Chapter 2 Chapter 2: The King's Gaze

Dante Valeri had made countless life-or-death decisions in his thirty-two years, but none had ever felt quite like this.

The woman—Elena—stood before him with terror and defiance warring in her eyes, and something in his chest shifted. He'd expected her to collapse into hysterics or beg on her knees like Marco had. Instead, she held his gaze with a stubborn courage that spoke of either stupidity or remarkable strength. Her hands trembled at her sides, betraying her fear, but she didn't look away. Didn't cower.

Interesting.

"Sir?" Enzo's voice cut through his analysis. "Your orders?"

Dante should have given the command without hesitation. One bullet, problem solved. He'd executed witnesses before—it was basic operational security, as natural as breathing in his world. The fact that this one had wide hazel eyes and smelled like vanilla and rain shouldn't matter. The fact that something hot and possessive had coiled in his gut the moment she'd stumbled into his territory shouldn't change protocol.

But it did.

"Put her in the car," Dante said, the decision crystallizing even as he spoke it. "The Escalade. Handle Marco's body and sweep for any other witnesses."

"Boss—" Enzo's surprise was evident. In ten years of service, he'd never questioned an order, which made his hesitation now noteworthy. "Are you sure? She saw everything. Protocol says—"

"I know what protocol says." Dante's voice dropped to the register that made grown men reconsider their life choices. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

"No, sir."

Elena's breath hitched as Enzo moved toward her. She took a step back, and Dante found himself speaking before he could analyze the impulse: "He won't hurt you. You have my word."

Her laugh was sharp, brittle. "The word of a murderer. That's supposed to comfort me?"

Several of his men tensed—no one spoke to Dante Valeri that way and lived—but Dante felt his lips twitch. When was the last time someone had dared to mock him? Years, at least. His reputation preceded him like a force field, keeping everyone at a careful, respectful distance.

This woman, this Elena Hayes with her wrinkled interview suit and broken heel, either didn't know who he was or didn't care. Both options fascinated him equally.

"Murderer is such a limiting term," Dante said, moving closer until she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. God, she was small—the top of her head barely reached his shoulder—but she didn't retreat. "I prefer to think of myself as a problem-solver. Marco was a problem. Now he's solved."

"You're insane." But her voice wavered, and Dante caught the flutter of her pulse at her throat, rapid as a hummingbird's wings.

"Probably." He reached out, unable to resist touching her again, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. Her skin was impossibly soft. "But I'm the insane man who just decided to let you live. I'd be more grateful if I were you."

She jerked away from his touch. "Grateful? You're kidnapping me!"

"Protective custody," Dante corrected. "There's a difference."

"Not from where I'm standing."

"Then let me clarify your position." He invaded her space deliberately, backing her against a support beam until she had nowhere to go. This close, he could see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the faint freckles across her nose, the way her chest rose and fell with each panicked breath. "You witnessed a sanctioned execution. That makes you a liability. In my world, liabilities get eliminated. But—" He placed his palm against the beam beside her head, caging her in. "—I'm offering you an alternative. You come with me, you stay alive. You cooperate, you stay comfortable. You try to run or talk to the authorities, and this conversation ends very differently. Are we clear?"

Elena's eyes searched his face, looking for something—mercy, perhaps, or a hint that this was all some terrible joke. Dante knew she'd find neither. He'd burned out whatever softness he'd once possessed years ago, cauterized it with blood and necessity until only the essential parts remained.

But standing here, watching fear and fury dance across her expressive face, he felt something stir in the ashes.

Dangerous, whispered the rational part of his brain. This woman is dangerous to you in ways that have nothing to do with what she witnessed.

"Why?" Elena's question came out as barely a whisper. "Why not just kill me? It would be easier."

Dante considered the question, considering his answer carefully. Why indeed? Because she'd looked at him with disdain rather than worship? Because she'd fought when she should have submitted? Because in a life of choreographed power plays and calculated moves, she represented pure, chaotic chance?

Or because the moment he'd seen her hiding in the shadows, something primitive and possessive in him had roared mine?

"Maybe I'm curious," he said finally, which was true enough. "Maybe I want to see what happens when I take something that doesn't belong to me. Or maybe—" He leaned in, his lips nearly brushing her ear. "—I'm just as monstrous as you think I am, and keeping you amuses me."

She shuddered, but Dante felt the tension in her body shift into something more complex than simple fear. Awareness, perhaps. The same electric current that had shot through him when their eyes first met.

"Elena." Her name on his tongue felt like a claim. "Time to go."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then Enzo puts you in the car anyway, but with significantly less dignity." Dante pushed off the beam and stepped back, giving her room to breathe. "Your choice. I'm told I occasionally give those."

For a moment, he thought she might actually fight, might make his men drag her kicking and screaming to the vehicle. Part of him—a dark, twisted part he rarely acknowledged—hoped she would. But then her shoulders sagged, just slightly, and she nodded.

"Smart girl." He gestured to Enzo. "Take her. Gently."

As his second-in-command guided Elena toward the exit, Dante stood in the spreading pool of Marco's blood and watched her go. She looked back once, her expression full of accusation and something else he couldn't quite name, and Dante felt the hook sink deeper.

He should have killed her. Every instinct honed by years of survival in this world screamed that he was making a catastrophic mistake. Witnesses were dead witnesses. Simple. Clean. Final.

But as he watched the Escalade's taillights disappear into the night with Elena Hayes inside, Dante acknowledged the truth he'd been avoiding since the moment her purse hit the concrete:

He didn't want her dead. He wanted her, period. And Dante Valeri always got what he wanted.

His phone buzzed—Carlo, his consigliere, demanding an explanation for the deviation from protocol. Dante ignored it, lighting a cigarette as he surveyed the warehouse that would be sanitized within the hour, erased from existence as cleanly as Marco had been.

Everything could be controlled, managed, possessed. He'd built his empire on that principle. Elena Hayes would learn the same lesson every enemy and ally had learned before her: resistance to Dante Valeri was futile.

What he didn't yet realize—what wouldn't become clear until it was far too late—was that some things, once possessed, possessed you right back.

The warehouse door slammed shut behind him as Dante walked toward his car, already planning how to keep his unexpected acquisition secure. He had a penthouse that would serve as her cage, guards who would die before letting her escape, and time—all the time in the world—to figure out why this woman had burrowed under his skin in the space of ten minutes.

Behind him, in the darkness, his phone continued to buzz with increasingly urgent calls he continued to ignore. Let them wait. Let them wonder.

The King had found something more interesting than business.

He just hoped he wouldn't regret it.