4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
K ane
She’s gone.
I know it before consciousness claws fully back into my bones. Before my eyes peel open, gritty and stinging, confronting harsh sunlight and brutal emptiness. Before my palm skates over the sheets beside me, cool, abandoned, devoid of the lush heat that should still be there.
Her absence is fucking physical. A gaping wound ripped open in the morning air.
I lie flat on my back, staring blankly at the ceiling, drawing slow, measured breaths that do nothing but embed her deeper into my lungs.
Every inhale drags in more of her ghost, every exhale fails to release it.
She’s smoke curled thick and heavy, stubbornly clinging to my ribs, my chest cavity, polluting me from the inside out.
And fuck if I don’t want it.
My hand reaches out again, blindly grasping at the space she left behind, empty air, cold silk, mocking the heat she burned into me. I grab the pillow where her head rested, crushing it roughly against my face.
Fuck.
Vanilla. Neroli. Her.
It’s torture. A cruel fucking tease of the woman I’d spent hours devouring, mind, body, every last shred of control she’d tried so desperately to hold onto.
Her scent saturates the sheets like sin, burrowing into my skull, twisting around my nerves like barbed wire.
I close my eyes and inhale deeper this time, punishing myself with the tormenting memory of how perfectly she’d unraveled beneath my hands.
How beautifully she’d shattered while I held the pieces.
I finally drag myself upright, muscles protesting. They know this day is already ruined before it’s even started. I sit there, head bowed, jaw locked so tight my teeth ache, trying and failing to shove her out of my head. But the echoes are relentless.
Every fucking moan. Every frantic gasp. Every whispered, desperate please that shredded her pride into ribbons while I forced her submission.
She left, but she’s still here, haunting me.
I get up, bare feet hitting cold marble, muscles humming with restless energy and unresolved hunger.
My morning routine happens on autopilot, espresso bitter enough to scrape my throat raw, protein tasteless and functional.
Black slacks crisp and perfect, shirt custom-tailored.
I go through each step mechanically, a puppet forced into motions that feels hollow, pointless.
Off.
She’s thrown something out of alignment, knocked me sideways in a way I don’t recognize, leaving me itchy and agitated beneath my own goddamn skin. I can’t shake the feeling, a nagging dissonance deep in my bones.
Restless, I step into the bathroom.
That’s when I see it.
Rosewood.
Her lipstick, smeared defiantly against my mirror.
A mark. A scar. A fucking act of war.
My chest goes still, like my heart forgets how to beat. The air thickens, heavy as oil, dragging around me in slow motion while heat surges through my veins like fire set loose. My eyes lock on that perfect smear of rosewood, burned into the glass like a mouth-shaped bullet.
She kissed my mirror.
She kissed my fucking mirror.
And now I can’t fucking breathe.
The heat that floods me is violent. Dark. Possessive in a way that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with need. The kind that doesn’t just pulse, it devours.
It shouldn’t matter.
But it does.
Because she knew I’d see it. That much is obvious. But what she didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, is what it would trigger. What it would fucking unleash.
This isn’t a symbol.
It’s an ignition.
This feeling…I know it.
It’s the beginning of something ugly. Something sharp. Something terminal.
It starts like a whisper.
A breath in a quiet room.
A flicker at the edge of consciousness.
But it’s there. A splinter driven straight into the base of my brain, impossible to remove. A virus. A sickness. And her fucking mouth on my mirror just made it real.
It’s blooming now, slow and sure.
Like rot beneath lacquer.
Like heat building under skin until it blisters.
But soon…very fucking soon…it won’t be subtle.
It will consume me.
***
Five hours.
Five fucking hours since Camille walked out of my penthouse like she hadn’t broken beneath me the night before. Five hours since she branded my mirror with that lipstick, rosewood-stained proof of possession, a declaration I never fucking asked for, yet can’t shake loose.
Five hours, and the infection is already spreading.
I step into Rivera Holdings exactly at seven-thirty, earlier than usual.
The private elevator glides upward, fifty-nine floors of steel, glass, and ruthless precision swallowing me whole.
I’m not here because I want to be. I’m here because staying home would mean staring at the ghost of her mouth imprinted on my mirror until I lost my mind.
The elevator doors slide open onto the top floor, my empire, distilled to marble floors, glass walls, and cold ambition. Hanna, my assistant, greets me with a crisp nod, her heels clicking sharply as she recites today’s schedule, acquisition calls, legal briefings, negotiations with Tate Ashby.
