I had my fists clenched so tight my fingers start cramping as soon as I reach for my cell. Joseph answers on the first ring.

“What’s up?”

“Get over to the main house. We have ourselves a situation.”

“On my way.”

I hang up and barely glance at Eve as I exit the courtyard. I hear the soft scrape of her chair, though, as she stands to follow. Without waiting for her I cross the main lobby and enter the kitchen. Sofía looks up from the stove in surprise.

“Is everything ok?” she says, her eyes widening as she takes in the state of me. She knows exactly what happens when things go south in this place.

“Where’s Valentina?” I snarl.

“She’s out back sorting out the food delivery from this afternoon… Dante, wait!” she cries as I circle the island in the middle of the kitchen and head next door.

Valentina turns as I enter the storeroom. One look at her face tells me all I need to know.

You treacherous bitch.

No wonder she’s been so fucking jumpy all night. She stands there like a statue, clutching a packet of some shit or another, a deer caught in my headlights. Three years I’ve taken care of her. Three fucking years… Her deceit burns like fire in the pit of my stomach. I treat my people well on the proviso that they swear absolute loyalty to me in return, something this woman has clearly forgotten.

“She told you, didn’t she?” she trembles. “I knew she would.”

“How much do they know?” My voice is like death itself.

“Nothing, I swear it. Señor Dante, please… I haven’t told him anything. You have to believe me!” She’s shaking like a leaf. I can hear her teeth chattering in her head. None of this moves me one iota.

Slowly, deliberately, I take out my gun and release the safety. In spite of what my angel thinks I don’t hit women for sport, but I do torture and murder anyone who betrays me. Valentina glances down at my weapon and the color drains from her face. She knows how this is going to play out for her.

“He was going to murder my whole family,” she screams, her face dissolving into misery. “My little brother… he’s only seven!”

Innocence is a smokescreen, a fairytale. When I was seven years old I’d already killed a man. I aim my gun at her head. “Who did?”

One word. One answer. That’s all I need from her but she just shakes her head at me. “I can’t, Dante. You know I can’t… he’ll kill me. ”

“And what the fuck do you think I’m going to do to you?” Her face is only a foot away from the muzzle now. This could get messy.

“Dante, stop!”

My gaze shifts to the doorway. Eve. What the fuck is she doing here?

“Get back upstairs,” I roar at her. I don’t want her to see me like this. Imagination and reality are very different beasts. She thinks she knows what I do but she could never comprehend the true depths of my depravity. I want to shield her from my darkness for as long as I can.

“Not until you lower your gun.” Her voice is shaking but she’s holding firm. She shoots a look at my housemaid. “You heard what Valentina said, she didn’t have a choice.”

Bullshit. There’s always a choice. Except for Eve. She’s mine forever now. The sooner she comes to realize that the better.

“Dante.” The great shadow of my second-in-command appears behind her. My angel looks as slender as a child in comparison. I watch his cool, grey gaze take in the cowering Valentina and my outstretched weapon. “What do you need?”

“Take her upstairs,” I say, glaring in Eve’s direction.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she cries, taking a step away from Joseph who catches my eye briefly in amusement. “There’s no way I’m leaving you here to hurt that woman!”

“You will if you know what’s good for you…”

Even so, I feel an odd sense of pride. Eve Miller fights like a hellcat for what she believes in but this two-faced bitch isn’t worth it.

“Do it, Joseph. Room on the left after mine.”

Joseph nods, sizing Eve up before grabbing her around her waist and tipping her easily over his shoulder.

“Put my down!” she screeches, bucking like a bronco. My trigger finger tightens as I watch him clamp one arm over her smooth bare thighs to hold her steady. Just seeing another man touching her is enough to make me lose it, no matter who gave the order. I doubt Joseph will thank me for it later, though. Eve’s not going quietly. I hear her curse and shriek my name all the way upstairs.

So… Valentina,” I say icily, turning back to my treacherous housemaid and aiming my weapon at her head again. “Exactly how long have you been spying on me?”

I take a shower before I seek Eve out. My knife work is not as creative or prolonged as my cousin’s but it’s no less effective. At around 2am this morning Valentina broke and gave up the name we were seeking. Two missing fingers will do that to a person, I’m surprised she held out as long as she did. The name itself offered up no surprises.

Emilio.

So my brother’s started keeping tabs on me. He knows Eve’s still here and he knows I’m still fucking her but he has no idea how I feel about her… yet. He knows her name, though, and that’s bad enough. Emilio’s as fanatical about loyalty as I am – it’s a given in this business – but I know how his mind works. He’ll interpret my lies about Eve as some kind of conspiracy, particularly once he figures out her father’s a DEA stooge and what my angel likes to wax lyrical about in the nationals every week. It doesn’t help that one of her articles helped expose a minor partner of ours in Miami last year. The guy was unreliable, she did us a favor, but that’s not the way my brother’s going to see it. He’ll want contracts out on her and her family immediately.

