Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty Six
Elsa
Too bad the weekend has to end.
The thought drops into my head the second I step through the revolving doors of Northstar Hospitality, like the building itself signifies the end.
The weekend was a haze of skin and sheets and soft laughter, moans and lazy caresses. Naked mornings that blurred into naked afternoons, easy-to-remove clothes we only wore when we had to accept a delivery.
The couch. The bed. The shower. The tub. Hell, the floor, the kitchen island, and even on the dining table once. Kissing until my mouth went numb, fucking until my legs shook, cuddling until I forgot what it felt like not to have Antonio’s skin against mine.
Perfect.
And now I’m in a lobby that smells like polish and professionalism, and I’m back in my work armor, and my body is still humming because it did not get the memo.
I scan my badge, pass security, and I don’t look back even though I can feel him out there somewhere—watching until I’m safely inside, until I’m past the last checkpoint, until the doors and cameras and guards have done their job.
Then he’s gone. Like he always is.
Antonio will meet me upstairs in my office.
I still don’t know how he does it, and I’m not going to ask. I don’t want to hear the mechanics. I don’t want to turn it into something logical, something that can be dismantled.
What I want is the flutter in my chest when I picture him already there—waiting for me in my space as if he belongs in it.
He loves me.
The thought is still unreal enough that it makes my throat tighten. It makes me giddy.
Antonio Conti loves me, and I love him, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do about my career, or this acquisition, or the fact that the man I slept with all weekend is wrapped around the biggest deal of my life.
I’m just walking out of the elevators when David steps into my path.
His expression is too composed, which is exactly how I know something is wrong.
“Elsa,” he says, brisk, voice pitched low. “We need to meet. Now. About the acquisition.”
My stomach drops.
My eyes flick toward the hallway that leads to my office.
To him.
I force my face into calm. I force my voice into neutral. “Right now?”
“Right now,” he confirms. No explanation. Just urgency wrapped in corporate urgency.
I nod once, like my heart isn’t sprinting. “Okay. Give me a second. I just need to drop a couple of things off.”
David hesitates, like he wants to argue, then relents with a tight nod. “Two minutes.”
“Two,” I echo, and step around him.
I head for my office.
When I push through my office door, I’m already prepared to see him.
Antonio is never late. Ever.
He’s always here—always waiting for me to step into the room to make sure I made it here all right. Usually, I walk in, and there’s that immediate, grounding shift in my chest. The sense that whatever else is coming, I’m not facing it alone.
But the office is empty.
My smile falls off my face before I can stop it.
I stand there for a beat, hand still on the door, my eyes sweeping the space like he might be hiding behind furniture for some reason. The chair by the window is untouched. My desk is pristine. No shadow in the corner. No low voice, no “dolcezza,” no heated presence taking over my office.
Nothing.
My stomach tightens.
He’s never been late.
A cold thought crawls up my spine: He got caught.
Security. Cameras. A guard who finally caught on. A badge scan that didn’t match. A door that didn’t open.
I don’t even know how he gets in here.
Maybe he’s being arrested right now.
The image hits so vividly it makes my breath snag—Antonio Conti, hands behind his back, jaw clenched, looking at a guard like he’s deciding whether to talk his way out or break the man’s wrist and leave.
My pulse jumps hard enough to sting.
I step farther in, turning in a slow circle. “Antonio?” My voice comes out too quiet, too thin.
I glance at the wall clock. David gave me two minutes. My phone is in my hand before I realize it, thumb already hovering.
A flicker of motion outside my glass wall catches my attention.
My head snaps up—
Antonio appears in the corridor like he materialized out of thin air, moving fast enough that the suit blurs. His expression is not “morning.” Not “fine.”
It’s all hard and focused.
He’s through my door in a stride.
And before I can even open my mouth, his hand closes around my forearm.
“Let’s go,” he says, low. “Now.”
My heart slams. “Antonio— What’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer. He pulls.
I stumble, barely catching my balance as he drags me into the hall—not toward the elevators, not toward the lobby, not toward the exit.
The wrong direction.
Panic crackles through me. “Antonio—”
“Move,” he says, not harsh but firm and absolute, and my body obeys on instinct because his voice is the kind that means danger is already inside the building.
He hauls me to the office he’s been using all week—the unused one a couple doors down, the one I’ve had to ignore while my thoughts circle it all day, every day.
He shoves the door open and pulls me inside.
