“You’re Sleeping Beside Me Tonight ”—Then the Mafia Boss Kissed Her Before Everyone

Blood stained the pristine marble floors of the Baccarat Hotel, yet Mateo Viscanti barely blinked.

He simply adjusted his bespoke Brioni cuffs, locked his dark, predatory gaze onto the woman frozen in the corner, and shattered her entire reality with one public, undeniable claim.

Genevieve Sinclair stood in the shadows of the grand salon, her earpiece buzzing with the frantic chatter of the catering staff.

As a senior event coordinator for Colin Cowie Lifestyles, she was used to high-stress environments.

Tonight’s event, the annual philanthropic gala for the Aster Foundation, was supposed to be a flawless execution of crystal, champagne, and exorbitant wealth.

Instead, it had become a slaughterhouse.

Ten minutes ago, the string quartet had been playing Vivaldi, filling the room with soothing classical melodies.

Now, the heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom were splintered, and the sharp scent of gunpowder choked the air, masking the heavy perfume of the hundred-dollar white roses she had personally arranged.

Genevieve pressed her spine against the cold, velvet-flocked wallpaper of the service alcove.

Her breath came in short, jagged gasps, each exhale a struggle for air.

Through the crack in the heavy oak door, she had a clear view of the terrifying carnage inside.

Four armed men in tactical gear lay dead on the floor, surrounded by poolings of blood.

Standing over them, looking entirely too calm for a man who had just engaged in a lethal firefight, was Mateo Viscanti.

He was a ghost in the New York underworld, a man whose name was whispered in boardroom meetings and precinct backrooms alike.

Heir to a syndicate that controlled the Eastern Seaboard’s shipping ports, Mateo was ruthless, calculating, and dangerously elegant.

Tonight he wore a charcoal Brioni tuxedo that fit his broad shoulders flawlessly, completely unbothered by the chaos he had just orchestrated.

But Genevieve hadn’t just witnessed Mateo defending himself against assassins.

She had seen what happened right before the very first shot was fired.

She had seen Arthur Pendleton, one of Mateo’s most trusted lieutenants, subtly kick a dropped Glock across the floor toward the lead assassin.

It was an inside job—a carefully planned coup designed to eliminate the boss.

Mateo turned his head, his sharp jawline illuminated by the shattered crystal chandeliers hanging above.

His eyes, a piercing icy blue, slowly scanned the ruined room.

He didn’t look at the bodies cluttering the floor.

He looked directly at the service alcove where Genevieve was hiding.

He knew she was there.

Genevieve’s heart slammed violently against her ribs.

She tried to step back to flee through the dark kitchen corridors, but a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder like a vice.

Enzo, Mateo’s towering enforcer, materialized from the shadows, dragging her out into the harsh light of the ruined ballroom.

“Look what I found trembling in the pantry, boss,” Enzo rumbled, pushing Genevieve roughly forward.

She stumbled, the heels of her Louboutins catching on the embroidered edge of a Persian rug.

She caught herself before she fell, refusing to cower in front of these men.

Genevieve forced her chin up, meeting Mateo’s sharp gaze head-on.

Up close, he was terrifyingly handsome, radiating a dark, suffocating authority that filled the space between them.

“You saw everything,” Mateo stated clearly.

It wasn’t a question, but a cold declaration of fact.

His voice was a low, smooth baritone that sent a shiver straight down her spine.

“I saw nothing,” Genevieve lied, keeping her voice surprisingly steady.

“I’m just the event coordinator. I want no part of this.”

At that exact moment, the wail of police sirens pierced the quiet night air outside.

Flashing red and blue lights painted the tall glass windows of the Baccarat Hotel.

The NYPD was mere seconds away from swarming the entire building.

Arthur Pendleton stepped forward, wiping a smear of red blood from his cheek, playing the part of the loyal soldier.

“Mateo, we need to leave right now. The cops are here,” Arthur urged hurriedly.

“Let Enzo handle the girl. She’s a liability.”

Genevieve saw the subtle, dangerous shift in Mateo’s guarded expression.

He knew.

He didn’t know exactly what she had seen, but his predatory instincts recognized that Arthur wanted her dead far too quickly.

If Arthur wanted her gone, Mateo needed her alive.

The heavy ballroom doors swung wide open and NYPD Captain Harris stormed in, flanked by a dozen heavily armed SWAT officers.

