Blood & Devotion

She knew desperation had a taste. Metallic, bitter-like the blood pooling on cracked concrete, like the whiskey her father now drank in silence, drowning in debts no honest man could repay.
Sienna Moretti wasn't an honest woman. She had learned that early, watching the way her father built his empire, brick by brick, favor by favor. She had worshiped him once, the way a daughter should-but devotion meant sacrifice, and she would give whatever was left of herself to save him.
Even if it meant stepping into the lion's den.
The club smelled of perfume, sweat, and expensive cologne that couldn't mask the violence in the air. She walked past men who could kill with a flick of their wrist, past women who had learned survival was an art. And then she found him.
Dante Ricci.
The man she had sworn to hate, the man her father would have rather bled dry than asked for help.
And yet here she was.
As his dark gaze met hers, slow amusement curling at the edges of his lips, she knew she had already lost.