"The Mafia Boss Could Hide His Feelings—Until He Saw Someone Else’s Mark on His Assistant."

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the autumn sun dipped below the Manhattan skyline, painting the glass and steel towers in bleeding shades of copper, rose, and dark indigo. Inside, Matteo stood behind his wide mahogany desk, his dark charcoal jacket discarded over the leather armchair, his white silk dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to reveal corded, muscular forearms.

For eighteen months, he had been the invincible Don of the Duca family—a man who calculated international shipping routes, managed multi-billion-dollar corporate trusts, and commanded armed lieutenants with a single, icy glance. He had built a reputation on absolute, impenetrable emotional discipline.

Yet, as he stared at the heavy mahogany door where Elena Donovan had stood six hours ago, the image of that small, purplish bruise on the smooth skin of her collarbone burned behind his eyelids like a red-hot iron.

It wasn't just anger. It was an ancient, savage possessiveness that terrified him to his core.

His phone buzzed sharply against the polished wood of his desk.

Matteo didn't pick it up immediately. He took a slow, deep breath, forcing his pulse down, forcing the lethal Don back beneath the tailored, civilized persona.

He pressed the speaker button. "Dominic."

"Boss," his head of security reported smoothly over the line. "The secondary background check on Mark Lawson—the lawyer from the blind date last night—is complete. Should I have the men handle it?"

Matteo’s gray eyes narrowed into dangerous, frozen slits. "Handle it? Did he touch her against her will?"

Dominic hesitated over the line. "According to our surveillance footage outside her apartment building last night, sir... she pulled away after three seconds. He respected her boundary and left immediately. There was no physical aggression."

Matteo closed his eyes, leaning his heavy palms flat against the mahogany desk, a low, ragged exhale escaping his chest.

He wasn't a monster who ordered hits on innocent civilian lawyers for an awkward goodnight kiss. He was a Don who was slowly losing his mind because the only woman who made his heart beat had let another man’s lips touch her skin.

"Leave the lawyer alone, Dominic," Matteo commanded flatly, his baritone cold as shattered glass. "Clear the floor. I want everyone off the seventy-fifth floor for the rest of the evening. Except Elena."

"Understood, Don Matteo."

Matteo cut the line. He walked over to the private bar in the corner of his office, pouring two fingers of twenty-year-old scotch into a crystal tumbler. He didn't drink it. He held the crystal glass in his hand, his fingers tightening until the glass groaned under the pressure.

He remembered the day eighteen months ago when Elena had walked into his office for her final interview. She had worn a simple navy dress, her dark hair pinned back, her wide hazel eyes holding a quiet, brilliant dignity that held zero fear of his reputation. While other applicants stuttered or looked at his security guards with nervous sweat, Elena had handed him her credentials, answered his questions with razor-sharp intellect, and looked him straight in the eye.

He had fallen in love with her that exact afternoon.

And for eighteen months, he had kept her in a golden cage of professional distance—afraid that if he ever let her see the dark, violent world he ruled, or the terrifying depth of his obsession with her, she would run away in horror.

KNOCK. KNOCK.

The soft, hesitant knock on the heavy mahogany door made Matteo’s chest tighten.