The New Me
Evelyn
“Dante, I have to get back. This is a very important exhibition,” I murmured, as he kissed my neck.
He had me pinned against the desk in my office while the private viewing of my latest acquisition, Leo Marcelli, unfolded in the gallery down the hall.
The retired don had taken weeks to persuade, but with Isabella’s encouragement, and a little careful diplomacy on my part, he’d finally agreed to exhibit.
The collection was breathtaking.
Rendered in oils with remarkable confidence and restraint, Leo’s paintings captured New York not as tourists imagined it, but as those who belonged to it remembered it.
Rain-slicked avenues glowed beneath amber streetlights.
Sunlight spilled between towering brownstones, turning fire escapes into lacework and taxi cabs into flashes of gold.
Steam curled from subway grates like ghosts of the city’s past, while anonymous figures hurried through the streets, each carrying a story the viewer would never quite know.
They weren’t merely cityscapes, they were love letters to Manhattan. Intimate, nostalgic and unmistakably authentic, each canvas revealed a city that was gritty and glamorous, brutal and beautiful.
It was a portrait of New York through the eyes of a man who had lived every triumph, heartbreak, and secret it had to offer.
“Mm…” Dante murmured, pulling down the strap of my gown so he could reach my breast. “And I’m about to give you a very important orgasm.”
He covered my nipple with his mouth, and I gasped. All thoughts of the party flew from my head, replaced with the glorious sensations pulsing through me with every hard suck. This man knew exactly what to do to reduce me to a puddle of lust.
In the month since my rescue, he’d come to know every curve and fold of my body, as I had his. At first, I’d worried that we’d get tired of ripping each other’s clothes off and having sex in every conceivable position in every room in his penthouse, but we hadn’t.
If anything, the intimate knowledge we now shared about each other had only brought us closer together.
Like that ultra-sensitive spot underneath my breasts that he was currently stroking with his thumbs as he sucked hungrily on one puckered peak, or the place about an inch below the head of his penis that drove him wild.
I reached for it now, wanting to feel the hardened length of him. Give him something in return. Make him feel as good as he was making me feel.
“Jesus, Ophelia, that feels good. Don’t stop.”
“We’ll have to be quick,” I whispered, working my hand up and down the length of his thickened shaft. “In case we’re missed.”
“I don’t give a fuck if we’re missed,” he growled against my breast, as he reached down and lifted the chiffon folds of my dress. “I’m not rushing this.”
“Oh, okay,” I moaned as he pulled down my underwear and cupped me.
“Christ, I love how ready you always are for me.” How could I not be with his mouth still sucking hungrily on my nipple, and his fingers sliding between my slick folds?
“Oh God.” I bucked against his hand as he found my tight bundle of nerves and began to rub it gently.
My hand pumped up and down on his cock, more frantically now as I felt the pressure start to build in my lower abdomen.
He released my breast and his mouth found mine, warm and hungry. He kissed me so hard and so deeply that my knees went weak. I had to lean back against the desk for support.
My grip on his cock faltered, but he just pressed his erection against me as he delved deeper with his tongue and his fingers.
I cried out against his mouth as he slid a finger inside me.
He absorbed it with a low growl and repeated the motion, fucking me with his finger until I was thrusting shamelessly against him.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, as my hands went around his neck and I clung to him. “I’m going to make you come so hard.”
I whimpered, my eyes glazing over as he brought me closer and closer to release.
“But not like this.”
I shuddered as he withdrew his finger. “What are you doing?”
He gave a slow, sexy smile. “I want to be inside you when you come undone.”
I was literally seconds away from orgasming.
“You’d better hurry,” I whispered, pressing myself against him. The straps of my gown had fallen down both arms and the skirt was bunched around my waist. I felt wanton and wild and insanely turned on. This man had opened my eyes in so many ways, not just sexually, and I loved him for it.
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” he growled, spreading my legs wide and stepping forward so he was lined up at my entrance. A heartbeat later and he was inserting himself inch by inch until he’d filled me completely.
We both groaned at how good it felt. How right. I clung to him, staring deep into his eyes, marveling at the intensity of emotion that I saw there.
