Chapter 14
Dante
S he thinks I’m asleep.
That’s cute.
I hear the faint rustle of a T-shirt over bare skin. The quiet click of the bedroom door. Her light footsteps down the hall. I rise and follow, naked and feet bare.
In time to hear the telltale clink of a spoon against a bowl. A smile curves my lips before I can stop myself.
Cereal. Always with the fucking cereal.
For a hacker who can dismantle the world’s digital skeleton, she still eats like a college dropout. There’s something disarmingly honest about it. Something that makes it hard—impossible—to keep my distance.
I stay still in the hallway for another minute, just breathing. Already missing her. The sheets were warm where her body was. My cock aches from the relentless rhythm of her riding me half the night. And even now, my pulse won’t settle.
Because she’s inside me in ways I didn’t fucking plan for.
And I know.
I know she’s trying to fucking play me.
She believes if she keeps me satisfied—fucked senseless and sated with her surrender—I won’t notice her sneaking around, won’t realize how dangerously close she’s gotten to the truth.
But I’m doing the exact same thing.
Keeping her under me. Inside me. Around me. As long as I can.
Because the moment she finds out the full truth about Ironveil, about the Vesper Syndicate, about what happened to my sister… everything changes.
The collar. The playroom. The discipline. It’s not just about control anymore—it’s about protection. My protection . Hers.
I told myself I brought her here to keep an eye on her.
To fuck her, use her skills, then cut her loose. But I was lying.
Even then.
Because the second I saw her file in that syndicate database— Specter S-7 —I knew she wasn’t just another target.
She was the ultimate bait. Just as her mother had been.
And if I don’t get ahead of this, they’ll use her to get to me. Or worse: erase her the way they erased Rina.
Goddamn it.
My body’s heavy from too much sex and too little sleep, but I move silently through the penthouse, tracking her to my study.
She’s sitting at my desk, her laptop open. Mine’s beside it, active. The screen glows blue in the dark. I watch her for a long moment from the doorway, alarmed and deeply thrilled by the sight of her in my seat. Barefoot. Hair a gorgeous mess from our fucking. Knees pulled up into the chair.
Her dark blue eyes are locked onto the scrolling code, her brows drawn in fierce concentration. And fuck me if it isn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
Adorably obvious as she’s hacking me. And I almost let her.
I clear my throat.
She doesn’t jump. Doesn’t even blink. Just tilts her head and says, “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to ask what the fuck you think you’re doing.” There’s no heat.
She taps another key. Keeps working. “Looking for answers.”
“That’s my machine, Specter.”
“I know,” she says, calm. Too calm. “But I need to know what you’re hiding.”
I laugh, but it’s hollow. “What do you think I’m hiding?”
She glances up. “Something about why you play executioner with a god complex.”
I clench my jaw. “Careful,” I warn. “You’re not just breaking the rules—you’re pissing on the last line of trust I gave you.”
“Then explain it,” she says. “Tell me the truth.”
“Same answer as before. I’ll tell you when it’s time.”
She leans back, arms folded. Her gaze is sharp, calculating. “That’s not an answer.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s a promise.”
We stare at each other. Silence, thick and heavy.
I expect her to rage. Threaten. Maybe beg since she’s become so damn perfect at it.
But all she does is nod, as if she’s just confirmed something.
She’s made a decision.
Fuck.
Dahlia
I lie on my stomach, cheek pressed to Dante’s chest, the air still thick with the ache of our last scene.
My thighs burn in that delicious way only he can orchestrate.
Every muscle is loose and my pulse a lazy thrum.
His fingers move through my hair, patient and repetitive, as if we have all the time in the world.
We don’t.
The days are bleeding together too fast. My internal clock—so reliable in the outside world, when I was nothing but shadow and vengeance—is spinning. And somehow, it’s already day fifteen.
Halfway mark.
I should be panicking. Planning my next hack. Scouting my escape. ??But I just let him touch me.
“You’re quiet,” he murmurs.
I glance up. His eyes study me the way they always do after a scene. Like he’s trying to memorize the wreckage he’s caused.
“Just tired,” I lie.
He doesn't press. He kisses my forehead instead. Soft. Intimate.
And dangerous.
Because it feels real. Too real.
I feign sleep, wait until his breathing evens out, until his hand falls from my hair and his body slackens. Then I carefully, quietly, slip from the bed. My legs wobble, but I brace against the wall and breathe through it.
I don’t look back at him.
