hold me, he’d at least have to see me.”

The cruelty. The entitlement. The endless need to take from others just to feel powerful.

It didn’t excuse anything she’d done.

But it explained everything.

I stepped back silently, retreating before she could sense me there. She never knew I’d heard her confession, but it settled into me like truth always does—quietly, heavily.

The attack came the following night.

No warning. No buildup. Just violence.

The explosion rattled the windows hard enough to shake the bed. Alarms screamed. The compound lit up in harsh red and white as floodlights snapped on. Gunfire cracked through the night, sharp and relentless, shouting in Italian echoing through stone corridors.

Dominic was in my doorway before I could even stand.

Blood streaked his shirt. A gun was already in his hand.

“Safe room. Now.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the hall just as Serena stumbled out of her own room, robe clutched tight, face drained of color.

“Downstairs,” Dominic ordered. “Both of you.”

Guards appeared instantly, weapons drawn, bodies moving around us like a shield as gunfire grew closer.

“Daddy,” Serena whispered, her voice small, terrified.

Dominic stopped.

He cupped her face with one bloodstained hand and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” he said.

Then he turned to me.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just us.

His hands framed my face. His mouth found mine in a kiss that was rough and desperate and full of everything he didn’t say.

“Stay alive,” he growled against my lips. “That’s an order.”

Then he was gone.

The guards rushed us down a hidden staircase, underground, into concrete and steel. The door sealed behind us with a hydraulic hiss that sounded final.

The bunker.

We could hear everything above us. The distant explosions. The muffled shouts. The sound of a war being fought over our heads.

Serena collapsed into the corner, arms wrapped around herself, shaking.

“He’s going to die,” she whispered. “They’re going to kill him.”

I sat beside her. Not touching. Just close enough to let her know she wasn’t alone.

“He won’t,” I said, my voice steady despite the terror clawing at my chest. “He’s survived worse.”

She looked at me then, really looked at me.

“Why do you care?” she asked. “After everything I did to you?”

Because he loves you, I almost said.

Instead, I said the truth.

“Because I love him.”

We waited.

Two hours of not knowing if the man we both loved—in wildly different ways—was alive or dead.

Then the door shuddered.

Someone was forcing it open.

My heart slammed into my ribs.

I grabbed the first thing I could find—a heavy fire extinguisher bolted to the wall.

“Stay behind me,” I whispered.

The door burst open.

A man in tactical gear rushed in, gun raised, eyes wild.

I didn’t think.

I swung.

Once. Twice. Again.

Until he fell.

Until he didn’t move.

The extinguisher slipped from my hands and clattered to the floor, echoing like a gunshot in the bunker.

I stared at the man on the ground. At the blood. At my hands.

“Iris,” Serena whispered. “Stop. He’s down.”

My stomach heaved. I turned and vomited into the corner, shaking so hard I could barely stay upright.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” I said, my voice not quite mine anymore.

“You saved us,” Serena said quietly.

“I saved myself,” I replied.

Dominic found us twenty minutes later.

He came through the door covered in blood and gunpowder, chest heaving, eyes feral until they landed on me.

Then he saw the body.

The extinguisher.

The blood.

“That’s my girl,” he said, pulling me into his arms so tight I couldn’t breathe.

“I killed him,” I whispered into his chest.

“You survived,” he corrected. “That’s all that matters.”

Later, when the compound was secure and the dead were gone, Dominic stood with me on the terrace.

The same moonlight. A different world.

“It’s over,” he said. “The threat’s been eliminated.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“It started with Luca,” he said. “His humiliation made him reckless. He reached out to my rivals. They thought I was distracted.”

He looked at me.

“They were wrong.”

I should have been horrified.

Instead, I felt safe.

“What happens now?” I asked.

He turned to face me, and for the first time, I saw fear in Dominic Valente’s eyes.

“Now I give you a choice.”

A new identity. A clean life. A safe city far from his enemies.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “You didn’t sign up for this.”

I stepped closer.

“I don’t want safe.”

His breath caught.

“I want your name,” I said. “Your life. All of it.”

Relief shattered across his face.

“Marry me,” he said.

“Yes.”

Three days later, Serena came to my door.

She didn’t apologize.

Instead, she handed me a key.

“It’s to the lakehouse,” she said. “My mother’s favorite place.”

I understood what she was giving me.

Trust.

A year later, I stood in front of a mirror overlooking the water, dressed in ivory silk, calm in a way I’d never known before.

Serena appeared behind me.

“He’s nervous,” she said flatly.

I smiled.

“I like that.”

I walked down the aisle alone.

Not given away.

Chosen.

Dominic looked at me like the world had finally given him something back.

