The Hour Before Eight

Cassidy’s POVThe rest of the afternoon fractured into strategy.Not panic.Not chaos.Something sharper.Controlled violence wearing expensive clothes and speaking in measured tones.Adrian Kessler was taken downstairs to a secure holding room two floors beneath legal, where Reynolds’ people could keep him contained until Dante decided whether he was more useful breathing comfortably or sweating. Lucas’s note was photographed, bagged, analyzed, and then returned to Dante’s inside pocket like it belonged there—like the threat itself had become part of the architecture of his body.The studio sat between us all now.A location.A trap.A wound.A promise.By five o’clock, the executive floor had emptied enough to feel haunted. The storm outside had deepened into something darker, rain striking the windows with a steady, punishing rhythm that blurred the city into ghost-light and steel. The building no longer felt like a headquarters.It felt like a command center.Mia had relocated to

Dressing for War

Cassidy's POV By six-thirty, I was in the private bathroom attached to Dante’s office, staring at my reflection beneath harsh recessed lighting and trying to decide what armor looked like tonight. My workday blouse was gone, replaced by the black silk shell I kept in a garment bag for evening events that bled straight from the office into the kind of dinners where women were meant to look elegant and men were meant to underestimate them. I paired it with slim black trousers instead of a skirt—practical, clean, impossible to snag if I had to move fast. Minimal jewelry. No visible softness. My hair, usually pinned into a neat knot by this hour, I pulled back into a low, sleek tie at the nape of my neck. Efficient. Controlled. I stood there for a second too long, fingers resting lightly against the hidden collar beneath the silk. A private pulse. A secret anchor. Something that belonged to us no matter who was watching. The bathroom door opened behind me. I didn’t startle. I

Gunshot

Cassidy's POV The property looked different at night. Harder. Less like a dream and more like a skeleton. Floodlights cut across the rain in white blades, illuminating steel beams, unfinished walls, sheets of wet plastic snapping in the wind. The main structure stood dark and raw against the storm, all angles and shadows and potential. My studio. Our future. Turned into a stage. Dante killed the engine. For one second, neither of us moved. Then he looked at me. “This is the last easy second you get tonight.” I nodded. “Then let’s waste it properly.” His hand came up and framed my jaw, thumb brushing once across my cheekbone. The touch was brief. Intimate. A claim and a goodbye to softness, both. Then we stepped out into the rain. Cold struck instantly. My shoes sank slightly into wet gravel as we crossed toward the main entrance. Two plainclothes guards emerged from the shadows long enough to give Dante the briefest nod before disappearing again. Visible e

Eyes on me.

Cassidy's POV The world fractured into light and sound. One second, I was standing in the half-built bones of my studio with rain tapping through the unfinished roof and Lucas Voss watching me like I was a piece on his board. The next— Glass burst somewhere to my left. A floodlight blew out overhead, showering sparks across raw wood and wet concrete. A gunshot cracked through the storm outside, sharp and violent enough to seem impossible inside a place that was supposed to one day hold canvases, books, and Lila’s sticky little fingerprints on the window seat. Dante’s hand hit my waist hard, decisive, all instinct and command, and the floor rushed up to meet me as he drove me down behind the unfinished frame of the window seat. “Down,” he barked. I was already moving. My knees hit wet concrete, one palm catching on damp sawdust, the other braced against the rough beam. Dante came down with me, not on top of me, not trapping—covering. His body angled between mine and the open s

Epilogue

**Epilogue — Three Years Later** Cassidy’s POV The first rays of sunlight spilled across the lake like liquid gold, scattering diamonds over water so still it looked like glass. From the floor-to-ceiling windows of my studio, the view felt almost unreal—mist curling in soft ribbons above the surface, birds cutting slow arcs across the sky, and the garden below swaying in the early summer breeze. Three years. Sometimes it still amazed me how much life could change in three years. The studio no longer smelled of fresh timber and drying paint. It smelled like home. Oil paints. Fresh coffee. Vanilla candles. And, inevitably, glitter. There was glitter everywhere. No matter how often I cleaned, Lila somehow managed to leave tiny sparkling reminders of her existence in every corner of the room. I found it on my brushes, on my clothes, even once inside the spine of a book I hadn’t opened in weeks. She was everywhere, even when she wasn’t. The white lily painting still occupied the l

All Chapters of His Dirty Little Secret : Chapter 171 - Chapter 175

The Hour Before Eight

Dressing for War

Gunshot

Eyes on me.

Epilogue