If I do, I might not leave the room.
I return to the study. And I begin.
Again.
Two Days Later
I’m in his study again, barefoot and wearing one of his shirts, when he storms in like a thunderclap—suit jacket half-off, tie loose around his neck, and fury burning behind his eyes.
I told myself all through my little escapade that I could withstand the fallout. But now he’s striding toward me, fury and intent and… a little panic? I can’t quite catch my breath. Can’t contain the torrent rushing in to fill the gaping spaces being out of his orbit created.
“You went home,” Dante snaps, slamming the door shut behind him. “You slipped through my system, accessed your apartment, and made a call. Who to?”
I blink, fingers still resting on the keyboard. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to go to my own damn home.”
“You knew the rules.”
“I agreed to thirty days in your bed,” I say, rising slowly, my voice calm even as my pulse drums. “I didn’t agree to abandon my life. I didn’t agree to be erased.”
He stalks toward me, jaw tight, energy crackling off him like lightning on metal. “You could’ve been followed. You compromised the entire op. Do you have any idea what?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “Because you won’t tell me.”
He stops. Chest heaving. Eyes narrowed.
“You’re… scared. Why?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Stop. Right now.”
“No. Why are you so scared?” I whisper. “Why does me going home terrify you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he growls.
“You track my every move. Collar me. Deny me release, deny me answers. You fuck me like I’m your possession and then panic the second I breathe on my own.”
His nostrils flare.
I step closer, place a hand on his chest. “You’re not just angry, Dante. You’re afraid. I saw it the second you walked in.”
He turns his back to me, but I see his shoulders tense. His hand curls into a fist on the desk.
“I went to my apartment,” I continue quietly. “I logged in. I checked old messages. Talked to my dad. That’s all. Just… trying to remind myself who I was before all this.”
Silence.
“I was always going to test the bonds of the chains and the collars. We both know that.”
Cold. Heavy. Silence. Eerie and deep.
“I didn’t mean to break your trust,” I say, and it’s not a lie. Not entirely. “But you don’t trust me either.”
His silence hurts more than his anger. So I change the subject—no, I weaponize my pain. My vulnerability. A dagger to his firewalls.
His head shifts, barely, like he’s listening. Intently.
“After my mother died,” I say, “my father couldn’t look me in the eye for six months. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, because of me. And it tore us apart.”
I swallow hard, the memory bitter in my throat.
“He never said it out loud, but I felt it. Every day. Like his silence was a verdict I couldn’t escape. I stopped coming home after classes. Started staying out late just so I didn’t have to see the disappointment in his face. I think... I think part of him wished I’d died instead of her.”
The words hang between us, heavy and raw.
“I tried to be better after that. Smarter. Tougher. But the damage was done. We both wore our grief like armor, but mine cut deeper. Because I knew the truth—if she hadn’t been picking me up that night, if I hadn’t forgotten my phone—she’d still be alive.
“I know what loss feels like, Dante,” I whisper. “That gaping black hole you build your whole life around. And the secrets you’d kill to protect it.” I walk to him, place a hand on his back.
“I know you’re hiding something. Ironveil. Specter . You pretend to be angry when I overstep but hold me like I’m precious. Even as you look at me like I’m a goddamn ghost.”
His shoulders shake. Once.
But he doesn’t turn.
“You said you’d been watching me for a long time. That you want my surrender. You want my obedience? You can have all of it, Dante. All I ask in return is that you give me truth.”
Dante
She’s too smart.
Too fast.
Too fucking close .
When she said her mother died, it gutted me. Because I knew that kind of grief. The kind that rewires your DNA, poisons your sleep, turns you into a monster with a pretty mask.
I still haven’t turned to face her.
I can’t.
If I do, she’ll see it. All of it. I stride to the liquor cabinet without registering it. The glass is in my hand but my fingers are numb.
The pulse of memory, though? It sears, burning everything in its path.
“Ironveil wasn’t supposed to exist anymore,” I finally say. My voice sounds like it’s being dragged through glass. “I buried it after they killed her.”
“Her?”
“Rina. My sister.”
“Your sister,” Dahlia repeats softly. “And they are… the Vesper Syndicate?”
I nod.
“She was nineteen. Bright. Unstoppable. A hacker like you, only cleaner. She thought she could outplay them. And when she tried… they made an example out of her. Filmed it. Made me watch . Then they dumped her body on my doorstep.”
The room tilts. My knees almost give out.