We exchanged vows that felt like truth.

When he kissed me, it wasn’t possession.

It was promise.

Later, in the penthouse, Miami glittered below us like scattered diamonds.

“Any regrets?” he asked softly.

I thought of the woman I’d been.

And the woman I’d become.

“Only that I didn’t walk into your life sooner.”

He kissed my hair.

“You came exactly when you were meant to.”

I had walked into darkness willingly.

And for the first time in my life—

I was free.

The compound did not feel like a prison at first.

It felt like the kind of silence that comes only after violence has burned itself out and left nothing but ash and breathless space behind. The ocean beyond the walls moved as it always had, waves rolling in steady rhythm, indifferent to what had happened on land. Palm trees swayed gently in the night breeze. Somewhere, a guard’s radio crackled softly, then went quiet again.

Life continued.

Mine had split cleanly down the middle.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room Dominic had put me in, my feet bare against cool stone floors, staring at my hands as if they belonged to someone else. They were clean now. Scrubbed raw. No blood beneath my nails, no stains left on my skin.

But my body remembered.

The weight of the fire extinguisher.
The resistance when it connected.
The moment when instinct took over and thought vanished entirely.

I had crossed a line.

Not because I wanted to.
Because I had to.

That truth didn’t comfort me the way Dominic had said it should. It just sat in my chest, heavy and unmoving, forcing me to look at myself without illusion.

For most of my life, I had believed survival meant intelligence. Strategy. Preparation. Control.

That night taught me something else entirely.

Survival was also violence.

And once you learned that about yourself, you didn’t get to forget it.

Three days passed like that—suspended between aftermath and anticipation. Dominic checked on me constantly, his presence grounding even when his mind was elsewhere. When he touched me, it was careful now. Not possessive. Not demanding. As if he understood that something fragile had cracked inside me and knew better than to rush it.

When he left the compound, he didn’t say where he was going. When he returned, there was sometimes blood on his knuckles, sometimes nothing at all. His expression never changed.

I didn’t ask.

Some truths, once spoken, can’t be unspoken.

Serena avoided me entirely.

She stayed on the far wing of the compound, moving through hallways like a controlled burn—perfect posture, blank expression, eyes that slid past me as if I were furniture. She didn’t insult me. She didn’t scream. She didn’t demand answers.

In some ways, that was worse.

It meant she was thinking.

It meant she was learning how to survive this too.

On the fourth night, sleep refused to come.

The room felt too large, too quiet, too full of memories that refused to stay where they belonged. I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot down the corridor, drawn by the faint silver light spilling through the terrace doors.

That was when I heard her voice.

Serena was outside, seated on the stone balustrade, a bottle of wine at her feet, moonlight outlining her silhouette. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She wasn’t performing.

She was confessing.

“He never hugged me.”

I froze in the doorway.

“I asked him once,” she continued, her words slurred just enough to be honest. “I was twelve. I asked him why he never held me like other fathers did.”

A pause. The soft clink of glass.

“He said looking at me hurt too much.”

My chest tightened.

“She died giving birth to me,” Serena said. “And I look like her. Everyone says it. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same smile.”

Her laugh was sharp and brittle, like glass breaking.

“He said every time he looked at my face, he saw her bleeding on a hospital bed. So he kept his distance. Told himself it was love. Told himself he was protecting me.”

Another pause.

“So I made sure he couldn’t ignore me.”

The words landed heavier than any accusation she had ever thrown at me.

“If he couldn’t love me for being good, he’d notice me for being a problem,” she said. “If he couldn’t hold me, he’d at least have to see me.”

The entitlement. The cruelty. The endless hunger to take from others just to feel powerful.

None of it was excusable.

But suddenly, it was understandable.

Serena Valente hadn’t been competing with me.

She’d been competing with a ghost.

I stepped back silently, retreating before she could sense me there. She never knew I’d heard her confession, but it rewired something inside me all the same. Understanding didn’t erase the damage she’d done—but it shifted it. Made it heavier. More tragic. Less simple.

The attack came the following night.

No warning. No slow escalation. Just violence.

The explosion shook the compound hard enough to knock me out of bed. Alarms screamed. Red emergency lights flooded the hallways. Gunfire cracked through the air, sharp and relentless, echoing against stone walls like thunder trapped indoors.

Dominic was in my doorway before I could even stand.

Blood streaked his shirt. His eyes were feral. Focused.

“Safe room. Now.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the hall just as Serena stumbled out of her own room, silk robe clutched tight around her body, face drained of all color.

“Downstairs,” Dominic ordered. “Both of you.”

