EVERY WOMAN RAN FROM THE MAFIA BOSS’S LOCKED EAST WING… UNTIL THE NEW MAID LOOKED AT THE BEAST BESIDE HIS BED AND SPOKE ITS REAL NAME

on the rug. One curtain had been torn half off its rod. The antique chair in the corner had lost a leg. The air smelled of sweat, antiseptic, cedar, and the metallic bite of fear.

On the bed, Dante Valentino was half-collapsed against twisted sheets, one wrist still strapped to a leather restraint bolted to the frame, the other raw where he had torn continue reading …