Chapter 17
Sabine
She lifted her head, her gaze pinning me in place at the top of the staircase. The sight of her split me clean through, a jolt sharp enough to stop breath in my throat. Her mouth curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Hello, Sabine.”
The words tore through me like a knife. My throat dried, body gone rigid against the railing.
My mind clawed at sense, but there was no denying it.
My source. Dom. She was Domenica Bellante, the youngest daughter of the family whose shadow stretched over every violent report I had chased for months.
She was not a whisper in my notes now, not a clandestine meeting in a seedy motel. She was here.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me. Every detail I had buried to keep myself moving flooded back.
Her smoke-filled voice in the greasy cafe, her hand gripping my hip the first time she bent me over a shipping crate.
The glint in her eyes when she told me not all debts get paid in money.
I had known her. Trusted her. Wanted her.
She had never been a peripheral member of the family. She had been Bellante all along.
At the top of the stairs Ellie shifted, rifle steady, her face hard as steel. “She saw your mother’s books,” she muttered. The words dropped into the air, heavy as stone.
The walls closed in around me, velvet and walnut tightening like a vise. Mother’s books. Her mother’s. Isabella Bellante stamped in gold on the inside cover. It was not my imagination. It was not coincidence. Ellie knew. She knew what those books meant, and she was not surprised.
They had all known. I was in their hands, every move catalogued. Panic burned sharp in my chest. There was no safehouse. No protection.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Her voice rolled through the foyer, and then she was moving. One boot met the first stair, then the next, and the sound of it cracked through me louder than the alarm had. Each rise of her body stole the space between us, step by deliberate step, and it felt like watching doom climb into reach.
My body felt locked, but instinct still drove me. My hand shot out toward Ellie, clutching for the anchor of her sleeve. She didn’t shift. Didn’t lower her rifle, didn’t so much as glance at me. Her arm stayed rigid, her eyes fixed down the sightline below.
My grip slackened, sliding from Ellie’s arm as Dom came closer. Each footfall was precise, weight carried with the assurance of a woman who had never been denied what she wanted. The stairwell had felt wide minutes ago, and now she filled it.
I tried to back against the wall, my crutches awkward beneath me, but her presence swallowed the distance.
She loomed taller with each step, shoulders framed by the overhead light, shadow stretching long across the landing.
Her silence was worse than threat. It was possession without the courtesy of a claim, leaving no room for plea or protest.
By the time she reached the final step, my heart was pounding so loud I could barely hear. She was here, in front of me, and every nightmare I had chased on paper was now written in flesh, closing in.
Her hand plucked the crutches from under my arms as easily as if they were twigs and leaned them against the wall behind her. My last scrap of mobility, gone with one casual motion. Her eyes caught mine for a single breath, dark and steady, and then her mouth was on mine.
There was no question in her kiss, only claiming. Heat seared across my lips, into the ache of my chest, unraveling every defense I had left. Her hand cupped the back of my neck, pulling me into it, the pressure fierce and unyielding.
Fear surged up sharp, and yet my body betrayed me.
My lips parted, breath spilling into hers, the taste of her dragging me backward through memory.
Every part of me screamed that I should fight, should wrench away, but the rush flooding my veins was the same as it had always been around her.
Want threaded itself through terror, so tangled I couldn’t tear them apart.
My hands pressed weakly against her shoulders, not pushing, not pulling, just caught.
The familiar weight of her caged me, filled every breath.
This was the way she had always undone me, not with sweet words, not with promises, but with sheer force of presence.
She burned through logic, through self-control, until all that was left was the raw, unsteady pulse of need.
My brain clawed for clarity, screaming no, but my body answered something else entirely. Heat coiled low in my belly, my skin sparking under her grip. The fear didn’t cancel the desire. It fed it, tangled with it, until I was left gasping into her mouth, undone and furious with myself.
She had always made me feel like control was an illusion I could never keep in her hands, and as her arms closed around me, I knew nothing had changed.
She lifted me before I could find balance.
My body jolted against her breasts, the sheer ease of her strength leaving me weightless.
Carried like cargo. Like I had no say in where I belonged.
Panic pressed at my ribs, but the rush of her closeness bled into it until I couldn’t separate the two.
Her heat, her scent, and the steady power of her stride as she carried me toward my room trapped me as surely as the walls did.
The door pushed open and then closed under her shoulder, hinges groaning. In three steps she had crossed the floor and lowered me until my feet hit the rug. My ankle flared, but she held me upright, mouth crushing down on mine again before I could gasp.
Her hands moved with ruthless precision, tugging at the hem of my shirt.
Cloth bunched in her fists, dragging higher as her lips swallowed my breath.
Fear surged, betrayal burned hot, but lust crashed over both like a tide.
My hands curled helpless against her chest, shaking from the confusion of it.