Guards appeared instantly, weapons drawn, bodies moving around us like a living shield as the sound of shouting in Italian grew closer.

“Daddy,” Serena whispered, her voice stripped bare. Younger than I’d ever heard it.

Dominic stopped.

For one suspended heartbeat, the monster disappeared.

He cupped her face with one bloodstained hand and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” he said.

Then he turned to me.

His hands framed my face, firm and grounding. His mouth found mine in a kiss that was rough and desperate and full of everything he couldn’t say out loud.

“Stay alive,” he growled against my lips. “That’s an order.”

Then he was gone.

The guards rushed us down a hidden staircase I hadn’t known existed, underground, into concrete and steel. The door sealed behind us with a hydraulic hiss that sounded final in a way that made my stomach drop.

The bunker.

We could hear the war above us. Explosions muffled by earth and stone. Shouts. The crack of gunfire moving closer, then farther away, then closer again.

Serena collapsed into the corner, arms wrapped around herself, shaking.

“He’s going to die,” she whispered. “They’re going to kill him.”

I sat beside her. Close, but not touching. Not sure if comfort would be welcome.

“He won’t,” I said, my voice steady even though my heart was trying to claw its way out of my chest. “He’s survived worse.”

She looked at me then. Really looked.

“Why do you care?” she asked. “After everything I did to you?”

The answer came without hesitation.

“Because I love him.”

The bunker fell silent except for the sounds of destruction above us.

Two hours passed like that.

Two hours of not knowing if the man who anchored both our lives—in wildly different ways—was alive or dead.

Then the door shuddered.

Someone was forcing it open.

My heart slammed so hard I tasted copper.

I grabbed the first thing I could find—a heavy fire extinguisher bolted to the wall—and pulled it free.

“Stay behind me,” I whispered to Serena.

The door burst open.

A man in tactical gear rushed in, gun raised, eyes wild. He wasn’t one of Dominic’s men. I knew their faces now. This one was a stranger.

I didn’t think.

I swung.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Until he fell.

Until he didn’t move.

The extinguisher slipped from my hands and clattered to the floor, the sound echoing through the bunker like a gunshot.

I stared at the man on the ground. At the blood. At my hands.

“Iris,” Serena whispered. “Stop. He’s down.”

My stomach heaved. I turned and vomited into the corner, shaking so violently I couldn’t stay upright.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore.

“You saved us,” Serena said quietly.

“I saved myself,” I replied.

Dominic found us twenty minutes later.

He came through the door covered in blood and gunpowder, chest heaving, eyes wild until they locked onto me.

Then he saw the body.

The extinguisher.

The blood.

“That’s my girl,” he said, crossing the room in three strides and pulling me into his arms so tight I couldn’t breathe.

“I killed him,” I whispered into his chest.

“You survived,” he said fiercely. “That’s all that matters.”

Later, when the compound was secure and the dead were gone, Dominic stood with me on the terrace, moonlight washing over the stone.

“It’s over,” he said. “The threat’s been eliminated.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“It started with Luca,” Dominic said. “Humiliation makes weak men reckless. He reached out to my rivals. They thought I was distracted.”

He looked at me.

“They were wrong.”

I should have been horrified.

Instead, I felt safe.

“What happens now?” I asked.

Dominic turned to face me, and for the first time since I’d met him, I saw fear in his eyes.

“Now,” he said quietly, “I give you a choice.”

He didn’t rush the words.

That alone told me how much they cost him.

“Now,” Dominic repeated, his voice low, steady despite the chaos still settling around us, “I give you a real choice.”

The night air pressed cool against my skin. Somewhere below the terrace, guards moved, radios murmured, the machinery of survival grinding back into place. The compound was returning to itself. Dominic Valente’s world always did.

Mine hovered on the edge of something irreversible.

“I can give you a new identity,” he said. “A clean one. New name. New city. Somewhere safe. Somewhere far from this.”

He didn’t gesture around him. He didn’t have to.

“My enemies are not abstract, Iris,” he continued. “They don’t fade. They wait. Tonight proved that.”

His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping once before he forced it still.

“You didn’t choose this life. You came to me for revenge. And I…” He exhaled slowly. “I kept you because I wanted to. Because I’m selfish.”

The admission hit harder than any command ever had.

“If you stay,” he said, meeting my eyes fully now, “you’ll always have to look over your shoulder. There will always be men who want to hurt me by hurting you.”

He reached out but stopped himself an inch from my skin, like he was afraid of influencing the answer.

“I won’t pretend love makes this easier,” he said. “It makes it worse.”

The truth in his voice settled over me like weight.

