Three years ago, after murdering one of Kieran's allies outside a nightclub, Dante stepped into the alley while wiping blood from his hands — irritated, cocky, unbothered.
Then he heard someone crying.
A girl.
Young.
Black hair.
Green eyes.
A bruise darkening her cheek.
Clothes that screamed "sex worker," but tears that screamed something else entirely.
She was pressed against the club wall, shaking so hard her shoulders trembled.
For the first time in years, Dante froze.
He walked toward her slowly, almost cautiously.
"What's wrong, tesoro?"
His voice was low, soothing, uncharacteristically gentle.
She didn't answer.
She just cried harder, tears slipping down her face as if her whole world had broken that night.
Dante had killed men without blinking — but that girl's tears?
They shook him.
When he wiped a tear from her cheek, she leaned into his palm like she'd been starving for kindness.
No seduction.
No recognition.
Just instinctive, desperate trust.
"Tell me your name," he murmured.
But she couldn't.
Or wouldn't.
Her throat locked, and she only sobbed harder, burying her face in his shoulder.
For a moment, Dante held her — awkwardly, carefully, as if she were something fragile and wild that might shatter.
Then he whispered against her hair:
"I'll see you again soon, tesoro. You'll be safe. I promise."
And he left.
He regretted it before he made it ten steps.
By the time he went back to the club the next morning, she was gone.
Completely vanished.
He searched for weeks.
Months.
Years.
He described her face to artists — again and again — paying for painting after painting until she existed on every wall of his home.
His men whispered that he'd imagined her.
That he'd finally snapped.
That the killings had gotten to him.
Dante didn't care.
He remembered her.
The way she trembled.
The way she trusted him for half a second.
The way her eyes looked like something he wasn't allowed to want.
He couldn't erase her.
He couldn't replace her.
He couldn't forget her.
And he hated himself for it.
Dante sat on the velvet couch in his London penthouse, the lights dimmed, the air thick with cigarette smoke.
On the wall in front of him hung the largest painting — the one he'd commissioned first.
The closest to how he remembered her.
Aurielle.
(Though he still didn't know her name.)
Her eyes followed him wherever he moved.
Haunting.
Calm.
Unforgettable.
He leaned back, breath slow, jaw tight.
Three years.
Three damn years.
And no woman could erase her from his mind.
No violence could drown the memory.
No pleasure felt real unless he imagined her face.
It infuriated him.
It terrified him.
It consumed him.
He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled smoke through his teeth.
He unzipped, hand wrapping around himself, thick and hard, thumb dragging through the first drop of c…um.
"Tesoro…" he muttered, voice low, rough. "Look what you f..king did to me."
In his mind, she was there, legs trembling, mascara smudged from crying, cheap club lingerie clinging to every curve. He imagined gripping her hair, pulling her closer, whispering, "Say my name."
His thumb slid slow, teasing like he'd slide it between her thighs. Her imagined moans filled his chest, small whimpers and desperate pleas he could almost hear. He pictured finally pushing into her — slow, deep, stretching her, her nails digging into his shoulders as he growled, "Take it… all of it."
Muscles flexed, breath ragged, pulse slamming, warm c…um spilling over his fist and stomach. He rode every shiver to the last, then slumped back, eyes burning at her painted gaze.
"Still not enough," he whispered. "One day, tesoro… I'll have the real you."
A knock on the door.
His right-hand spoke from outside.
"The jet is ready, sir."
Dante didn't look away from the painting.
"Good." His voice carried years of bitterness — and a London accent sharpened by exile.
"I'm going back to America. It's time to take back what Kieran stole from me."
A long pause.
"And if she's there…"
His tone dropped, soft and lethal.
"I'm not losing her again."
———————-
Back in the conference room, the words were still hanging in the air.
"She... she got kidnapped."
For one suspended, silent, torturous second,
Kieran didn't move.
His chair flew backward, smashing into the wall. Papers erupted into the air like shrapnel. Executives scrambled out of his way.
Kieran stepped forward slowly, eyes locked on the trembling guard.
"How long ago?"
His voice was too soft. Too lethal.
"F-fifteen minutes, sir. The crash was staged—"
CRACK.
Kieran's fist slammed into the conference table so hard the entire surface split.
"Fifteen minutes," he repeated, breathing razor-sharp.
"And you're telling me… now?"
The guard swallowed.
Hard.
"We— we fought, sir, but—"
"But you let them take her?"
His voice rose—
raw, ragged, wild.
He shoved the man backward into the wall.
"Someone touched my wife," he growled.
"Someone dared to take her from me."
Kieran dragged a bloody hand through his hair, pacing like a predator that had just discovered his cub was gone.
Then he straightened.
"Call Sterling," he said.
"Tell him to ready the cars."
He stepped closer to the guard.
"Bring me every camera angle from that highway. Every license plate. Every witness."
His tone dropped into something terrifying.
"And if anyone refuses to talk… bury them alive and get it from their corpses."
Executives gasped.
He didn't care.
"Shut down every border, airport, dock, and private strip within a hundred miles. Nobody leaves this city."
"Y—yes Don."
He grabbed his blazer and headed toward the elevator.
He whispered her name like it hurt.
"Aurielle…"
His voice trembled.
"I swear to God, I'm coming for you."
The elevator doors opened.
Sterling and ten armed men were already waiting.
"Boss," Sterling said, stiff and alert.
Kieran stepped out, eyes glowing with pure hellfire.
"Start the engines."
His voice was a growl.
"I'll tear this entire city apart until I find her."
He walked past them.
"And when I do…"
His jaw clenched, slow, deadly.
"…I will tear apart every syndicate, every rat, every coward in this city until someone bleeds her location."
Every man there swallowed.
Kieran D'Angelo wasn't thinking like a Don anymore.
He was thinking like a husband.
A dangerous, furious, desperate man who had just lost the one person he could not live without.
And God help whoever took her.