CHAPTER 25 #2
The ground bucked violently, throwing us against the steel.
The roar was a physical thing, a pressure wave that tried to crush my skull even through Nikolai’s protection.
Dust rained from the ceiling, choking the air.
The door groaned, warping under the heat and force of the blast on the other side, but it held.
I screamed, but I couldn't hear myself. I dug my nails into Nikolai’s shoulder, anchoring myself to the only solid thing left in the universe.
Then, silence.
A ringing, high-pitched whine filled my ears. I tasted copper and dust.
Nikolai didn't move for a long time. His heart hammered against my ear, a frantic, powerful rhythm. Slowly, the tremors in the floor subsided.
"Did we make it?" my voice was a broken croak.
Nikolai pulled back, his hands gripping my shoulders. It was pitch black, but I could feel his breath on my face. "The Vance debt is settled. The world thinks we’re dead, Scarlett."
"Dead," I repeated, the word rolling around in my mouth. It tasted like freedom.
I reached up, my hands shaking, and found his face in the dark. My fingers traced the jagged scar on his throat, the rough ridge of skin that I knew as well as my own.
"You chose me," I whispered. "You burned everything for me."
He captured my hand, pressing a hard, dry kiss to my soot-covered palm. It wasn't gentle. It was a seal. A contract signed in ash.
"You chose the fire," he rasped. "You belong to the dark now."
He clicked on a tactical flashlight. The beam cut through the gloom, illuminating the filth of the tunnel and our wrecked, bloodied reflections in the water. He looked terrifying. He looked perfect.
He pulled me up, his grip tight. "Welcome to the end of the world, cunt. The afterlife starts now."
I squeezed his hand back, hard enough to hurt. I smiled, and I knew the woman who had walked into that gala in a silk dress was gone forever.
"Lead the way, Enforcer."
We turned away from the warped steel door and walked into the black, stinking dark, leaving the ashes behind.
TO BE CONTINUED…
NEXT BOOK: Toxic.
SCARLETT VANCE
I stayed.
That’s the truth no one would understand.
I could have run. I could have tried to disappear.
Instead I stayed inside his bunker while the city hunted us both.
It’s different now. He doesn’t treat me like something fragile. He trains me. Pushes me. Tests me. His hands are still rough, but they’re teaching instead of restraining.
And when he pulls me against him at night, it isn’t about proving dominance anymore.
It’s about need.
He looks at me like I’m the only thing in the room worth protecting.
That kind of attention is dangerous.
Because I’ve stopped being afraid of him.
Now I’m afraid of how far I’d go for him.
If they try to take him from me, they won’t find the girl who was dragged out of a party.
They’ll find someone ready to stand beside him and pull the trigger.
NIKOLAI SMIRNOV
The world is unstable. Alliances are shifting. Enemies are testing boundaries.
She doesn’t flinch.
That’s new.
Scarlett used to glare at me like I was the enemy. Now she stands next to me during briefings and doesn’t look away from the blood on the table.
She’s adapting. Fast.
When I touch her, she doesn’t freeze.
She leans in.
That changes everything.
They think she’s my weakness.
They don’t understand she’s becoming my equal.
If someone puts a hand on her, I won’t negotiate.
I won’t warn them.
I’ll remove them.
And she’ll watch.
Not because I force her to.
Because she wants to.
This is the second book in The Dark Virtue series. Reading order:
Savage.
Toxic.
Sinful.
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THE FIRST SIN
FIORELLA
I was raised to be worshipped.He’s the first man who looks at me like something meant to be ruined.
Angelo doesn’t touch me gently. He studies me. Like he’s deciding where to break me first, where I’ll fracture the cleanest. Every word out of his mouth feels like a warning I should listen to.
I don’t.
Because beneath the hatred, there’s something worse. Something that doesn’t feel like fear. Something that pulls instead of pushes.
I should fight him.I should hate him.I should survive him.
Instead, I catch myself watching him the same way he watches me—like destruction might be worth it.
And if I fall…it won’t be because he forced me.
ANGELO
I’ve destroyed men for less than what her family did to mine.
She was supposed to be a beginning. A clean cut. Something I could carve into the Silvestri name until there was nothing left of it.
But Fiorella doesn’t break the way she should.
She looks at me like she sees through the violence. Like she knows exactly what I am and doesn’t step back anyway.
That’s the problem.
Because now I don’t just want her gone—I want her closer.
Close enough to hear the way she breathes when she’s trying not to react. Close enough to feel the exact second she stops fighting it.
I don’t ruin things halfway.
And if she keeps looking at me like that—I won’t stop until there’s nothing left of her that doesn’t belong to me.
This is the first book in The Anatomy of Sin Series. Reading order:
The First Sin.
The Fatal Sin.
The Final Sin.