“Fuck, I love you,” he murmured, gripping my hips and pulling me even closer so he was buried to the hilt. My legs were wrapped around his waist, my body primed and tingling, on the brink of another earth-shattering orgasm.
“I love you too,” I whispered, as he pulled slowly out then thrust in again, with more force this time.
I groaned, flinging my head back. He pounded into me, and I could feel my breasts bouncing at the impact.
The desk creaked and groaned with each surge and I cried out as I felt myself tighten around him.
“Come for me, baby,” he gritted, gazing at me as the first flutters of my orgasm hit. “Let me see you fall apart.”
At his words, I cried out and succumbed to the tidal wave of ecstasy that wracked my body. It kept coming and I bucked against him as he held me firm while he drove into me, sending me higher and higher.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” he rasped, moments before he tensed and I felt an explosion of heat as he shot hot seed into me. Over and over again, he plunged mercilessly into me, his fingers gripping my hips as he emptied himself.
The frenzy of activity extended my own orgasm—or triggered a new one, I wasn’t sure which—but I went flying over the edge again, biting down on a scream as fresh spasms of pleasure racked my body.
Afterward, he slumped forward, resting his forehead on mine.
“Now that was worth missing the party for,” he said with a lazy grin. He was still inside me, and part of me didn’t want to move, didn’t want it to end.
But I knew that we’d do it all over again tonight, when we got home.
He straightened my gown, bending to give my straining nipples one last kiss, before bending down to pull up his trousers.
“Now, I’ll let you get back to your party.”
The Agora Gallery was mine again.
Los Santos Rotos had melted out of New York like frost off a windowpane. It started three days after the docks, when a warehouse in Red Hook burned to the ground. It was so bad, the fire department didn’t bother trying to save it. Two more stash houses in Queens went the same night.
By the end of the week, the news anchors had run out of synonyms for “suspected gang violence,” and Ricardo Sánchez had reportedly boarded a private plane back to Bogotá that, as far as anyone could tell, never landed.
Every name in Vincent’s phone, crossed off one by one.
Dante assured me Sergei had taken care of them. Retaliation for the hostilities they’d inflicted on the Bratva. He told me this over breakfast, buttering toast, the way other men discussed baseball scores.
I no longer felt like I was looking over my shoulder all the time.
But I knew I’d never be completely complacent again, either.
Dante had taught me that much—you never let your guard all the way down, not in this world.
I was his woman now, a Marcelli in everything but paperwork, and that made me powerful and a target in equal measure.
I could live with that. The morning the warehouse fire made the front page, I’d read the article twice, poured myself another coffee, and turned to the arts section.
I’d hired a new accountant, recommended by Marco, who was smoothing everything over on paper. Vincent’s name was no longer mentioned. Officially, he’d retired to the south of France. Unofficially, no one asked, because in the circles I moved in now, people had learned not to.
I should have felt guilty about how much I didn’t feel guilty.
I’d lied to the police. I’d watched the man I loved kill for me, and I’d kissed him with the blood still on his hands.
I wasn’t laundering anyone’s dirty money now, but Sergei was still a very good customer, as were the Marcellis, and if the offer prices were a little inflated…
well, I wasn’t going to complain about that.
The woman who’d opened this gallery would have been horrified.
But that woman had also been cautious, painfully naive, and a pawn in a game she didn’t understand. This new Evelyn ran the most respected gallery in SoHo, sat at the right hand of the most dangerous family in New York, and was afraid of exactly no one.
I’d surrendered my innocence. In exchange I’d been handed power, protection, and a love that would, quite literally, burn down a city for me.
In this world, that was the only justice there was. And I was okay with that.
The exhibition was a success, although I suspect many of the invited guests had come to get a closer look at the gallery owner who was engaged to the infamous Marcelli family.
On the fourth finger of my left hand, Dante’s diamond sparkled. He’d proposed on the roof of his penthouse, in the rain.
He’d stood in front of me, rain running down his face, his shirt soaked through and clinging to all that inked, scarred muscle, and produced a little red box.
Without warning, he’d dropped to one knee. I still got breathless thinking about it. Dante Marcelli had kneeled for me.
Inside the box was the most ridiculous, beautiful diamond I’d ever seen.
