The moment she walked into my life, everything I'd ever been taught about control started to unravel.
Valentina Cruz.
La Fiera. The untouchable daughter of Arturo Cruz. The enemy's gift and the Moretti family's prized pawn.
She wasn't just beautiful she was catastrophic. A sin dressed in silk, moving through the halls of our blood-soaked legacy like she didn't belong, like she wasn't already marked for destruction.
The first time I saw her long crimson dress clinging to her hips, blood-red lips that curled like a dare I knew I was already lost.
But I don't lose.
Not without a fight.
And certainly not over a woman.
Still Valentina is not just a woman.
She doesn't flirt. She challenges. Doesn't smile she smirks like she knows every man in the room would die to crawl between her legs, and every woman would burn trying to keep up with her flame.
And yet, when she's alone when she thinks no one's watching I see it.
The crack in her armor. The truth behind the mask.
She's afraid. Angry. Trapped.
And she wants out.
But not before she sets fire to everyone around her including me.
Don Moretti gave me a job. Watch her. Protect her.
He didn't say anything about wanting her.
He didn't say anything about obsession.
Because that's what this is.
I can't stop watching her. Not in the garden when she closes her eyes and inhales like the flowers might save her. Not in the corridors where her footsteps echo with secrets. Not in the late hours when she stands at the window of her suite, naked silhouette burning through my veins.
She thinks I'm a stone wall. Cold. Unmoved.
But she doesn't know I dream of kissing her until she forgets who the hell we are.
She doesn't know I've already killed once for her.
And I'll do it again.
Because this isn't just attraction.
It's war. And she's the only battlefield I'd die to conquer.