Lina shut his office door behind her, each step back to her desk measured, deliberate, steady. The murmur of the staff's keyboards and phones swallowed her return, but she could feel the questions pressing against her spine. None of them dared ask.
She slid back into her chair, adjusted the stack of contracts, forced herself to breathe. It was just another day. That was what she told herself.
The intercom crackled again.
"Ms. Reyes. In here. Now."
Her throat went dry. She gathered her notepad and walked back in. Luca didn't look up at her immediately. He was signing papers with swift, exact strokes, his jacket draped over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled up, forearms flexing as he wrote.
Finally, he set the pen down and leaned back. His gaze pinned her.
"Tonight," he said. "You'll be at the Renzulli dinner with me."
Her brows knit. "The syndicate summit? I thought Moretti's men—"
"They'll be there," he interrupted. "So will I. And so will you."
She swallowed. "As your secretary?"
A pause. The faintest curve of his mouth.
"No. As my date."
Her fingers tightened on the notepad. "That's not part of my job description."
"It is now."
She stared at him, unblinking. "You can't just—"
"Can't I?" He leaned forward, elbows braced on the desk, voice dropping until it was meant for her ears only. "You sit beside me tonight. You drink when I pour. You smile when I tell you to. And every man in that room knows exactly who you belong to."
Her stomach flipped. Heat licked under her skin.
"You don't own me," she said, steady but sharp.
His eyes darkened. "We'll see how convincing you sound when you say that across from men who'd sell you for sport."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
She wanted to walk out. She wanted to slam the file in his face. But instead, she wrote down the dinner time, the location, her own hand betraying her.
"Seven sharp," he said. "Wear black."
She turned to leave.
"And Lina—"
She froze.
"Don't make me remind you twice."
Her nails dug into the leather of her notepad as she walked out without answering.
The office clock ticked louder than usual.
Every file Lina processed felt heavier, every call sharper in her ear. Her colleagues snuck glances at her more than once, as though they could sense something beneath her steel posture. But she didn't falter. Her pen scratched signatures with machine-like precision. Her heels clicked across the floor with the rhythm of command.
Only once did she slip.
She caught her reflection in the glass partition — hair pinned flawlessly, blouse crisp, face unreadable — and for a second, she wondered if the woman staring back was someone else.
Someone already claimed.
She shut the thought down and buried herself in numbers until the hour struck six.
By then, the office had thinned. The lights dimmed to their evening glow. When she collected her bag and powered down her computer, the silence pressed close.
The last door she had to pass was Luca's.
It was closed, but she felt him behind it, like gravity itself had been rerouted through his office. His presence seeped into the hallway, into her bloodstream, daring her to open the door, to defy, to submit.
She didn't.
She walked out.
The night air hit her like freedom, but not quite. The city's lights were brighter than usual, sharp against the velvet dark. She hailed a cab and sat in silence as the skyline blurred past.
When she unlocked her apartment, she exhaled for the first time all day. Dropping her bag on the couch, she leaned against the doorframe, staring into the dim living room like it might offer answers.
It didn't.
Instead, her eyes slid to the closet door.
Seven sharp. Wear black.
She stepped inside, fingers brushing over hangers. Silk. Satin. Wool. Dresses she'd worn to corporate galas, sleek pencil skirts for boardrooms, heels meant to click across marble. But tonight wasn't a gala. Tonight wasn't work.
This was a dinner hosted by criminals. Men who might toast her smile with champagne in one moment and cut her throat in the next.
Her hand stilled on a black dress she hadn't touched in months — satin, low neckline, slit high enough to draw attention she'd rather not have. Elegant, dangerous.
She lifted it from the hanger, holding it against herself in the mirror.
"What the hell am I doing?" she whispered.
Her reflection didn't answer.
Only the thought did, low and venomous:
Going to a dinner you might not come back from.
The dress clung like it had been designed to betray her.
The satin was liquid against her skin, sliding over curves she usually buried beneath crisp blouses and pencil skirts. The neckline plunged low, far lower than she'd worn in years, and the slit carved up her thigh with reckless abandon. Each time she shifted, she felt the fabric threaten to part, to reveal.
She had no other choice. The alternatives looked dull, modest, wrong for the command Luca had given her.
Wear black.
And so she did.
Her makeup was sharp — smoky eyes, a dark red lip she almost wiped away three times before letting it stain. Her hair she left loose, falling in waves over her shoulders, soft enough to distract, strong enough to shield.
By six fifty-five, she was standing outside her apartment building, arms folded tightly against the night breeze, heels balanced on the uneven pavement. Every passing car made her stomach knot.
At exactly seven, the sedan rolled to the curb.
A driver stepped out, polished and silent, opening the rear door.
And there he was.
Luca sat in the back, suit darker than midnight, tie knotted with ruthless precision. His hand rested on the door frame as he looked at her.
And for the first time, he didn't speak.
He didn't move.
He just paused.
His eyes dragged over her — the curve of her collarbone, the line of her leg through the slit, the flash of defiance in her chin. For a fraction of a second, he wasn't the syndicate heir, wasn't the man who gave orders like law.
He was a man staring at something he wanted too much.
Then his jaw tightened. He blinked once, snapping the mask back into place.
"Get in."
The driver's hand hovered near her elbow, but she ignored it, sliding into the car herself.
The leather seat was warm, Luca's presence filling the space like smoke. He didn't look at her immediately, only reached for the decanter on the console, pouring himself a measure of whiskey.
When he finally turned his head, glass in hand, his voice was low.
"Exactly on time."
Her pulse hammered. She met his gaze without flinching. "Of course."
His eyes flicked once more to the line of her dress, then back to her face.
"This will do."
The car pulled away from the curb.