“Weapons down! Nobody moves!” Harris barked, his eyes sweeping the blood-soaked room before landing squarely on the Viscanti boss.

“Mateo. I should have known you’d be at the center of this.”

“You’re coming with us,” the captain added grimly.

“On what charge, Captain?” Mateo asked smoothly, holding his empty hands up in a placating gesture.

“I was merely attending a charity function when these men opened fire. I am a victim here.”

Harris scoffed, noticing Genevieve standing rigidly between Mateo and Enzo.

“And who is this? A hostage?”

Arthur stepped closer to Mateo, lowering his voice to a dark whisper.

“Give her to the cops or let Enzo deal with her out back if she talks.”

Mateo silenced Arthur with a single chilling glance that could freeze blood.

Then, in a move that defied every expectation, Mateo closed the distance between himself and Genevieve.

He didn’t grab her violently.

Instead, his large, warm hand cupped the back of her neck, his thumb resting gently over her racing pulse.

“She is not a hostage, Captain,” Mateo said, his voice carrying effortlessly across the silent, tense room.

He looked down at Genevieve, his icy blue eyes burning into hers with a silent, ironclad command.

Play along, or die.

“Then who is she?” Harris demanded, his hand resting nervously on his holster.

“She’s with me,” Mateo declared smoothly.

He leaned in, his lips hovering mere millimeters from her ear, the warmth of his breath making her shiver softly.

In a voice loud enough for Arthur, the police, and the surviving guests to hear, he delivered the killshot to her old life.

“You’re sleeping beside me tonight.”

Before Genevieve could process the sheer audacity of the command, Mateo’s mouth crashed down onto hers.

It wasn’t a gentle, polite kiss.

It was a brand.

His lips were demanding, possessing, and consuming her completely in front of a room full of heavily armed police and mobsters.

Genevieve gasped against his mouth, her hands instinctively coming up to push against his solid chest.

But he pulled her tighter, his arm wrapping around her slender waist like an iron band.

For five agonizing, intoxicating seconds, the world dissolved into the scent of Tom Ford cologne, gunpowder, and raw male dominance.

When he finally pulled back, Genevieve’s lips were swollen, her eyes wide with unmitigated shock.

Mateo turned back to Captain Harris, tucking Genevieve securely against his side.

“My fiancée and I have had a very traumatic evening, Captain. My lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell will be in touch in the morning.”

“Good night.”

The armored Mercedes-Maybach S6 sliced silently through the slick, rain-soaked streets of Manhattan.

Inside the soundproof cabin, the silence was deafening.

Genevieve sat as far away from Mateo as the leather bench would allow, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.

The city lights flickered across his face, highlighting the sharp, unforgiving angles of his jaw.

He was scrolling through a secure encrypted tablet, seemingly ignoring her entirely.

She needed to think, and she desperately needed to breathe.

Genevieve wasn’t just an event coordinator.

The employment record at Colin Cowie Lifestyles was a carefully crafted cover story.

Her real name was Genevieve Sinclair, but her actual paycheck came from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, operating under a joint task force with the FBI.

For eight months, she had been embedding herself in high society, tracing a forty-million-dollar money laundering pipeline that led directly to the Viscanti Syndicate.

Her handler, Special Agent Thomas Kesler, had strictly ordered her to remain on the periphery.

Observe, copy the ledgers, and do not engage under any circumstances.

Now she was sitting in the back of a bulletproof car with the head of the syndicate himself.

She had just been forcibly drafted as his fake fiancée to save her from his treacherous lieutenant.

If Mateo found out she was a federal agent, a bullet to the head would be the merciful option.

“You’re thinking so loudly it’s giving me a headache,” Mateo murmured softly, not looking up from his tablet.

Genevieve stiffened instantly.

“I’m thinking about how I’m going to explain to my boss why I left a multi-million-dollar gala in the company of a suspected crime boss.”

Mateo chuckled—a dark, rich sound that filled the quiet cabin.

He set the tablet aside and turned his head to look directly at her.

“Your boss at the catering company, or your boss at the FBI?”

The air in her lungs vanished in an instant.

Genevieve forced her face to remain completely impassive, though her heart was drumming a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Please, Genevieve,” Mateo said, leaning forward slowly.

The scent of him—danger and expensive scotch—filled her senses completely.

