Page 67 of The Sentinel

“I always wondered how much Byron told his sons,” she mused, tilting her head. “How much he let you boys see before he was gone.”

Marcus didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

Hart leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the desk. “You think you have power, don’t you? That Dominion Hall and your father’s name still mean something?” She gave a slow, deliberate shake of her head. “You don’t know half of what he was involved in.”

A muscle ticked in Marcus’s jaw.

“Careful,” he said, his voice low, quiet. Too quiet.

Hart’s smirk deepened.

“Or what?” she murmured. “You’ll lose that infamous Dane control? Make a mess right here, in my office, on government property?” She tsked, shaking her head. “Come now, Marcus. You were raised better than that.”

I felt Marcus shift beside me, a fraction of movement that sent every nerve in my body screaming.

He was incredibly close to losing it.

Hart must have seen it, too, because she went for the kill.

“Do you even know why your father died?” she asked, voice soft. Dangerous.

The room froze.

Hart smiled, slow and knowing.

“There are a lot of things you and your brothers don’t know.” She tilted her head. “A lot of truths buried with Byron Dane.”

Something in Marcus fractured.

I saw it in the tension coiling through his body, in the way his fingers twitched like he was one second away from reaching for her.

That was when I realized—this was the point. She wanted him to snap. She was pushing, testing, waiting to see if she could make Marcus Dane lose control in a way she could use against him. And he was right on the edge.

I moved fast.

Before he could react, before he could say something we couldn’t take back, I stepped even closer, my palm pressing lightly against his wrist.

It was instinct. A pull I couldn’t fight.

Not long ago, I would have let him burn. Would have welcomed it—his rage, his ruin—if only to watch him fall. I had hated him. The way he towered over me, pushing, threatening, making it clear that I didn’t belong in his world. That if I got too close, I’d get burned.

And I had.

But Marcus Dane wasn’t just fire. He was everything beneath it.

I had seen the tender side of him—the one no one else got to see. I had felt his hands on me, not just possessive, but reverent, as if he didn’t quite know how to hold something he didn’t want to break. I had learned the way he touched me in the dark, the way his body covered mine, claiming me, owning me, showing me in ways he could never say that I was his.

And worse—I had given myself to him.

Not just my body.

But something deeper.

And that was why I couldn’t let him lose himself now.

Not for her. Not for Evelyn Hart and whatever the hell she thought she knew about his father.

So I curled my fingers around his wrist, my touch gentle but firm, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I whispered, “Marcus.”

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