LOGINRaven“Again,” he says against my ear, his voice barely recognizable. “Do that again.”I look at us in the mirror and barely recognize myself either.My hair is everywhere. My face is flushed and wet and completely undone. His hands are spread wide on my hips holding me open and I can see everything, my pussy deep red and puffy and so thoroughly fucked it looks obscene, and his thick cock buried in my ass stretching me so completely that every time I breathe I feel it pulsing inside me.I did not know it would feel like this.I expected pain. There is pain, a deep insistent burn that sits underneath everything else, but underneath that is something I do not have a word for. Every thrust sends a shockwave through my pussy even though he is not touching it. A deep sweet impact that makes me clench and leak, my slick running freely down my ass and over his balls, making everything slippery and warm and filthy.I watch it happen in the mirror.Watch my body respond to him in ways I
Roman The kitchen smells like garlic and butter when I walk through the door.I stop in the doorway.Raven is at the stove in nothing but a bra that is doing the bare minimum and a pair of panties, her hair loose, one hip cocked, completely unbothered by the fact that she has a professional chef and a full kitchen staff somewhere in this estate who exist for exactly this purpose.I lean against the doorframe and watch her. She does not turn around but her shoulders lift slightly. She knows I am here.“You have a chef,” I say.“Yeah. I know that.” She stirs whatever is on the stove. “I told them to take the night off.”“Why.”She glances over her shoulder, and her mouth curves into a smile. “Because I wanted to cook for my man myself.” She turns back to the stove. “And I wanted some time alone with you. I told you I’d be waiting in this. You wouldn’t want them seeing me like this, cooking for you naked.”I cross the kitchen.Reach past her and turn off the stove.“Why? Th
Roman“Get out,” I say. “I don’t have time for this.”Vivienne doesn’t move.“Trust me.” Her voice is firm in a way it wasn’t downstairs. She’s composed herself on the way up, reassembled whatever she came here with. “You don’t want to dismiss me this time.”“You find it genuinely difficult to accept rejection.”“What I find difficult,” she says, “is moving on when I know the reason I was rejected.” She takes one step forward. “And trust me when I tell you that what I know has the power to ruin you completely. Every piece of it.”“Then go,” I say. “Put it out there. Ruin me. Why are you standing in my office telling me about it first?”She stares at me for a moment.“Because I still want to marry you, despite everything.”She says it without flinching. Without shame.“A press conference. You apologize publicly. You take back everything you said. And we move forward. That’s all I’m asking.”“Leave,” I say. “Or I’ll have security remove you.”I turn toward my desk.“Raven is carrying
RomanThe Godfather’s estate sits behind walls that don’t appear on any map.That is intentional. Everything about Dante Ferraro is intentional. The walls. The silence. The way his staff move through the property like shadows, present when needed and invisible when not. He has built his world with the specific understanding that visibility is a vulnerability and he has survived sixty three years in this business by remaining, in almost every meaningful sense, unseen.I have met him four times in eleven years.Each time feels like an audience granted rather than a meeting arranged.He is at the table in the garden when they bring me through, a small man in a pale linen suit with white hair and the quiet composure of someone who has long ago stopped needing to prove his authority to anyone. A glass of something red at his elbow. A book facedown beside it that he doesn’t return to when I sit across from him.“Bellerie.” His voice is unhurried. “You’ve had a productive week.”“Thanks to
Raven(Present)The gun is lighter than I remembered.Or maybe I’m stronger. Thirteen years can do that to a person.I turn it over in my hands slowly, feeling the weight shift, and try not to think about the last time I held one of these and what happened after.“You want me to have it?” I look up at Roman.“Yes.” He says it the way he says things he’s already decided. “You’re going to need it soon. Keep it close.”I look at it for one more moment then wrap my fingers around the grip and say nothing else.The car has been moving for over an hour before it turns off the main road onto a private lane that winds through trees so old and thick their branches meet overhead and turn everything green and cathedral quiet. I sit forward watching through the windscreen as the lane opens up and the trees fall away and then I stop breathing entirely.It sits at the end of a stone drive long enough to tire you out just looking at it.Pale stone. Arched windows. Towers at either end that
Raven (Past)I shrugged her hands off and stepped back.“I need to tell Dad.”I turned toward the door.Her hand closed around my arm and yanked and I wasn’t expecting it and my feet went out from under me and I hit the kitchen floor hard, my knee connecting with the tile, and the pain tore up my leg so sharply that the sound that came out of me didn’t feel like it came from my own throat.“Oh God.” She was on her knees beside me immediately, her hands reaching. “Oh God I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, let me see, let me…”“Stay away from me.” I scrambled backward across the floor on my hands, dragging my bleeding knee, pressing myself against the cabinet as far from her as I could get. “Don’t touch me. Stay back. Stay away.”“Raven…”“Don’t touch me.” Tears were running down my face and I couldn’t stop them and I didn’t try. “You’ve gone mad. You’ve actually gone mad.”She sat back on her heels.Her face went through something then that I still don’t have the right
RavenI couldn’t wait for breakfast to be over. There was somewhere I’d always wanted to go, but had never quite found the courage to visit.St. Mercy’s Hospital looms in front of me like a judgment.I’ve been standing on the sidewalk across the street for the past ten minutes. Just staring at the
RomanThe same boy. The same fucking boy who can’t seem to understand what boundaries are.And the nerve, the absolute fucking nerve—of her to invite him here. To my engagement party. To a family gathering where he has no business being.My hand tightens around my wine glass.“Everything is going g
RavenThe hangover hits me before I even open my eyes.My head is a slow, steady throb. My mouth tastes as if something died in it. I lie there for a full minute just staring at the ceiling, letting the memories crawl back in pieces. The bar. Jack. The drive home. Roman guiding me to my bedroom. Me
RomanI’m walking through the lobby when I see her.Raven.Staggering through the entrance like she can’t remember how legs work. One hand on the wall for balance. The other clutching her phone.Drunk.She’s fucking drunk.Anger floods through me. Hot and immediate. I cross the space between