“You didn’t flinch when the shooting started. When Enzo grabbed you, you didn’t scream. You checked my perimeter.”

“You have government training written all over you,” he continued softly.

“I knew the moment I saw you cross-referencing the guest list last week at the Pierre Hotel.”

“If you think I’m a federal agent, why am I still alive?” she demanded, dropping the terrified civilian act entirely.

“Because right now we have a mutual problem,” Mateo replied, his gaze darkening considerably.

“Arthur Pendleton. He orchestrated tonight’s hit. He thought he could take me out and use you as the scapegoat.”

“If I had left you with the police, Arthur’s men in the precinct would have killed you in a holding cell before morning.”

“So you kissed me. You claimed me,” she stated coldly.

“I made you untouchable,” Mateo corrected smoothly.

“In my world, what is mine is protected by the full wrath of the Viscante family. Arthur cannot touch you now without starting a civil war he isn’t ready to fight.”

“And what happens to me now?”

“You play the role,” Mateo said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper.

“You stay by my side. You sleep in my bed. And in exchange, I let you live long enough to take down Arthur with me.”

The Maybach pulled into the subterranean garage of a luxury fortress in Tribeca: 443 Greenwich Street, famously known for housing celebrities and billionaires who craved extreme privacy.

Enzo opened the door, his eyes lingering on Genevieve with deep, unyielding suspicion.

Mateo led her to a private elevator that opened directly into a sprawling six-thousand-square-foot penthouse.

Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a sweeping panoramic view of the Hudson River below.

The decor was aggressively masculine—dark walnut, brushed steel, and black leather, offset by millions of dollars in modern art.

“Enzo,” Mateo called out, tossing his keys onto a marble console table.

“Sweep the perimeter. Have security double the rotation downstairs.”

“Boss, with all due respect,” Enzo began, glaring fiercely at Genevieve.

“Bringing her here is a mistake. If she’s a fed—”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Enzo,” Mateo interrupted, his voice lashing out like a leather whip.

“I gave you an order.”

Enzo clamped his jaw shut, gave a stiff nod, and disappeared down the dark hall.

Genevieve stood in the center of the vast living room, feeling entirely out of her depth.

“I don’t sleep with targets, Viscante.”

Mateo walked over to a crystal decanter and poured two glasses of Macallan 25.

He walked back to her, extending one glass toward her.

When she didn’t take it, he set it softly on the table beside her.

“I said you are sleeping beside me,” Mateo said, stepping directly into her personal space.

He reached out, his knuckles lightly brushing against her cool cheek.

The touch was shockingly gentle, sending an involuntary jolt of electricity straight down her spine.

“I never said you had to sleep with me, though I imagine keeping your hands to yourself will be a challenge.”

Genevieve slapped his hand away sharply.

“Your arrogance is astounding.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s a fact,” Mateo whispered, leaning in even closer.

His eyes flicked down to her lips, remembering the sweet taste of her from the hotel lobby.

“Arthur is watching. My men are watching. If they suspect for a second that this is a sham, you’re dead.”

“You need to convince them that you are utterly, irrevocably obsessed with me.”

“I am a trained operative,” Genevieve said, refusing to back down, her chin tilted defiantly.

“I can fake anything.”

Mateo’s lips curved into a wicked, devastating smile.

“We’ll see about that, Genevieve.”

“The bedroom is down the hall on the right. You have ten minutes to get ready.”

“And don’t try the panic room. The biometric scanners only respond to my retina.”

As Mateo walked away, leaving her standing alone in the dimly lit penthouse, Genevieve realized with a sinking dread that she wasn’t just an undercover agent anymore.

She was the property of a powerful mafia king.

And the most dangerous part wasn’t the ruthless assassins waiting outside.

It was the undeniable, treacherous heat stirring in her own blood whenever he looked at her.

The master bedroom of the penthouse was a absolute study in intimidating luxury.

It featured charcoal silk walls, a custom California king bed draped in thousand-thread-count Frette linens, and a wall of reinforced glass overlooking the glittering Manhattan skyline.

Genevieve stood by the window, wearing a borrowed white button-down shirt that smelled intoxicatingly of cedar and Mateo Viscante.

Behind her, the en-suite bathroom door clicked open softly.

Mateo stepped out into the room.

He was shirtless, with a dark towel slung low on his hips.

