18. Riley
Riley
I reread the email as I sit and wait.
Ms. Mullvain,
Your outstanding performance during your internship made a lasting impression on us. So much so, we’re thrilled to offer you a rare, permanent position on our international team.
The role comes with a handsome signing bonus and frequent, all-expenses-paid travel to our offices in Paris and Milan.
Acceptance requires your immediate start.
Please confirm and all travel arrangements will be made.
We eagerly await your response.
I bet they do.
I roll my eyes and promptly click delete .
How stupid do they think I am?
The D’Angelo fingerprints are all over this like luminol at a crime scene. Starting with the way they deliberately called me Mullvain instead of Luciano.
Kennedy made that distinction loud and clear at her wedding to Enzo, proudly reclaiming our real name from Jimmy-the-Jerk-Stepmonster.
They want me gone. Packed neatly into a pretty little box and airmailed straight off to Europe.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Fool me once, motherfuckers.
Brake lights flicker as the shiny new Benz finally pulls away.
About damn time.
I slip into The Inferno only after I’m sure Dante’s long gone.
And all those precious hours of sleep I wasted camped out on a bench across the street—trench coat, ball-cap, all the stalker-mode shit?
Totally fucking worth it.
Mila bunking at my place came with unexpected perks—like insider intel on staff schedules. According to her, nine in the morning means a skeleton crew and a mass exodus of exhausted employees.
Dante included.
Seriously, does the guy ever sleep? If I hadn’t seen him in the light of day, I’d swear he was a vampire.
I ditch the ball cap and use Mila’s employee card to sneak in. My nerves crackle beneath my skin, and I tighten the coat around myself. Yeah, there’s a unitard under here—just in case.
“Can I help you?” a voice asks sharply. One of the guards—black suit, black tie, and a stare darker than both. But it’s the gun at his hip that screams hired muscle.
“Mr. D’Angelo’s expecting me.” I twirl a strand of hair around my finger, breathing life into the lie. Bimbo Number Three, reporting for duty.
The guard narrows his eyes, skepticism etched deep in his expression. “I don’t think so.”
Before he can hustle me back out the door, I pull an ace straight out of my ass—Dante’s sleek, arrogant business card, complete with its obnoxious gold lettering. His name. His number.
I flash it between two fingers, offering up my sweetest, most deceptive smile.
The guard studies the card, then me, suspicion tightening his expression. “Mr. D’Angelo isn’t here.”
I pout dramatically. “Oh, I know. He specifically said he wanted me waiting in his office until he returns.” I pause for effect, my voice dropping suggestively. “Naked.”
Then I flick the coat open just enough to let him glimpse a bare shoulder and an enticing hint of thigh through the slit.
Thank god Kennedy has at least one dance outfit with a single strap.
What’s weird is the bouncer doesn’t leer. He jerks his gaze away like looking at me for one more second might turn him into a pillar of salt.
It’s not gentlemanly—it’s fear. Pure, unmistakable fear. And I roll with it.
“Which way to his office?”
Wordlessly, he points up the sleek staircase.
I climb, each step echoing louder in a pair of stilettos currently cutting off my circulation. At the top, I slip into Dante’s office and freeze on the threshold.
Totally dumbstruck.
The space is immaculate. Neat as an operating room. My plan was to snap a few shots of damning evidence or Netflix-worthy true crime pics. Not the cover shot of a Restoration Hardware catalog.
Everything is pristine—expensive artwork, gleaming stone floors, and a ridiculously stunning rug large enough to discreetly stash at least three bodies.
I yank open his desk drawers. Empty. All of them.
“What kind of sick, psycho neat freak is he?” I mutter under my breath.
“The suspicious kind who doesn’t appreciate people snooping through his shit,” comes a familiar voice from behind me.
My heart stutters violently, then plummets straight into my stomach. Slowly, reluctantly, I turn.
Dante .
Jeans, black T-shirt, dark hair my fingers usually ache to fist.
Yet something’s off.
He leans casually in the doorway, smile unfurling slow and sly. The broody bastard who usually ignites my lady parts like the Fourth of July is nowhere near as broody, or bastardly, as usual.
My pulse isn’t roaring in my ears. Heat isn’t flooding my cheeks. At this point, my usually traitorous nipples would need jumper cables to fake interest.
It’s like staring at a poster of Dante. Not the living, breathing inferno who could torch my panties straight off from fifty yards away.
Bewildered, I blink and stare. Maybe the dark, delicious spell of Satan’s favorite warlord has finally worn off.
Apparently, the feeling is mutual. He isn’t eyeing me like a coyote sizing up rare steak. No, this look is something else entirely.
Curiosity, spiked with a double shot of amusement.
He moves closer, rubbing his scruff thoughtfully. My gaze snags on his cheek. The lickable dimple…gone. The faint scar above his brow…missing. And the Alpha-male scent—leather, spice, and sin—that usually trails him everywhere? Completely absent.
My stomach flips like a penny as my eyes land on his left arm. The serpent tattoo normally coiled possessively around his bicep has vanished. In its place, a freshly inked hellhound, red eyes blazing viciously back at me.
Realization hits like a thunder bolt.
“You’re not Dante.”
He bats my nose lightly, chuckling. “And you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I was just looking for Dante.” I lift my chin, hoping confidence hides the tremble in my voice. “I’m here to audition. To dance.”
The man tilts his head, studying me with eyes too amused for comfort. “Is that so?” He leans in. “And you are?”
“Riley.”
His smile widens slowly, a spark of recognition flashing briefly before it’s snuffed out. “Dillon.” He clasps my hand in both of his. “The man who handles auditions.”
Oh, shit.
“Why don’t we go somewhere better suited for your…performance.”
My stomach knots as he leads me out.
At the door, something catches my eye. A small, polished steel trash can, impossibly pristine on the outside, but scorched black within.
Empty, except for one charred scrap of paper at the bottom. Even as I’m whisked past, a single word screams up at me through the soot.
My pulse rockets to a wild, erratic high.
Zver