3. THE DEVIL'S KISS
SELINE
A touch shouldn't burn your skin. It shouldn't make a heart stutter, a breath snag. NO.
Firm. Warm. Possessive. Am I even sane? Because that’s the only word that fits the way it landed: wrong, and impossibly right all at once. It shouldn’t be like this. I was supposed to be drowning in hatred.
His touch should be like him. Cold and....oh...wait...someone is attacking us.
Fucking great.
I looked around as three more cars inched close to us.
Who are they after? Me or him?
I am sure he has a lot of enemies.
I have them.
They just don't know they are my enemies until I slit their throats.
“Get down,” Kade warned, voice flat as a blade.
I looked at my hand in his and instinctively tugged at the black sleeve he wore. He regarded me as if I’d asked something stupid, like the order should be obvious. Maybe it was. I don’t take orders well. I take mine only from myself.
I tried to hold his gaze, to anchor us with that grip, but he snatched his hand away as if it had burned him. The motion was sudden, sharp, an almost guilty recoil.
He stood unnervingly still for a man who was under attack.
I, on the other hand...
I am quiet too.
Unlike the meek, mute girl persona I have created, I like the thrill of being chased.
Kade’s phone buzzed. Dante’s voice came through, thin with panic. “We were hit,” he said. “I went to the port to check the shipment. It was supposed to be cocaine. There are girls. Kade, you need to get here.”
Kade didn’t answer right away. Then: “That fucking Luca…” he cursed under his breath. “Dante, stay put. We’re being hit here, too. Luca’s diverting us. He set this up to pull me away from the shipment. I’ll be there soon.”
“You were attacked? Seline was there too. How can he—” Dante’s voice cut off in a choked question.
Kade ended the call and looked at me. His face was unreadable: a line between anger, triumph, and something like pity. I couldn’t tell which it was.
Nor did I want to.
Kade’s hands became the car’s pulse as he cut through the closing vehicles, metal shrieking when one clipped our bumper.
We burst onto the port road in a streak of salt air and sodium light, cranes and containers flashing by.
He killed the engine, draped his warm jacket over my shoulders, and with a quiet “Stay,” disappeared into the shadows like he belonged to them.
Okay, why the hell did he give me his jacket?
I am not cold, afraid or out of jackets. I have one.
I slipped out of the car, his jacket still heavy on my shoulders, and padded after him between towering stacks of containers.
He didn’t turn, just murmured over his shoulder, low and sharp, “Seline, back to the car. Now.”
Before I could answer, a thin, cracked sob floated through the metal maze. A girl’s terrified cry sliced the night.
Kade froze. His head lifted, eyes narrowing as another muffled whimper echoed.
“Luca,” he breathed, voice like a blade. “That bastard broke the code.”
These people are mafia royalty. I doubt they have codes.
Looking at my future cousin-in-law, I have realised they did, and my fiancé has broken that.
But Luca was an underboss. He will inherit the throne from Kai, Kade's father.
Kade is merely an enforcer.
If he is a legitimate son, maybe, just maybe, he would be the one I would marry.
Thank God he wasn’t. My schemes would have dissolved with that marriage like sugar in the rain.
Dante erupted from the gloom, voice clipped, filling in the pieces: Luca had been trafficking girls in direct defiance of Don Kai’s orders, an act of mutiny.
The problem was proof. They couldn’t yet tie the guilt to Luca’s name.
When the chaos subsided and the girls were sent away, Kade crossed the yard with the slow certainty of a predator. He stopped only an inch from me; our clothes nearly brushed. Almost.
“This is the man you plan to marry,” he said, low enough for my ears alone. “He sells women and children.”
If I said no, I would be out of the picture, out of his world, and that's exactly what he wants.
If I said yes, he’d dig. He’d unearth the life I’d buried.
If he found out who I truly was, he’d make my life a living hell if he hadn't already started.
Because she is dead.
I am alive.
I am not her.
So I did the only thing that carried a language he’d understand. I lifted my chin and gave him my middle finger.
He reacted like a blade. In one swift motion, he seized my hand and twisted it behind my back.
When I shoved with my free hand, he caught it with the same effortless control.
Reflexes.
My breath stuttered; my chest hit his. Our faces hovered a whisper apart. I felt the heat of his breath on my nose, and for a heartbeat the world narrowed to the sharp, impossible nearness of him.
Kade’s gaze dropped, slow and deliberate, from my eyes to my mouth, just for a breath and then climbed back to my face.
Honey-gold eyes, darker at the rim, caught the harsh port light and turned molten. A thin scar cut from his left brow to the edge of his cheekbone, a pale slash that should have ruined him but only made him sharper. The eye it crossed was intact, watchful, alive.
His jaw was a clean, hard line, the kind that spoke of clenched teeth and dangerous patience. His black hair, thick and slightly unruly, matched my own shade.
He smelled of salt air and something darker: leather, the faint burn of whiskey.
The world around us shrank to breath and heartbeat. His fingers tightened fractionally at my wrists, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me he could. My pulse jumped anyway.
“Still sure,” he murmured, voice a low rasp against the space between us, “that you want to marry him?”
Every word vibrated through me, a challenge and a warning. I should have flinched. Instead, I met those honey eyes and held them because stepping back felt like the one thing I couldn’t do.
The sudden wail of sirens carved through the night, sharp enough to rattle my teeth.
Before I could twist free, Kade closed the last inch between us and crushed his mouth to mine.
For a stunned heartbeat, I went rigid, breath locked, refusing to yield.
It wasn’t a kiss; it was a command, a devil staking his claim.
Then the red glare spilled over us, closing in.
Instinct, survival, and something primal slid through me.
I exhaled, shut my eyes, and let myself lean in until our mouths met fully.
Heat surged, hard and unrelenting.
His lips were warm, rough with a hint of whiskey, the scrape of control and danger.
When he finally drew back, the sirens were almost on top of us, and his honey-dark eyes burned with the promise that this was far from finished.






