The harsh overhead lighting caught the intricate map of scars across his sculpted chest and abdomen—souvenirs of a life built entirely on violence.

Water dripped slowly from his dark hair, trailing down the sharp plains of his stomach.

Genevieve swallowed hard, forcing her gaze to remain fixed on his face, though the sudden spike in her pulse betrayed her composure.

“You can take the bed,” Mateo said, walking toward a heavy mahogany wardrobe.

He tossed a thick silk duvet onto a low leather chaise lounge in the corner.

“I don’t sleep much anyway.”

“I thought the point was to convince your men we were inseparable,” Genevieve challenged, crossing her arms over her chest.

Mateo paused, turning around slowly.

The predatory grace in his movements made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up instantly.

“Are you inviting me into that bed, Genevieve?”

“I’m establishing the parameters of our arrangement,” she shot back, though her voice lacked its usual icy precision.

“If Enzo walks in—”

“Enzo knows better than to open my bedroom door without knocking, unless he wants to lose a hand,” Mateo replied softly.

He walked over to her, closing the distance until the heat radiating from his bare skin enveloped her completely.

He reached out, his thumb tracing the delicate line of her jawline.

“But if you insist on making this authentic…”

Before she could protest, Mateo swept her effortlessly off her feet.

Genevieve gasped, instinctively wrapping her arms around his thick neck as he carried her to the massive bed and dropped her onto the soft mattress.

The springs barely shifted as he climbed in right beside her, pulling the heavy sheets over them both.

“Sleep, agent,” he murmured softly, clicking off the bedside lamp and plunging the room into total darkness.

“Tomorrow we go to war.”

Genevieve lay rigid in the dark, acutely aware of the dangerous, powerful man lying inches away from her.

She expected him to try something, to use his dominant position to intimidate her further.

Instead, within minutes, his breathing slowed to a deep, rhythmic cadence.

He trusted her enough to sleep with his back exposed to her.

That realization was far more dangerous to her composure than any physical threat he posed.

The next morning, the sprawling penthouse was a hive of controlled, intense chaos.

Genevieve emerged from the bedroom wearing a sleek, tailored Miu Miu blazer and slacks that Mateo’s private shopper had delivered at dawn.

In the living room, Mateo stood at the head of a massive marble dining table, flanked by Enzo and three other heavily armed men.

Spread across the table were detailed blueprints of a building Genevieve recognized immediately.

It was the Aman New York, the ultra-exclusive hotel in the Crown Building.

“Arthur called a meeting of the syndicate commission for tonight at the Aman,” Mateo was saying, his voice a low, lethal hum.

He wore a dark navy Tom Ford three-piece suit, looking every inch the billionaire kingpin.

“He’s going to make his move. He’ll tell the commission that I’ve grown weak, that I brought a federal rat into our inner circle, and that I need to be removed.”

“He has the votes, boss,” Enzo grunted grimly.

“The Lucchese and Calabria heads are backing him. If we walk in there, it’s a firing squad.”

Genevieve stepped smoothly into the room, drawing every single eye toward her.

Enzo’s hand subtly drifted toward his shoulder holster, but Mateo silenced him with a single sharp look.

“We go to the meeting,” Genevieve said, her voice sounding clear and commanding.

The room went dead silent.

Enzo scoffed loudly. “And why should we listen to a cop?”

“Because I have something Arthur doesn’t know about,” Genevieve replied, pulling a small encrypted flash drive from her pocket.

She looked directly at Mateo, ignoring the guards around him.

“Before my handler put me undercover, I intercepted a data stream from a Cayman Islands server routing through Butterfield Bank.”

“Arthur hasn’t just been plotting a coup against you. He’s been skimming from the commission’s offshore accounts for three years.”

“Forty million dollars, Mateo.”

Mateo’s eyes narrowed instantly, a dangerous, calculating light sparking in his icy blue irises.

“Can you prove it?”

“If I can get access to the secure terminal in the Aman’s private boardroom, I can project his bank ledgers onto the screens before he even opens his mouth,” she promised firmly.

Suddenly, Genevieve’s burner phone buzzed loudly in her pocket.

It was a secure line—one only her handler, Special Agent Thomas Kesler, possessed.

She glanced down at the screen, her blood running cold in an instant.

Mateo noticed the sudden shift in her demeanor.

“Answer it. Put it on speaker.”

