90 "**“STOP WAVING YOUR HANDS! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

Previous Chapter 1 – The Morning After the Storm

Lena remained frozen on her knees. The storm battered the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, but inside the room, the silence was deafening. She watched Dante’s chest heave. For seven years, the lower half of his body had been a dead zone. But right now, his eyes were locked on the steaming towels resting over his slacks with a terrifying, desperate intensity.

Before Lena could ask if he was okay, the heavy double doors of the suite swung open.

“Dante, the backup generators took forever to—”

Vivian stepped into the room. She was breathtakingly beautiful, wrapped in a silk emerald slip dress, her blonde hair perfectly styled despite the weather. She was Dante’s fiancée, the daughter of a rival syndicate boss, and a woman who looked at the hotel staff like they were insects.

Vivian’s eyes immediately darted to the floor. She saw Lena kneeling at Dante’s feet, her uniform riding up her thighs, her hand hovering just inches from the mafia king’s lap.

Vivian’s face twisted into an ugly mask of rage.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood as she marched across the room.

“I tripped,” Lena stammered, trying to stand up. “The towels fell, and I was just—”

“Touch him again, and I’ll have your hands broken,” Vivian hissed, stepping between Lena and the wheelchair. She glared down at Lena’s curves with sheer disgust. “You clumsy, pathetic little maid. Get out of this suite before I have security throw you off the balcony.”

Lena’s heart hammered against her ribs. She grabbed her empty canvas bag, her cheeks burning with humiliation. She needed this job. She couldn’t afford to fight back.

“I’ll leave right now. I apologize,” Lena whispered, backing away.

“She stays.”

Dante’s voice cut through the room like a steel blade. It wasn’t shaking anymore. It was cold, absolute, and commanding.

Vivian whipped around, staring at him in disbelief. “Dante, look at her! She’s incompetent. She threw boiling hot towels on you. She could have burned you!”

“I said, she stays,” Dante repeated, his dark eyes finally shifting from his legs to Vivian’s face. “You can leave, Vivian.”

Vivian’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Get out of my suite.” Dante’s tone left absolutely zero room for negotiation. “And if you ever threaten one of my staff members again, you’ll find yourself permanently barred from the Black Pelican.”

Vivian turned red, her chest heaving with indignation. She shot Lena a look of pure, venomous hatred that promised retribution, then spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the heavy doors behind her.

Lena stood near the wall, trembling. She looked at Dante, waiting for the axe to fall on her employment.

“Mr. Vale, I really am sorry,” Lena whispered.

May you like

Dante slowly raised his head. The cold mob boss was gone, replaced by a man staring at a ghost.

“Lena,” he breathed out, the sound barely audible over the rain. “I felt the heat.”

Previous Chapter 1 – The Spark in the Dark

The words hung in the air, heavy and impossible.

“You… you felt them?” Lena asked, her voice a fragile whisper.

“On my left thigh,” Dante said, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the armrests. “Just a spark. A burning sensation. But it was there. My doctors told me the nerve pathways were entirely dead. They told me I would never feel anything below my waist again.”

Lena looked down at the towels. They were cooling now, the steam dissipating into the dim room.

“Do you want me to call your doctor back?” she asked, taking a hesitant step forward.

“No.” Dante’s answer was sharp, laced with sudden paranoia. “Dr. Sterling is the one who told me the nerves were dead. If he lied, or if he missed this, I don’t want him near me.”

He looked at Lena, his dark, calculating eyes scanning her face, analyzing her reaction. He was a man who survived by trusting no one, sitting at the top of a criminal empire where weakness was a death sentence.

“How much do they pay you downstairs?” Dante asked abruptly.

Lena blinked, thrown off by the question. “Seventeen dollars an hour, sir.”

“I’ll pay you three thousand a week,” Dante stated, his gaze unyielding.

Lena’s jaw dropped. Three thousand a week. It was a fortune. It was enough to pay for her father’s dialysis, his medication, and rent for the entire year in a matter of months.

“I don’t understand,” she stammered. “To do what?”

“To be my personal aide,” Dante said smoothly. “You don’t clean rooms anymore. You don’t take orders from the housekeeping manager. You answer only to me. You stay in the suite next to mine. You become my shadow.”

“Mr. Vale, I’m a maid. I don’t know how to be a personal assistant to… to someone like you.”

“I don’t need an assistant, Lena. I need someone I can trust. Tonight, you dropped a towel and triggered a nerve that highly paid specialists swore was dead. I need to find out why. And I need to do it without the rest of the syndicate knowing my body is changing.”

Lena thought of her father, lying in a cramped hospital bed, looking paler every day. She thought of Vivian’s threat. This was dangerous. This was crossing a line into a dark, violent world she didn’t belong in.

But she had forty-three dollars to her name.

May you like

Lena stood a little taller, smoothing the front of her apron. “When do I start?”

“You already have,” Dante said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “Now, pick up those towels. We’re going to try it again.”

90 “**“STOP WAVING YOUR HANDS! YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

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DER TAG, AN DEM MEINE SCHWIEGERTOCHTER MICH IN MEINEM EIGENEN HAUS ALS GAST BEZEICHNETE

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