I barely register her words.
Camille’s whispers still pulse through my veins. The echo of her pleas, her gasps, the way she shook apart beneath me, it all drowns out every rational thought.
“Sir?” Hanna’s voice sharpens, pulling me back to the present. “Mr. Ashby is waiting in your office.”
I nod curtly and head inside without another word.
Tate Ashby stands near the massive windows, framed by Manhattan’s skyline, confidence radiating from every tailored inch.
He straightens his suit jacket, flashing a practiced smile as I enter.
A snake wrapped in Armani, convinced we’re equals because his bloodline traces back generations of influence.
“Kane,” Tate greets, extending his hand.
“Tate.” My grip is firm, brief, detached.
We sit opposite each other, separated by fourteen feet of polished black marble, my territory, my rules.
“I want to revisit our agreement,” Tate begins, calm and diplomatic. “My people think…”
“Your people think wrong.” My voice slices through his politeness, clipped and brutal. “The terms stay.”
His composure falters just slightly. “I believe…”
“You misunderstood.” I lean forward, locking eyes with him, jaw tight. “You sign, or you leave. Your choice. I don’t renegotiate.”
He pauses, weighs my words, then stands, forcing another polite smile. “Understood, Rivera. My lawyers will reach out.”
“Good.”
The second the door closes behind him, tension coils tighter inside me. My fists clench, frustration crawling beneath my skin, Camille’s fault. Camille’s lingering infection.
I rise abruptly, pacing in front of the massive windows, eyes scanning the city. fifty-nine floors below, life hums obliviously on, unbothered by the chaos gnawing me.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, Joaquin. I answer without looking. “Speak.”
“We found Torres’s man,” Joaquin reports evenly. “He’s waiting downstairs, sublevel.”
“On my way.”
Minutes later, I’m plunging downward in the elevator, the sleek glass and marble replaced by concrete walls, flickering fluorescents, and stale, metallic air. No veneer here. Only truth, raw, bloody, unflinching.
Two of my men have the traitor on his knees, wrists bound, face swollen. Joaquin stands by, tattooed forearms folded across his chest, waiting silently. I circle slowly, eyes narrowed, evaluating him.
“Please,” the man begs, voice broken. “I’ll pay it back, I swear…”
“Enough.” I crouch down, tilting my head. “You knew the rules.”
“Mr. Rivera, please…”
I nod to Joaquin, bored now. The screaming starts as they drag him toward the industrial grinder. Metal blades churn to life, shrieking over his screams. Bone snaps. Blood sprays in sharp arcs against cold concrete, pooling red and wet across the floor.
I watch, detached.
But even here, in violence and bloodshed, Camille’s ghost lingers. Her moans fill the silence between the screams, the image of her trembling body carved into my skull.
Maldición, bruja. Witch.
A witch I want to fuck again. And again. Until I’ve exorcised this need or it kills me.
By evening, I’m pacing the penthouse like a caged animal, restless and wired. Her scent, vanilla, neroli, still clings to the air, the sheets, my fucking skin. I sit on the couch, my hand already reaching for my phone, opening Instagram on autopilot.
Her profile mocks me. Camille laughing at brunch, smiling at fundraisers, posing flawlessly at parties. And then, Tulum.
Black bikini, barely-there fabric hugging golden skin, wet curls spilling carelessly across her bare shoulders, her lips parted, a quiet tease.
My cock hardens instantly, painfully.
Bruja, I curse again, voice rough and angry, hand sliding down to unzip my pants. My strokes are slow, punishing, edging myself while my eyes drink in every detail. Her parted thighs. The shadow between her hips. Her mouth, soft and inviting.
I push myself to the brink of pain, refusing release, hating how deeply she’s already fucked herself into my head. When I finally let myself come, it’s harsh and brutal, her name a guttural curse spilling from clenched teeth.
It doesn’t help.
Day Two.
It gets worse.
Joaquin briefs me on Dubai accounts, cartel shifts in Colombia, another dead informant, another quiet disposal. I nod, detached, while every woman passing by resembles her, every flash of dark curls, every whispered laugh, every slick mouth painted in shades of temptation.
At night, I stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror again, hand trembling against the marble counter, knuckles splitting as I slam a fist into the stone, staring at her lipstick brand.
Rosewood.
A fucking curse.
Day Three.
I stop pretending.