Page 123 of Made for Sinners

He was never done with me.

And God help me, I didn’t want him to be.

31

EMILIA

The morning light spilled through the penthouse windows in soft, golden streaks, casting long shadows across the hardwood floors. I sat at the kitchen island, a steaming mug of coffee cradled between my hands, still wearing one of Dante’s black button-downs from the night before. It hung off my shoulders, the sleeves rolled up to my elbows, the hem brushing the tops of my thighs.

He stood across from me, leaning against the counter, shirtless, his dark slacks hanging low on his hips, his hair still damp from the shower. He looked like a painting—something carved out of marble and sin. And yet, there was a tension in his shoulders, a heaviness in the line of his jaw that told me the weight of last night hadn’t left him.

I took a sip of coffee, letting the silence stretch between us. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Not anymore. It was the kind of silence that came after a storm—thick with the knowledge that something had shifted, but neither of us was quite ready to name it.

Finally, he spoke.

“Valentina confirmed it,” he said, his voice low and rough from sleep—or from everything else. “Rocco’s been working with the Russians.”

I set my mug down slowly. “You’re sure?”

He nodded, pushing off the counter and walking toward me. “She traced the money. It passed through a series of shell companies tied to Romanov’s network. Rocco’s name never appears, but the fingerprints are there. The timing. The amounts. The accounts. It’s him.”

I swallowed hard, my fingers curling around the edge of the marble.

“And Valentina?” I asked. “She’s sure?”

Dante’s jaw ticked. “She’s sure. But she’s also too close to this.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He exhaled, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Her ex-boyfriend is Nikolai Romanov.”

My brows lifted. “As in… Aleksander’s brother?”

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” I said, blinking. “That’s… complicated.”

His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You could say that.”

I watched him carefully, trying to read the tension in his body, the way his eyes darkened when he said her name.

“You think she’s compromised?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly. “But I think she’s emotional. And that makes her unpredictable. She was in love with him,” his voice quieter now. “With Nikolai. They were forbidden from being together. Different families. Different alliances. It was never going to work.”

“But you were engaged once upon a time,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

He met my eyes. “I don’t marry women who love other men.”

I blinked. “So you knew?”

He nodded. “Eventually. She never said it, but I knew. And that's why I ended it.”

I looked away, my gaze falling to the countertop. “But you still trust her?”

“I trust her to get the job done,” he said. “But I don’t trust the Russians. And I don’t trust anyone who’s ever loved one of them.”

I looked back at him then, and something in his expression shifted. The tension in his jaw eased. The hardness in his eyes softened.

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