Page 114 of Desperate Crimes
A quiet daughter.
Someone who followed the rules, colored inside the lines.
Until now.
Until him.
Because for the first time in my life, I’m not just playing the part of who I’m supposed to be.
I’m becoming.
Unraveling the old skin. Stepping into something new. Something truer.
Because Nico—God help me—he sees me.
He sees the chaos beneath my calm.
The hunger behind my good manners. The ache I buried under years of performing perfection.
And instead of flinching?
He welcomes it.
He encourages me to rise. To stretch into the full, wild woman I was always meant to be.
He doesn’t tame me.
He dares me.
Dares me to burn brighter. Speak louder. Want more. Take it.
Since day one, he’s been feeding a part of me I didn’t know was starving.
He doesn’t just claim me.
He witnesses me.
Nourishes me with every dark, relentless word and every impossibly tender act that follows.
And I think that’s what’s making me fall harder.
Deeper.
Dangerously in love with him.
Dad stands right in front of us, and I swear, I think he’s growling.
But Nico? He doesn’t flinch beneath the weight of Adrik Volkov’s fury.
His spine is straight steel. His jaw a carved promise.
I don’t know how he does it—how he stands there, untouched, unmoved, like this isn’t my father trying to burn him alive with a glare.
“Sure, Mr. Volkov, we can go to your office,” Nico says calmly, like they’re two men discussing the weather, not the fact that he just married the man’s youngest daughter in secret.
His voice is so smooth, it almost makes me dizzy.
And then—another voice enters the fray.