The second we’re through, he slams it behind us and locks it. The sound of the lock falling into place makes my skin prickle.
“Antonio,” I say, voice shaking now. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t look at me as he moves. He crosses to the desk, plants both hands on it, and climbs up.
“Breach,” he says.
The word punches through me.
“A breach by who?” I demand. “How?”
He reaches up, fingers already at the seam of a ceiling tile.
“Bellandi,” he says.
My blood turns to ice.
“What— How do you know that?” My mind races, trying to catch up. “Wait, what about the rest of them? David. Eleanor. Malcolm—”
I turn toward the door, instinct screaming at me to go find them, to warn them, to drag them into a room and lock it and do something.
But Antonio is off the desk in an instant, fast as a snap, and his hand clamps around my arm again, tight enough to stop me, not tight enough to bruise.
“Elsa.” His voice drops, and it’s the most terrifying thing. “You’re the one they want.”
I freeze.
His eyes lock on mine, and the intensity there makes my stomach drop.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says.
I stare at him, my throat closing.
“No,” I whisper. “No, I can’t just— I can’t leave them here like sitting ducks waiting to be picked off.”
His jaw flexes. “We have other people watching them,” he says. “They’re covered.”
“How do you know that?” I snap because my brain wants something concrete to hold onto instead of fear.
“I know,” he repeats, and there’s no room in his tone for negotiation. “I put them there myself. Now move.”
He turns back to the desk, climbs up again, and pops the ceiling tile free with practiced ease.
A square of darkness opens above us.
My stomach lurches.
“You need to go up there,” he says, already reaching down for me.
“In the ceiling?” My voice goes up an octave. “Antonio, are you out of your mind? You want me to go in the ceiling?”
“Yes.”
I stare up at the opening like this is all some big joke, and he’s going to grin and say Dolcezza, you didn’t really think I would make you climb into the ceiling, did you?
But he doesn’t.
“It’s not—” I swallow. “Is this how you’ve been getting in and out?”
“No,” he says, and there’s no patience left for anything but obedience. “But it’s the easiest way for you to get out.”
My pulse is hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
“I can’t—” I start, then stop because he’s already reaching for me again.
He boosts me up onto the desk like I weigh nothing.
“Antonio—”
He catches my face in both hands, forcing me to look at him.
His eyes are dark and intent, and mine in that way that still knocks the air out of me even now, even with danger pressing at the walls.
“Elsa,” he says, and his voice softens just enough to cut through my panic. “I need you to trust me.”
I shake my head once, because my body is flooding with adrenaline, and I want to fight and run at the same time.
“I promised you,” he says, thumbs brushing my cheekbones, “that nothing would happen to you. Please let me keep that promise.”
My lungs burn. My eyes sting.
I hate that I believe him.
I hate that I need to.
I let out a shaky breath and nod. He pulls me to him for a hard kiss.
“Good,” he murmurs, and then the softness is gone, replaced by action again. “Go.”
He lifts me easily, hands gripping my hips, and I scramble into the opening.
The space above the ceiling tiles is wider than I expect—dark, dusty, lined with metal beams and ductwork.
It smells faintly of insulation and stale air.
I brace on my hands and knees, trying not to think about how ridiculous this is, how insane it feels to be crawling through the guts of my own workplace.
My heart is a drum in my ears.
Antonio climbs in behind me, and the space immediately feels way smaller.
He’s so broad-shouldered he fills the space, his body a wall at my back. His presence blocks the little light bleeding through cracks between tiles.
“Antonio,” I whisper, fear slipping into my voice. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can,” he says, right behind me, and the certainty in it steadies me. “We’re just going to the end of the hall.”
All the light coming in from the office disappears as he replaces the ceiling tile.
I blink into the sudden darkness. “How do you—”
“I know this building now,” he says simply. “Crawl.”
I move.
Each shift of my knees scrapes against the metal supports. My palms slide along a beam. The air is warmer up here, trapped. My breath feels loud.
Below us, the office sounds are muffled—footsteps, faint voices, the distant hum of HVAC. Everything is ordinary, which makes it worse, because somewhere in that ordinary space, there are men who don’t belong here.
Antonio stays close enough that I can feel him behind me. A comforting presence.
We reach a point where the ceiling opens slightly into a wider area—a junction where beams cross and the ductwork curves away.
Antonio’s hand touches my ankle once.