𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 has known only one thing for a decade-destroy everyone who betrayed her. Everyone has mistaken her silence for a weakness.
Their downfall is inevitable. With each step, ruin draws nearer.
For as long as The Underworl...
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Before I could fall into the trap of Dante's eyes, I slightly shook my thoughts away and focused on the task at hand.
From where I stood, I saw a girl walk toward the back, where a bar with a variety of alcohol was located, and I followed her.
I stopped beside her as she poured glasses of what appeared to be whiskey; the label confirmed it.
The moment I walked into the room, I could tell the girls were forced to either serve the disgusting excuses for men present, dance for them, or obey their every command. My disgust deepened when I noticed how young the women looked—barely nineteen or in their early twenties.
I reached over, took the bourbon bottle in front of me, poured two fingers into the glass, and made my way to the booth. It was dark, but I could make out the shapes and faces—something others haven't been trained to do.
Even through the smoke and darkness in this space, I could spot exactly where Dante was. I could feel him, even though that shouldn't be possible.
I could barely hear the music around me, too distracted by the tempting, magnetic pull that drew my attention to every detail of him—the way his eyes roamed over my body as I came back into his line of sight, the curve of his infuriating smirk, the way the smoke swirled around him, enhancing him and only him. When I was pushed into this room, I told myself that even though the plan had changed without warning, I would complete this job without difficulty. But here, in the dim light of this space, everything about him seems to pull me in, like an invisible thread tugging deep inside my chest.
How is this... possible?
My eyes dropped lower and lower until I was looking at his lips, which held a cigarette between them. And if I thought the butterflies in my stomach couldn't flutter any more, I was proved wrong as they doubled, trickling down to my core as he inhaled the smoke, held it, and breathed it out.
Everything logical in my brain screams that I shouldn't want him—that this feeling is reckless and bound to make me vulnerable. Yet, whenever I try to talk myself out of it, an instinctive pull takes over, as if my body and heart have a language of their own, drawing me in like an invisible thread tugging at my chest.
I swallow, forcing my eyes to the wall behind him, away from his intensity, hoping to escape it for a moment.
Since when could I feel something like this? Feel this way toward... him?
As if nothing had happened, I made my way closer to the table, swaying my hips with each step, drawing attention to myself as I exuded all the confidence and sexual allure I could muster in this barely-there red lingerie—a piece that accentuated my curves.
His eyes never left me, not when I placed the drink in front of him on the table, and not even when I threw my leg over his thighs to straddle him. His hands found my hips, pulling me closer, removing the few inches between us.
