Chapter 1: The Devil's Confessional
The cold of the marble seeps through the thin silk of my dress, a sharp contrast to the heat flooding my veins. His hand is a vise in my hair, forcing my head back, arching my spine until I’m certain it will snap. I don’t give him the satisfaction of a whimper.
“Still fighting, Valentina?” Dante’s voice is a low rasp against the shell of my ear, barely audible over the frantic thrum of my own heart. It echoes anyway, bouncing off the vaulted ceiling of this abandoned chapel like a confession.
Shattered saints stare down from the walls, their painted eyes judging the scene. Candles flicker in a draft, making the shadows of us writhe against the stone—a monstrous, fused thing.
“Go to hell,” I spit, the words tearing from my throat.
He chuckles, a dark, humorless sound. His other hand, large and brutal, skates from my hip to the front of my thigh, hiking the ruined silk higher. The air kisses my bare skin, raising goosebumps. I feel exposed, anchored only by his grip and the hard press of him against me.
“We’re already there, princess.”
His thumb finds the lace edge of my garter, and I stop breathing. The switchblade is right there, a cold comfort against my skin. I could reach it. I’ve practiced the move a hundred times. But my arms are locked, braced against the cold floor, and something deeper than fear holds me still.
His touch is not what I expected. Where I prepared for violence, I find a terrifying precision. He palms my breast through the silk, his thumb circling, finding my nipple and pinching sharply through the fabric. A bolt of pure, undiluted sensation shoots straight to my core, and a traitorous gasp escapes me. The sound seems to hang in the incense-thick air.
“See?” he murmurs, his lips grazing my jaw. “Your body knows the truth. It knows who it belongs to.”
“It belongs to me,” I snarl, but it’s weaker now, undercut by the way my hips cant back against him, seeking pressure.
His answer is a swift, stinging slap to the back of my thigh. The crack is obscenely loud. Heat blossoms, followed by a sharp pleasure so intense it whites out my vision for a second. I cry out, the sound morphing into a moan as his hand soothes the same spot, his fingers dipping to the wet heat between my legs.
“Liar.” He finds my clit with unerring accuracy, rubbing slow, torturous circles. “Every tremble, every gasp, is mine. You’ve been mine since you looked me in the eye and told your father’s men to stand down.”
The memory flashes—my father’s study, the smell of cigar smoke and fear, Dante standing like a specter of death in the doorway. Me, stepping between him and what was left of my family. The respect that flickered in those cold green eyes.
His fingers push inside me, and I shudder, dropping my forehead to my arms. It’s too much. The crude poetry of it—defiled in a church, by the enemy, by the one man whose silence speaks louder than all the threats in the world.
He works me with a ruthless efficiency, his fingers curling, his thumb relentless on my clit. The pleasure builds, a coil pulled taut, layered with the shame and the overwhelming rightness of it. He leans over me, his chest a wall of heat against my back, his mouth on my shoulder, biting.
“Come for me, Valentina. Let me hear you.”
I shake my head, biting my lip until I taste copper. I won’t. I can’t.
He delivers another spank, harder, on the other side, and the shockwave of pain-pleasure breaks my resolve. A sob wrenches free as I come, my body clenching around his fingers, a wave of blinding release that leaves me trembling. He holds me through it, his hand still working, prolonging it until I’m boneless and pleading.
Before the last pulse fades, he’s freeing himself. I hear the tear of foil, a quick shuffle, and then he’s pushing into me in one brutal, filling stroke. I cry out again, the sound swallowed by the vast, hungry dark of the nave. He doesn’t pause, setting a punishing rhythm that rocks me forward on my knees.
One arm bands around my waist, hauling me up against him, while his other hand slips around my front, fingers finding my swollen clit again. He pumps into me, deep and sure, his breath ragged in my ear. The overstimulation is exquisite, a near-painful edge to the rawness. He twists his fingers, pinches my nipple hard through the torn silk, and I feel another orgasm gathering, different this time—deeper, sharper.
“That’s it,” he grunts, his control fracturing. “Let go.”
It hits me like a seizure, a blinding, liquid rush. My vision sparks as I convulse around him, a broken sound tearing from my throat. The release is so intense it feels like pain, like dying. He follows me over, his own groan a guttural prayer into the curve of my neck, his hips slamming home one last, trembling time.
For a long minute, there is only the sound of our ragged breathing and the distant scream of sirens. Reality seeps back in, cold and ugly. The candlelight, the broken saints, the sticky warmth between my thighs.
Slowly, he withdraws. The loss is physical. He tucks himself away, and the silence between us is heavier than before.
I can’t move. I stay on my knees, the marble leeching the warmth from me, my dress a ruined pool of silk around my waist. I hear him move behind me, then his jacket settles over my shoulders, still warm from his body, carrying his scent of gunmetal and bergamot.
A phone buzzes, sharp and intrusive. His phone.
He answers with a quiet, “Yeah.”
I listen, frozen, to his half of the conversation. His voice is back to the Ghost—flat, empty, lethal.
“Understood. The warehouse on Pier 12. Half an hour.” A pause. “No. She stays with me.”
He ends the call. His hand returns to my hair, but this time it’s just a touch, almost hesitant. He guides me to my feet. My legs nearly buckle. He holds me upright, turning me to face him. His green eyes are unreadable in the dim light, but his thumb sweeps roughly across my cheek, smearing a tear I didn’t know I’d shed.
“Get dressed,” he says, his voice a low command. “We have to go.”
“Go where?” My voice is hoarse, used.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Nowhere is safe.”
A ghost of something passes over his face. He leans in, his lips a breath from mine. “Tonight, cara mia, safe is with me.”
The promise feels like a threat. And as he leads me from the altar, his hand firm on the small of my back, I know the hell has only just begun.