The morning light poured through the massive windows, slicing shadows across the stone floor like blades. I sat at the edge of the bed, bare chest wrapped in bandages, that faint pain pulsing near my ribs. A reminder of how close I came to dying.
But that wasn’t what haunted me.
No, what haunted me… was her.
Nyra Kapoor.
Even her name echoed inside my skull like a song I couldn’t silence.
She shouldn’t be here. Not in my world. Not near me. And yet, everything inside me pulled toward her like gravity — dark, sharp, unavoidable.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, head bowed. Let the memories play.
The way she’d looked at me — eyes burning with fury and confusion.
The way her voice trembled but never broke.
The way she stayed — even when she knew what I was, what I could be.
She made no sense.
She’d been dropped into this world of blood and betrayal and instead of running, she stitched up the monster on the table and looked him in the eye like he was just a man.
No one had ever done that before.
No one had ever seen me without flinching.
And yet all I could think about now was how I wanted to ruin her.
Mark her.
Own her.
I want to fuck her until she knows exactly who she belongs to.
Because from the moment I saw her — blood on her hands, defiance in her eyes — I knew.
She was mine.
The day in that hospital, when I first opened my eyes and saw her standing over me — flushed, angry, fearless — something inside me locked into place. A quiet, primal decision.
She didn’t even know it.
But I did.
And it’s not the kind of knowing that goes away.
I rose from the bed slowly, every muscle taut with restrained tension, crossed to the tall mirror. The scar peeked out under the bandage wrapping. Pale skin, stitched back together — like a puzzle that still didn’t fit.
Alive.
Only because of her.
I should’ve walked away.
Should’ve sent her home, erased every record of her involvement, cleaned it all up like it never happened.
But I hadn’t.
Couldn’t.
Because she’d touched something in me I didn’t know I still had.
And now, it was too late.
There was something about her that made it impossible to think straight. I kept picturing her hands on me — not just stitching, not just saving — but clawing at my shoulders, gripping my back, gasping my name in the dark.
I wanted to taste her.
To make her beg.
To hear her whisper my name not in fear — but in surrender.
Because when she surrendered, she’d never get away.
She would know what it meant to belong to Adrian Moretti.
And God help me — I would never let her go.
I forced myself to breathe deeper, slower. I had to stay sharp. There was still a traitor inside my house. Someone had poisoned me and smiled while doing it.
The report from Matteo sat waiting downstairs — incomplete but damning. Transactions buried in shell companies. Chatter picked up in Naples. A name half-scratched out, but familiar.
Whoever it was had gotten close.
Too close.
And now I had to do what I do best — hunt.
I will catch them. I will make an example so brutal, the rest of the world will remember what it costs to touch a Moretti.
But beneath all that — the rage, the obsession, the revenge — was a quieter fear.
Nyra didn’t belong in this storm.
She didn’t have the armor.
She still believed in rules and medicine and saving people who didn’t deserve saving.
She didn’t know what I’d done. What I’d become to protect my family’s empire. What I would do again without blinking.
And she sure as hell didn’t know the truth about her father.
Yeah, I’d read it in the report too. Not a heart attack. A hit. Quiet. Professional. Covered up with precision.
And she never even knew.
If she ever found out…
Would she still look at me like she did last night — angry, but still holding on to something soft beneath it?
Or would she turn away completely?
I don’t know which would hurt more.
A knock broke the silence.
"Boss," came Matteo’s voice. Tense. "You’ll want to see this."
I grabbed a shirt and opened the door.
He handed me the tablet, face tight with tension. “Someone tried to wipe an internal ledger. Naples. It traces back to an offshore account tied to Marco.”
Marco.
One of ours. Trusted. Groomed from the inside.
Fucking hell.
“I want him found,” I said, ice in my voice. “And I want him alive.”
Matteo nodded once and left.
I turned toward the window, the city spread out beneath me like a maze I ruled and hated in equal measure.
Nyra was somewhere in this house, probably still trying to piece together what she’d gotten herself into.
Still believing she had a way out.
But she didn’t.
And maybe that made me the worst kind of man.
The kind who pulls an innocent woman into the fire just to feel her warmth.
But I wasn’t ready to let go.
Not of her voice.
Not of the way her eyes widened when I stepped too close.
Not of the tiny, involuntary flicker of her pulse every time I said her name.
And especially not of the way her body would melt against mine when I finally touched her like I wanted to.
One day soon, she would stop pretending to hate me.
She would stop lying to herself about what she felt when I looked at her.
And on that day —
She’ll know she’s mine. Entirely. Irrevocably.
Just like I already know it now.
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