There’s a storm brewing on the horizon, perpetuated by a blue-eyed angel who has no idea what she’s set in motion and would no doubt revel in it if she did.

I dress quickly and step out into the library again. Once inside my bedroom I settle on the edge of the chair, elbows on knees, my hands forming a steeple in front of me as I listen to Eve crying herself to sleep through the wall. It’s a pitiful sound that tears at me like the claws of a tiger. How can thirty seconds of this rip my soul apart whereas some maid can scream at me for hours and I don’t feel a thing?

I need to figure out how to twist tonight’s revelation to my advantage. This game is all about staying two steps ahead of the enemy, because that’s exactly what Emilio is now. He drew first blood by infiltrating my compound. We had an understanding, or at least I thought we did. I toe the line on the proviso he leaves me the fuck alone. Joseph knew the score as soon as Valentina let slip his name. For too long my brother’s been listing the balance of power in his favor and I’ve been content to sit back and let him, but not anymore.

I pause for a moment, my hand resting on the handle of Eve’s door. “You want to talk about loyalty, big brother?” I mutter. “Well, you just crossed the fucking line.

“Did you kill her?”

Eve’s voice drifts out to me from the darkness.

I choose not to answer. Instead, I close the door behind me, and inch slowly towards the bed. The shutters are drawn and I can’t see a fucking thing.

“Did you, Dante?”

Her voice is hesitant and scared – scared of my answer; scared of what I’m capable of; scared of what I’m planning to do to her now.

“No, Eve. I didn’t kill her.”

Not yet anyway… She’s strung up in one of my warehouses approximately twenty-four hours away from bleeding out.

“Did you hurt her?”

“No more than what was necessary.”

The grim silence that follows tells me she doesn’t like that subtext at all.

From the slivers of moonlight creeping around the edges of the closed shutters I can just make out the slim outline of her body under the white sheet. I want nothing more than to climb in next to her and claim her goodness for myself like the selfish bastard that I am. Five hours of inflicting pain on a person will do that to man. Instead, I find myself concerning myself with her comfort.

“Are you still hungry?”

“You think I can eat?” she says incredulously. “After how you talked to me over dinner and what I saw in the kitchen? After laying here for hours imaging what you’re doing to Valentina?”

“You need to temper that imagination.”

“And you need to temper your damn depravity. You’re despicable. They should lock you up and throw away the key!”

“You’d still visit me though, my angel. You wouldn’t be able to resist.”

To my surprise her mocking laugh goes right through me like jagged nails down a dirty blackboard. “You think you’re so irresistible, don’t you? Are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome, Dante? None of this is real. If I ever step foot off this place there’s only one direction I’m running – away from you.”

“Oh sweetheart, don’t kid yourself. You’ll never escape from me.”

She moves quickly for such a slight woman. Bam! She slaps me so hard that I stagger backwards. I’m still seeing stars as I grab her wrist to block a second blow, twisting her body until she’s face down on the bed with her arms locked behind her back, with me kneeling over her.

“Take your hands off of me,” she cries.

“It’s too late for that.” I tear at the hem of her t-shirt until it’s bunched up around her hips. “I’ve told you before about making sudden movements around me… Now I’m going to have to punish you for it.”

I hear the breath catch in her throat. God, I love the conflict in her. I fucking live for it. She hates me and wants me, and it drives her out of her mind. My eyes are starting to adjust to the lack of light now and I can see every perfect curve of her ass in front of me, just begging me to sink my teeth into it. Instead, I raise my hand and bring it down hard across her tender flesh.

“Fuck!” she screams, the intensity of my stinging blow jolting her forward.

My dick twitches. I’m a sadistic asshole. Delivering pain and pleasure is so tightly entwined for me. I can’t see the point of one without the other. All of a sudden I want to make her hurt so I can soothe her, twisting at her emotions until she sees only me.

“Don’t cuss,” I growl, my jaw gritting as my erection catches against the inside of my fly. “It’ll only make it worse for you.”

I can’t hold out much longer. I need her too much. This woman has the ability to make me lose all sense and reason. I bring my hand down again, a little too hard this time but I can’t contain myself. She whimpers but keeps her mouth shut and that turns me on even more. I desire her strength as much as her light.

I deliver three more blows, each as brutally precise as the last, before I rip her panties down her thighs and thrust two fingers inside her. Jesus Christ she’s wet.

“That turned you on, didn’t it, my angel?”

“I hate you,” she replies, her voice muffled from the pillow, her cheeks wet with tears.

“It’s a fine line between that and the alternative,” I snarl, reaching for my belt.