Page 34 of Made for Sinners

I chuckled, shaking my head as I set the phone down on the table.She was impossible. Infuriating. And, damn it, she was good at getting under my skin. No one else would dare to push me like this—to test the boundaries of what I’d allow. But Emilia? She didn’t just push; she barreled through them, leaving chaos in her wake. And I liked it more than I wanted to admit.

“Something funny?” Valentina’s voice sliced through the room like a blade, sharp and cold.

I looked up, meeting her gaze with a smirk. She was watching me intently, her dark eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Nothing you’d understand,” I said, my tone light but deliberately dismissive.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she turned back to Rafe, diving into another explanation about her plan to deal with the Russians.

I tuned her out again, my attention drifting back to the phone in my hand. She was playing games, that much was clear. But what Emilia didn’t realize was that I was playing, too—and I never lost.

I picked up the phone, sending one last message before slipping it back into my pocket.

Me:Careful, princess. Keep this up, and you’ll run out of places to store all your mugs.

Her reply was instant, as if she’d been waiting for the next volley.

Emilia:Don’t worry. I’ll make room. Maybe I’ll start by tossing out that ugly vase in your office.

I barked out a laugh, the sound echoing through the room and earning an exasperated sigh from Valentina.

“Focus, Dante,” Rafe said, his tone sharp and unforgiving, though I caught the faintest glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“Right,” I muttered, slipping the phone back into my pocket.

But my focus was shot. Even as Valentina continued her cold, calculated monologue about herconnectionsandstrategies,my thoughts were elsewhere.

She thought she could outmaneuver me. That she could push the limits without consequences.

She thought she’d walked away on her terms. But Emilia didn’t realize that every step she took only brought her deeper into my world. My control. And soon enough, she’d understand what that really meant.

11

EMILIA

The contract sat between us, thick and smug, like it knew it had won.

I tapped the pen against the table, staring at the signature line as if I could will it into disappearing. Dante, of course, was the picture of patience—leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, watching me with that infuriating smirk that made me want to stab him with the pen instead of using it for its intended purpose.

"What's the hesitation, princess?" he drawled, his voice smooth and taunting. "Cold feet?"

I shot him a glare, gripping the pen tighter. "Oh, I don’t know, Dante. Maybe it’s the part where I’m legally binding myself to a man who thinks ‘foreplay’ is financial extortion."

He chuckled, the sound low and infuriatingly amused. "You wound me."

I rolled my eyes, flipping through the pages one last time. I’d gone through every clause, every ridiculous demand, and despite my best efforts, he hadn’t let me change a damn thing. The spicy clauses? Still there. The financial control? Still there. The whole‘you belong to me’ subtext? Oh, that was practically written in bold.

But at the end of the day, I had no choice.

With a resigned sigh, I scrawled my signature across the bottom of the page, the ink bleeding into the paper like a death sentence.

Dante reached for the contract the second I set the pen down, flipping through it with practiced ease before nodding in satisfaction. "Good. Now we’re getting married."

I blinked. "What?"

He stood, smoothing out his sleeves like we’d just wrapped up a business deal instead of, you know, my life. "You heard me."

I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. "You mean… eventually, right? Like, we’ll set a date, send out invitations, argue over flower arrangements?—"

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