WHISPERS OF RUIN

He looked at me like he wanted to ruin me. And God, I wanted to let him.

New York wasn't safe after midnight.
Everyone knew that.
Especially girls like me-naïve, broke, twenty, still thinking danger only wore a ski mask.

But that night, danger wore a suit.
Black. Immaculate. Dripping power.
And he smiled like he'd already decided what I'd sound like when I begged.

I was supposed to be walking home from a study session. I took a wrong turn. A shortcut.
My heels clicked against the pavement, too fast. Too loud.
I felt him before I saw him.

And then-he stepped from the shadows. Six-foot-something of pure male threat, calm as sin.

"You're lost, little girl."
His voice was velvet over a blade. Smooth, slow, cutting deep.
I froze, heart slamming against my ribs, breath caught halfway between fight and surrender.

He moved closer.
Didn't ask my name. Didn't need to. He knew everything. He was the kind of man who owned the street, the building, the cops who never showed up on time.

I tried to speak.
"You should move. I'm-"

"Shaking," he interrupted, eyes dragging over me like he could see through the fabric, like he could feel my panic. "And wet."
His gaze flicked to the rain-soaked hem of my skirt, then back up to my mouth.
"I like that."

I should've screamed.
But when he touched my chin-barely a graze-my body betrayed me. Heat. Liquid. Shame.
Because deep down, part of me wanted to be bad.
To see what it felt like to break.

His thumb traced my bottom lip.
"Run," he whispered.

I didn't.

A goddamn devil named Lucien Vale-New York's most brutal underground king. Thirty years old. Billionaire by daylight. Cold-blooded mafia CEO by night.

I was twenty.

College senior.

Nobody.

But to him?

I was prey. A plaything. A challenge.

And maybe... just maybe, something more.

He claimed me.

And I've been burning ever since.