Two hourster, Tessa’s back in bed and in my arms where she belongs. The blood’s been washed from our skin, the penthouse clean like nothing ever happened.


    There were no witnesses either, not that it matters. I own this ce. If I want silence, I get it, no matter what.


    And just as I suspected, the men I had stationed outside the suite were taken out before they could call for backup.


    But those svolichy who came for me made one fatal mistake: they revealed their connection. DeLuca crew, just as I thought. Their tattoos gave them away, like a signature on a death warrant.


    Once I told my brothers what happened, they went straight for DeLuca’sst known hideout. But just like cowards, they’d already vanished.


    Not to worry, though. They will be found. And once they are, I won’t just give them the mercy of a clean death. I’ll tear them apart, bone by fucking bone until they’re begging to die.


    Tessa shifts, her bare body warm against me, her breathing steady, but she’s not asleep. I can feel the thoughts racing in her head as clearly as if she was speaking them out loud.


    “Are you going to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”


    Her gaze lifts to meet mine, shadowed with worry. “I was just wondering why we’re still here and not on the ne going back home.”


    “You trying to run from me that fast?” My fingers draw a slow path up and down her spine, trying to memorize the feeling of her. To make this momentst as long as I can.


    Her body fits against mine like it was made for this. Made for me. I never thought a man like me would ever find this. Someone who makes me feel…something. But she does.


    “What if moree?” Tessa exhales sharply.


    At that, I cup her chin. My thumb drags gently across her bottom lip, and her breaths stutter.


    “Are you afraid?”


    Doesn’t she realize I’d protect her with my own life? Kill any man or woman who dares to even wish her harm?


    “Yes,” she whispers, and the sound of it guts me.


    Not because she’s weak. Because she’s trusting me enough to admit it.


    But no one should’ve ever made her feel this way in the first ce.


    I swallow the anger that surges up at the thought of her in danger, push it down, and let my touch speak what I already know. I’d die before I let anything touch her or scare her again.


    I kiss her forehead, slow and soft. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Not now. Not ever.”


    She closes her eyes like my vow does something to her. Like maybe she needs to believe in something or someone. And maybe she’s starting to believe in me.


    But then she pulls back just enough to break the spell.


    “You don’t know that. You don’t even know me,” she whispers.


    My fingers tighten on her jaw, just enough for her to feel the steel beneath the softness. “Maybe that’s true. But I know enough. Enough to destroy anyone who touches you. And I’ll burn the world down before I let it take you from me.”


    Her breath hitches, and I know it’s not from fear. It’s the war inside her. The one she’s losing.


    “You may be scared of the monsters out there.” I grip the back of her head and press my forehead to hers, letting the darkness rise between us like smoke. “But they’re the ones who should be terrified of what I’ll do once I get my hands on them.”


    She pushes back to look at me, her brows drawn tight, and I know she feels this.


    In a sh, I flip her beneath me, pinning her there with the heaviness of my stare and the pressure of my hips. I brace myself on one forearm, while the knuckles of my free hand drift down her cheek, soft enough to make hershes flutter.


    “Though maybe I should thank them too. After all, if they hadn’te for me, I wouldn’t have had you against the wall with my cock buried so deep you’ll feel me for days.”


    She groans when my lips brush hers.


    “And you definitely wouldn’t have let me kiss you either.”


    “It was just the adrenaline…” she breathes, practically moaning against my mouth. “We can’t repeat this. It’s just a one-time thing.”


    “Adrenaline?” My tongue traces the curve of her lips. “That’s all this is? You feel nothing for me?”


    My cock presses against her wet core, hard and thick, the friction unbearable. She fights a gasp, her hands flying to my back, nails raking down my flesh like she wants to tear her way into me.


    “What do you want me to say?”


    “The truth, Tessa.”


    I trail kisses along her jaw, nipping at the soft ces that make her squirm. I stop just before her mouth, my exhales brushing her lips but never giving her what I know she wants again.


    “You’re my boss…” she tries, but her voice falters, hands pulling me closer.


    “That’s not what I asked,” I growl. My fingers curl around her throat as my eyes burn into hers. “Do you feel something when I touch you? When I look at you?”


    I push closer, the tip of my cock nudging against her entrance, hot and heavy.


    Her lips part, eyes shining, defiant and drowning all at once. She wants to lie.


    But I won’t let her.


    “God damn it, Tessa, just say it!” My hips circle, my thickness dragging against her center, teasing us both with what we could have. With what I need to take.


    She groans, her fingers digging into my back, thighs squeezing around me, hips rocking forward like her body’s already made the decision for her.


    “Fine! Yes…I feel it, okay? Happy?”


    “Entirely.” My smile widens right before my mouth crashes down on hers, devouring her confession with a kiss so hungry, so intoxicating, it tastes like a war I have no intention of losing.


    She moans against me, and I swallow the sound, our tongues shing as I drive into her with one hard, iming thrust. She arches beneath me, a cry escaping as I fill herpletely, every inch of her mine again.


    “This,” I grunt against her mouth. “This is what you wanted.”


    She doesn’t deny it. Can’t.


    “You need to stop fucking me without a condom. I may be on the pill, but I don’t trust you.” Her nails work into my scalp as I piston into her harder, deeper, every stroke punishing and reverent all at once.