When my shirt and bra peeled away, I looked at her.
The woman I had known as Dom, the woman I had chased for answers, was here in front of me exactly as memory had etched her.
Dark hair tumbled down her back, one streak of gray cutting sharp through it.
Her high cheekbones caught the light like polished stone.
Her eyes were as black as storm glass. A tattoo curved along her throat, the edges disappearing under her collar.
Her sleeves were shoved to the elbow, filigree ink coiling over her forearms, hands braced strong and unrelenting.
She was the embodiment of every warning I had ignored.
My breath came ragged against her mouth.
How was this happening? Why was she here, in this house, with the others silent below?
My thoughts spun faster than my pulse, colliding into one unsteady truth: if she was here, it wasn’t by accident.
And whatever they planned for me, I had already stepped too far inside to escape it.
She dropped to her knees, her hands closing around my hips.
Fingers curled under the waistband of my pants and panties, tugging both down in one steady pull.
Cool air hit my skin and a shock rolled through me, not from the chill but from the reality of what she was doing.
I should have fought, should have screamed, but the sound caught in my throat.
Her mouth was on me before I could gather a thought. Her tongue slid against my slit, deliberate and certain, as if no time had passed, as if she had been waiting for this exact moment. The wet heat of it tore a shiver from me, my hands clutching uselessly at her shoulders.
“You taste so fucking good,” she muttered against me, lips brushing sensitive flesh. Her voice was ragged with possession. “Always did. Always will. You respond for me better than anyone.”
The words slammed into me harder than her mouth.
I trembled, my body arching toward her despite the voice in my head screaming to stop.
Every slow drag of her tongue stripped me of control, and I hated how quickly my thighs loosened, how the fight drained away.
I hated more that she was right. My body was already giving her everything she wanted.
I bit down hard on my lip to hold in a sound that threatened to escape. The taste of blood filled my mouth and still I could not stop the roll of my hips toward her. She knew. Her chuckle vibrated against me, low and satisfied.
When she finally pulled back, my chest was heaving. My skin burned with both shame and hunger. She rose to her feet and moved me to the bed, pressing me back until my shoulders met the mattress. The force of her bent over me was suffocating, yet it sparked heat that sparked through my limbs.
"You missed me, didn't you?" Her eyes glittered with danger and desire. "You want me to make you come, sweet girl?"
I couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. "Yes, but—"
Her mouth crushed down on mine, hard and consuming. While I was still reeling, her hand slid lower, fingers pushing between my thighs. The invasion was sharp, quick, two fingers pressing deep. I gasped against her mouth, the sound stolen as her thumb circled where I was already slick.
Sensation broke through logic, each movement of her hand tightening the coil in my stomach. She kissed me as though my protest did not exist, as though the only language left was the tremor of my body against hers.
The orgasm came fast, wrung from me with brutal efficiency.
My hips bucked helplessly, the cry tearing free before I could swallow it down.
My body betrayed me fully, responding to her as if no treachery had happened, as if the danger surrounding us did not exist. That cut deeper than her kiss, deeper than her fingers. It was mine, and I could not deny it.
“Dom,” I moaned, the name torn out of me without thought, raw and shameful in the air between us.
She stilled for a fraction, then leaned close enough for her breath to heat my ear. “It’s Alex now, lovely.” Her tone carried amusement, dark and sharp, like she was correcting a child who had gotten it wrong.
The climax still shook me in little aftershocks, my muscles quivering as I tried to pull air into my lungs.
My chest heaved, throat raw, but the words tumbled out anyway, desperate.
“What the fuck is happening? Why do you have me here?” My voice cracked.
“Are you all with the family? Are you going to kill me?”
Silence stretched. She did not answer. She only smiled, that low chuckle spilling from her chest, the same sound that had always crawled under my skin and unsettled me. It was infuriating, because it emphasized that she knew more than I did. The laugh made me feel like prey.
I pushed against her chest, tried to force her to meet my eyes. “Answer me, damn it!”
Instead she dipped her head, brushing her lips across the corner of my mouth, her words so close they slid straight into me. “They’re great questions. But first, why don’t you do me a favor and wait right there, like a good girl.”
The whisper coiled like an order and a threat at once. She stood, casual as if nothing had just happened, as if I had not been stripped of breath and control seconds before. My pulse raced harder as she crossed the room, each step deliberate, unhurried.
The light from the hallway cut across the floor when she opened the door. She leaned against the frame as though she owned the space. “Kara,” she called, voice calm, almost conversational. “I need you up here.”
My blood iced. Every nerve in me fired at once.
She had not denied it. She had not corrected my questions.
She had summoned Kara like the next act of something rehearsed.
Horror spiked so sharp it made me dizzy.
They were all in on it. Every woman in this house, every rifle, every lock on the door.
I had been delivered into their hands, and the truth was only now peeling back its skin.