But it wasn’t about that. Dante had shown me what it was like to love, and to be loved.
He’d come back for me when I’d been in danger, and he’d rescued me when my life had been on the line.
He’d even killed for me. No woman could ask for more than that.
On my wrist was my own slim tennis bracelet. Given and earned. His and mine. The woman I was, and the woman I’d been.
Chloe was beside herself because Mikhail was there with Alexei.
This was the first time she’d seen Sergei’s nephew since before my kidnapping and subsequent rescue, and while she didn’t know the particulars of what had transpired, she knew Mikhail and Sergei had helped Dante take down the cartel and get my gallery back.
According to our sources, and Izzy’s intel, Alexei knew a lot more than he let on, and I realized the cocky grin was a guise to lure people into a false sense of security around him. I’d underestimated the young man, and while no harm had come of it, I wouldn’t be making the same mistake again.
Unfortunately, Chloe was smitten. I could see it by the spring in her step, her flirtatious gestures, and how she became completely flustered around him. It was kind of cute, but I’d be watching them closely; I didn’t want her to get hurt.
Dante stood across the room, leaning against the far wall. He didn’t talk to anyone, simply watched as I worked the room. The look on his face made my heart sing. It was a look reserved only for me. Pride, desire, and more than a little possessiveness.
I thought about what we’d just done in my office and flushed. He saw, and by the quirk of his lips, I knew he was picturing every detail too.
Nico lurked near the bar in a suit he clearly resented wearing, pretending not to be running some form of surveillance from his phone. Izzy held court by the sculpture garden in a leather dress, terrifying an eminent art critic visiting from London.
Kyle, smiling in a dinner jacket, stood near the door with his wife. Max was with him. I’d insisted we invite them, and Dante had finally agreed. His social skills still needed work, but we were getting there.
And in the corner, perfectly still amid all the motion, Valentina watched her son watch me. She caught my eye across the crowded gallery and lifted her glass a fraction of an inch.
Approval, from Valentina Marcelli, was rarer than the diamonds on my ring. I lifted mine back.
I’d come into this world a captive, a victim, certain a dangerous man was going to be the end of me. Now I was living in it a queen, on the arm of the same dangerous man, having decided he was the beginning of everything instead of the end.
That was the secret no one tells you about loving a villain. They think you’ll spend your life trying to tame him, to drag him into the light, to fix the broken person he is.
But I didn’t want Dante fixed. I wanted him exactly as he was. I wanted the rage and the tenderness, the violence and the devotion, the man who brought me coffee the way I liked it and would put a bullet in anyone who tried to hurt me.
I’d stopped trying to escape the flames a long time ago.
Now we were building our kingdom from the ashes. Together.
It was nearly midnight when I noticed the woman in ivory. She stood alone near the crimson-and-black abstract, an untouched flute of champagne in her hand.
I didn’t recognize her, and I knew everyone on the guest list.
She had wavy, dark hair, wore stunning shoes, and possessed a stillness that was out of place at a party.
Dante had noticed her too and crossed the room to stand beside me.
“Friend of yours?” he murmured.
“I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
Across the gallery, Marco noticed her too. My elegant, dangerous, soon to be brother-in-law, who spoke five languages and trusted no one in any of them, went very still. His charming smile remained fixed in place, but his eyes sharpened like cut glass.
The woman in ivory turned her head and met his gaze from across the crowded room. Then she smiled, like she knew something he didn’t.
While we watched, she set down her glass, turned, and walked out into the New York night. Even more surprisingly, Marco abandoned his conversation mid-sentence and followed.
“Trouble?” I asked Dante quietly.
He pulled me back against his chest, his lips at my ear.
“Not ours,” he murmured huskily. “Not tonight.”
And he was right. Tonight we were celebrating a new beginning. The war had been won, the city was ours, and our new life together was about to start.
I admired the ring on my finger, dancing in the overhead lighting. Whatever the woman in ivory had come for, she was clearly Marco’s problem.
Everyone was having a good time. The champagne flowed, the DJ played, guests danced—but I was oblivious to it all.
When Dante pulled me into his arms and kissed me, everything ceased to exist except him. The world might call him a monster, but tonight, and every night after, I called him mine.