Genevieve hesitated for a second, then tapped the screen and set the phone gently on the marble table.

“Kesler.”

“Genevieve! Thank God,” Kesler’s frantic voice echoed through the room.

“The task force is pulling the plug right now. We know you’re with Viscanti. The NYPD report flagged you.”

“Listen to me. You need to get out of there immediately. Leave Viscanti’s ledger on the server and get to the extraction point.”

“Let Arthur Pendleton finish him tonight.”

Genevieve froze where she stood.

“How do you know Arthur is making a move tonight, Kesler? That intel isn’t on any FBI wire.”

Silence stretched over the line—a heavy, damning silence that spoke louder than words.

“Kesler,” Genevieve said, her voice dropping to a low whisper.

“You’re on Arthur’s payroll.”

“Genevieve, don’t be stupid!” Kesler snapped, his tone turning vicious.

“Viscanti is a dead man walking. Arthur is paying us double what the bureau does just to look the other way.”

“If you stand by Viscanti tonight, I will burn your credentials. You’ll be labeled a rogue agent, and you will go down with him!”

Mateo leaned over the table, his face inches from the small phone.

“Agent Kesler,” Mateo said, his voice laced with venomous calm.

“If I were you, I would start running right now. Because when I am finished with Arthur tonight, I am coming for you.”

Mateo crushed the phone beneath the heel of his Oxford shoe, shattering the glass and cutting the connection instantly.

Genevieve stared down at the broken pieces, her chest tightening.

Her career was completely over.

Her agency had betrayed her, selling her out for mob money.

She was completely cut off, trapped in the underworld with no lifeline left.

Mateo stepped around the table and stood directly before her.

He reached out, his warm hands gripping her shoulders firmly, grounding her spiraling thoughts.

“You have no one left, Genevieve. Only me.”

She looked up into his dark eyes, seeing the ruthless truth reflected there.

“Then we better not miss tonight.”

The private subterranean boardroom of the Aman New York smelled of expensive cigars, aged bourbon, and impending violence.

The five heads of the syndicate commission sat around a massive obsidian table, their faces shadowed and grim in the low lighting.

At the far end stood Arthur Pendleton, looking smug, arrogant, and victorious.

When the heavy oak doors swung open, the room fell completely dead silent.

Mateo Viscanti walked in with the casual, terrifying confidence of a apex predator entering a cage of lesser animals.

His hand was firmly secured around Genevieve’s waist, pulling her flush against his side.

She wore a backless crimson silk gown that left a trail of fire in her wake, looking less like a federal agent and more like the ruthless queen of a dark empire.

“You have a lot of nerve showing your face here, Mateo,” Arthur sneered, gesturing to the armed guards lining the walls.

“And you brought the fed with you. You’ve insulted the commission for the last time.”

“Sit down, Arthur,” Mateo ordered, his voice echoing loudly in the cavernous room.

He didn’t even look at his treacherous lieutenant.

Instead, he addressed the five crime bosses directly.

“Gentlemen, Arthur has called you here to accuse me of treason. He claims my fiancée is an undercover agent and that I am compromised.”

“Isn’t she?” demanded Don Rossi, the oldest and most influential man at the table.

“She is a woman who possesses a very specific set of skills,” Mateo said smoothly, pulling out a chair for Genevieve.

“Skills that have uncovered a rat in our house. And it isn’t her.”

Genevieve didn’t sit down.

Instead, she smoothly slid the encrypted drive from her clutch and plugged it directly into the boardroom’s central console.

Her fingers flew across the glass keyboard, bypassing the hotel’s security firewall with frightening speed.

“Stop her!” Arthur barked, drawing his weapon frantically.

Before he could raise it, Enzo and Mateo’s men had their Sig Sauers drawn and aimed directly at Arthur’s head.

“Let the girl finish,” Don Rossi rumbled, waving a dismissive hand.

Genevieve hit the final keystroke with precision.

The massive digital screens lining the boardroom walls flared to bright life.

Rows and rows of banking data, offshore routing numbers, and shell company names illuminated the dark room.

“What you are looking at,” Genevieve announced, her voice echoing with absolute authority, “is the private ledger of Arthur Pendleton, specifically his accounts at Butterfield Bank in the Caymans.”

“Over the last thirty-six months, he has diverted forty million dollars from the commission’s shipping revenues into his own personal accounts.”