    “I will never wear a condom with you, so get used to it.”


    “Oh God!”


    I m into her again, and her body tightens around me, warm and slick and everything I’ve been craving my entire life. And as I fuck her into the mattress, I know one thing.


    I’ll never let her lie to me. Not when the truth sounds like this.<hr>


    “Are you gonna tell me about your scars?”


    Her questiones out of nowhere, cutting through the quiet as we lie tangled together, our bodies sweat-ridden and satisfied.


    For a second, I say nothing. I barely think about those scars anymore. Not really. When you can’t see them, it’s easy to pretend they don’t exist. Like the pain is a ghost you’ve outgrown. But it never really leaves. It just settles deeper into your bones, into the parts of you no one else can touch.


    I don’t mind the scars. They’re a part of me. A roadmap of the life I survived. But she wouldn’t understand that kind of life. And thest thing I want from her is pity.


    “What do you want to know?” I draw her in tighter, her sweet, floral scent curling around me.


    “How did you get them?” Her brows furrow, her curiosity turning into something that feels a lot like concern, and I very much like seeing it.


    I’ve never even had a woman ask about them before, like they just assume I got them because of the life I live.


    Her fingers tenderly trail over the raised scars etched into my back. Like I’m something fragile. Like I could break.


    The thought isughable, but I’m strangely enjoying it. Because for the first time, I want someone to see what’s beneath the monster and stay.


    But I don’t know how much to tell her, how much of myself to reveal. The more you give to someone else, the weaker you be—or at least that’s what my father taught me. A long time ago.


    “I was a boy. Around ten when I got my first scar.”


    “Who did that to you?” Her gaze drips in anger.


    And I find myself smiling, because I can’t remember thest time someone gave a damn.


    Her fingertips trace another scar at the center of my back, gentler now. Like she senses something heavier ising. Something ugly. Something far too broken to ever fix.


    I exhale slow, the memories pushing against my lungs.


    “My father,” I tell her, confessing something I haven’t told anyone. Never had a reason to.


    She stills. “Your father gave you those scars?”


    I nod once. “He believed pain builds men. That beating it into us every day would carve out the weakness…until we stopped crying.”


    “Jesus Christ.” She shakes her head, letting out a heavy exhale as I continue.


    “He was obsessed with shaping perfect heirs. Soldiers. Kings. He used to lock us in the cold cer for days. Barely any food. No light. He’d pit us against each other in fights. Tests of strength, he’d call them. Over time, we stopped crying, stopped feeling.”


    My gaze finds hers, my hand cupping her cheek. “Or maybe I just convinced myself I did.”


    “I understand.” She curls against me, her palm sliding over my chest like she wants to protect something already shattered.


    I stiffen at the tenderness.


    “Don’t,” I say roughly. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”


    Her brows pull together. “I don’t.”


    “Good. Because I don’t hate him. Not for that. That was nothingpared to what he did when I loved someone.”


    She drags her head back, staring intently.


    “My father liked to kill things.” My knuckles drift across her jaw, my gaze following my movement.


    “Liked…as in, he’s dead?”


    I nod. “He’d say fear and love make you weak. That enemies see it and use it against you. That when you love someone, they will destroy you. Or be destroyed because of you.”


    Her features twist and tighten like she’s bracing for the worst of it.


    “At the time, I didn’t want to be like him. I was young. Hopeful. I wanted…love. What kid doesn’t? And after my mother died when I was eight, I craved it until he carved it out of me.”


    Tessa sits up slightly, waiting for the rest of it like it’s about to punch through her rib cage.


    “I met a girl named Katya back in school when I was sixteen. She was sweet. Looked at me like I was more than a weapon. Like I mattered. When he found out I cared for her, he made sure I’d never make that mistake again.” My voice ttens, bes something hollow as the memories take hold. “He caught us one night. I snuck out to meet her at her parents’ farm, and he was already there…waiting. He brought us both back to my house.”


    Tessa’s lips part, but no soundes.


    “She cried. Begged for him to let her go. But I knew if I asked, he’d just make it hurt worse. So I said nothing as he slit her throat in front of me.”


    “Oh my God,” she whispers, cupping her mouth.


    “And he made me watch. Made me stand there while her blood soaked the dirt.”


    “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.


    “Don’t be.” I bring the top of her hand to my lips. “That was the first time I learned what love costs. What it destroys.” I pull her in by the back of her head, my grip a little too tight. “I swore to never cross that line again.”


    But now I want to.


    She sags against me, her arms winding around my back as we lie together in the aftermath. Neither of us says anything for a while, and I understand that what I just gave her is a lot to process.


    But that’s who my father was, and I swore that I would never be like him. That I would never have children and do what he did to me to someone else.


    I was born from a monster, and I’m bound to create one too.


    But Tessa doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t run. She stays in my arms. Her fingers trace one of the old scars like it means something now. Like it’s not a w, but a story she’s willing to carry. And that does something to me. It lodges deep in my chest, somewhere between ache and fury, and it terrifies the hell out of me.


    So I don’t say another word. I don’t thank her. Don’t ask what she’s thinking. I just hold her against my chest. Like maybe if I keep her close enough, long enough, the dark won’t find her.


    Not like it found Katya.


    Not like it found me.