Page 44 of Broken Vows

He pulls away and hauls me up and spins me around, bending me over the closest surface—his bar counter cold and solid beneath my palms.

"Hold on," he grits out.

His hands grip my hips, positioning me just right. The pause before he pushes in is brief—but it feels like the last breath before a plunge. Then he’s inside me, and it’s brutal, perfect—everything I’ve been needing.

He moves with rhythm and force, each thrust stripping away more of our façades. There’s nothing polished or practiced here—just raw hunger, months of repressed tension now unleashed.

"Is this what you needed?" he murmurs between gritted teeth. "I want to hear you say it"

"I need this."

His grip tightens. My name falls from his mouth like a prayer—or a curse. Every stroke leaves me teetering on the edge, and when his hand slides around to find the spot that shatters me, I come undone beneath him. He follows soon after, roaring myname into the hollow of my neck before stilling, muscles tense around me.

We collapse together, breathless.

He thinks he owns me now. Maybe he does.

Later, when we’re tangled on his bed, sheets kicked to the floor and my skin still flushed with heat. Vincent brushes his fingers along the curve of my stomach again—this time with familiarity and calm ownership.

There’s softness in him now. A comfort between us..

“She’s going to change everything,” he murmurs.

I turn my face toward him, eyes heavy with sleep and something warmer. “So are we.”

He leans in and kisses me again—this time not bruising, not possessive—just real.

And for tonight, that’s enough.

14

Vincent

I wake to the sound of papers rustling and the soft scratch of pen against paper.

Sunlight filters through the bulletproof glass of my penthouse, casting everything in that gray-gold hue that makes the city look almost peaceful.

Almost.

Melinda sits at my dining table wearing one of my dress shirts, sleeves rolled up, hair twisted into a messy knot. The engagement ring catches the light as she moves, my mother's diamond looking right at home on her finger.

Spread across the mahogany surface are architectural blueprints, security schematics, and what looks like a detailed tactical analysis written in her precise medical handwriting.

"You're up early," I say, padding to the kitchen in nothing but boxers. The coffee maker is already brewing—she's been awake for a while.

"Couldn't sleep." She doesn't look up from her work. "Your security plans for the new house are shit."

I pour two cups of coffee, adding cream to hers the way I remember from that morning after the warehouse. "Enlighten me."

She finally meets my eyes, and there's something aggressive in her expression that makes my pulse quicken. "You've got blind spots here, here, and here." Her pen taps three locations on the blueprint. "Single points of failure in your perimeter defense. Anyone with basic tactical knowledge could exploit them."

I set her coffee down and lean over her shoulder, studying the marks she's made. Her analysis is thorough, professional, devastating in its accuracy. "How the fuck do you know this?"

"I'm not just a pretty face with a medical degree, Vincent." Her voice carries an edge I haven't heard before. "Someone had to handle security planning for Mastroni properties. Max was too busy breaking kneecaps, Maya was too impulsive, and my father..." She shrugs. "He believed his eldest daughter should understand every aspect of family business."

She says it calm, sharp. Not a trace of fear. Yeah—that’s the part of her I want more of."Show me," I say.

She spreads out additional papers, revealing detailed floor plans, escape routes, sight lines for snipers. "Your main entrance funnels attackers into a kill zone, but you've got no secondary extraction if the primary route is compromised. These windows"—she circles several locations—"provide perfect vantage points for long-range elimination, but no counter-sniper positions."

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