“He bought FBI agents to cover his tracks and orchestrated a hit on Mateo to seize control before the audit.”

The room erupted into furious chatter.

The mob bosses stared at the screens, their expressions morphing from skepticism to murderous rage.

Arthur’s face drained of all color in an instant.

“It’s a lie! She fabricated the data! She’s a fed! She set me up!”

“The routing numbers are live, Arthur,” Mateo said, stepping slowly toward his former friend.

“The commission can verify them right now.”

Don Rossi pulled a sleek Patek Philippe phone from his pocket, dialing a private number quickly.

He spoke rapidly in harsh Italian, his dark eyes locked on the screen.

A moment later, he hung up and looked at Arthur with cold, dead eyes.

“The accounts are real,” Rossi stated simply. “The money is there.”

Arthur panicked completely.

He lunged wildly toward the door, but Enzo’s massive frame blocked the exit.

Arthur raised his gun, aiming wildly at Genevieve’s chest.

“I’ll kill you, you—”

A single deafening gunshot shattered the heavy tension in the room.

Arthur’s eyes went wide with shock.

The gun slipped from his hand, clattering noisily against the marble floor.

A dark bloom of crimson spread rapidly across his chest.

He collapsed backward, dead before his body hit the ground.

Genevieve flinched slightly, the ringing in her ears disorienting her for a moment.

She looked to her right.

Mateo stood there, his suppressed Beretta still raised, thin smoke curling from the dark barrel.

His eyes were locked on Arthur’s body, completely devoid of any remorse.

He had executed the man who had been like a brother to him without a single second of hesitation.

Mateo holstered his weapon smoothly and turned to face the commission.

“The debt is settled. The stolen money will be routed back into the syndicate’s central accounts by morning.”

Rossi nodded slowly, offering a sign of ultimate respect.

“You have handled your house, Mateo. And the woman?”

Mateo turned his dark gaze to Genevieve.

The coldness vanished instantly, replaced by a possessive, burning heat that made her breath hitch in her throat.

He walked slowly across the room, ignoring the blood pooling on the floor, and stopped inches from her.

“She is not a federal agent anymore,” Mateo declared, his voice rough with an emotion he rarely showed.

He reached out, his hand sliding to the nape of her neck, tangling deeply in her dark hair.

“She is Genevieve Viscanti. And anyone who questions her loyalty again will answer directly to me.”

He didn’t wait for a response from anyone in the room.

Right there, in a room filled with the most dangerous men in the city, surrounded by the scent of gunpowder and death, Mateo crashed his lips down on hers.

This kiss was fundamentally different from the one at the hotel.

It wasn’t a desperate act of survival.

It was a solemn promise.

It was claiming her body, her heart, and her soul.

Genevieve surrendered to it completely, her hands gripping the sharp lapels of his suit, kissing him back with a fierce, reckless hunger.

The FBI had abandoned her to the wolves, but the mafia king had moved heaven and earth to protect her.

Later that night, back in the quiet safety of the Tribeca penthouse, Genevieve stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the city lights bleed into the dark waters of the Hudson River.

Mateo came up behind her quietly, wrapping his strong arms around her waist and pulling her back against his solid chest.

He pressed a soft kiss to the curve of her shoulder, his lips lingering gently on her bare skin.

“Kesler is gone,” Mateo murmured softly against her neck.

“My men found his apartment completely empty. He’s on the run.”

“He’ll keep running,” Genevieve said softly, leaning back into Mateo’s warm embrace.

“He knows what happens to people who cross you.”

Mateo turned her around slowly in his arms, his icy blue eyes tracing the soft contours of her face.

“And what about you, Genevieve? Do you want to run?”

“I can give you a new identity, a new life anywhere in the world. You don’t have to stay in this darkness with me.”

Genevieve looked up at the ruthless, beautiful man who had shattered her reality and rebuilt it in his own image.

She reached up gently, tracing the faint scar along his sharp jawline.

“I don’t want a new life,” she whispered, her heart finally accepting the truth she had been fighting since the moment he first claimed her.

“I want you.”

Mateo’s eyes darkened instantly with raw, unfiltered desire.

He swept her up effortlessly into his arms, carrying her toward the bedroom.

No longer pretending, no longer playing a game.

The fake engagement was over.

Their real reign had just begun.