I thought of the woman I’d been before I walked into his life. Before I walked into that hotel lounge with mascara on my cheeks and vengeance in my heart. The woman who believed safety was a checklist. A man. A ring. A future approved by other people.

That woman had still been betrayed.

Still been broken.

Still been left standing alone in a hallway with her entire life collapsing behind a closed door.

“I don’t want safe,” I said quietly.

Dominic’s breath caught.

“I don’t want to run,” I continued. “I don’t want to pretend I didn’t see what I’m capable of. Or what you are.”

I stepped closer.

“I want your name,” I said. “Your life. All of it. The darkness included.”

For a moment, Dominic Valente didn’t look like a king or a criminal or a man feared across three continents.

He looked like someone who had waited his entire life to hear those words and never truly believed he would.

“Say it again,” he said hoarsely.

“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I choose you.”

Something inside him broke open.

He caught my wrist, pressed my palm to his chest, right over his heart. It beat hard and fast beneath my hand, human and real and vulnerable in a way he rarely allowed anyone to see.

“Marry me,” he said.

It wasn’t a proposal the way people imagined them. No ring. No theatrics. No carefully planned moment.

Just truth.

“Yes,” I said.

He pulled me into his arms then, holding me like he might never let go, his mouth pressing against my hair, my temple, my cheek, as if grounding himself in the fact that I was real and still breathing.

For the first time since I met him, Dominic Valente exhaled like a man who had finally put something heavy down.

Three days later, Serena came to my door.

She didn’t knock.

She stood there stiffly, arms crossed, chin lifted, armor firmly in place. Whatever softness I’d overheard on the terrace was gone, packed away where no one could touch it.

“I’m not here to apologize,” she said immediately.

“I didn’t expect you to,” I replied.

“I’m not here to be your friend either.”

“Good,” I said quietly. “I’m not looking for one.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy but no longer explosive.

Then Serena reached into her pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.

“Open it.”

I hesitated, then did.

Inside was a key.

Old. Tarnished. Heavy with meaning.

“It’s the lakehouse,” she said. “In the mountains. My mother’s favorite place.”

I looked up sharply. “Dominic hasn’t been there since she died.”

“Twenty-three years,” Serena said. Her voice wavered, just slightly. “He keeps it maintained. Pays the staff. But he’s never gone back. He can’t.”

She swallowed.

“Maybe it’s time he let her go.”

I stared at the key resting in my palm.

“And you’re giving this to me because…?”

“Because he listens to you,” she said bluntly. “And because I’m not the one who can help him do that.”

She shifted, uncomfortable.

“I’m not forgiving you,” Serena added. “And I’m not asking you to forgive me.”

“I wouldn’t believe you if you did.”

A corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.

“But he’s different since you,” she said. “He laughs now.”

The words seemed to surprise her as much as they did me.

“I’ve never heard him laugh,” she admitted. “Not once. Not in my entire life.”

She turned toward the door, then paused.

“I’ll be at the wedding,” she said without looking back. “Not for you.”

“I understand.”

Then she was gone.

The key remained.

A year later, I stood in front of a mirror overlooking the water, adjusting the veil that framed my face. The woman staring back at me was calm in a way I’d never known before.

Not happy in a fragile, hopeful way.

Certain.

The venue was private. Intimate. Thirty guests. No spectacle. No press. Just the people who mattered—and a few who needed to see.

Serena appeared in the reflection behind me.

“You don’t have to be here,” I said gently.

“I know,” she replied. “But someone should make sure you don’t run.”

Almost a joke.

Almost.

“I’m not running,” I said.

She studied my reflection, then nodded once.

“No,” she agreed. “I don’t think you are.”

I walked down the aisle alone.

No father to give me away. No performance of being transferred from one man to another.

I chose this.

Dominic waited at the altar, dressed in a dark suit that made him look devastatingly human. The power, the danger, the legend—all of it stripped down to a man standing very still, watching the woman he loved walk toward him.

His eyes held mine like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

We spoke vows that weren’t flowery or idealized.

We spoke truth.

Promises that acknowledged the cost of loving each other and accepted it anyway.

When he kissed me, it wasn’t possession.

It was commitment.

Later, in the penthouse—our penthouse now—the city glittered below us, Miami stretched out like a living thing, bright and alive and unforgiving.

“Any regrets?” Dominic asked softly, his arms wrapped around me from behind as we stood at the window where everything had begun.

I thought of the girl I’d been.

The woman who thought love meant waiting to be chosen.

“I only regret that I didn’t walk into your life sooner,” I said.

He kissed my hair.

“You came exactly when you were meant to.”

I had walked into darkness willingly.

I had learned what I was capable of.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of myself.

I was free.