Chapter 155: The Devil Is Jealous Again
Rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling glass of Dante Sullivan’s private corner office, reflecting the dull, gray sprawl of the city below.
Dante stood motionless behind his mahogany desk, swirling amber scotch in a crystal tumbler.
Across the room, his chief corporate counsel, Patrick Hayes, sat rigid on the leather sofa, a tablet clutched in trembling hands, his face completely drained of color.
"Say it again," Dante said, his voice deceptively calm, a low, gravelly hum carrying an underlying current of lethal violence.
"The Department of Justice just issued an unsealed indictment against Thornton," Patrick stammered, wiping a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead. "He was taken into federal custody twenty minutes ago directly from the Sterling boardroom. But that’s not the worst part, Dante."
Dante didn’t turn around. He simply took a slow, measured sip. "Speak, Patrick."
"The auditor... Clara Reed. She didn’t just flag the twelve-million-dollar wire to Thornton. She bypassed the standard forensic firewalls entirely and pulled the unredacted incorporation files for Apex Trust out of the Panamanian registry," Patrick said, his voice cracking under the strain.
"Apex Trust isn’t insulated anymore. Your legal name is stamped on the beneficial ownership ledger. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already flagged your entire domestic holding portfolio."
Dante’s fingers tightened on the heavy crystal glass until his knuckles turned stark white.
For a decade, Dante had played the high-stakes game of keeping his two worlds hermetically sealed... the brutal, shadow-run syndicate underground, and the gleaming, untouchable corporate titan who attended charity galas and advised city planners.
That corporate veneer was his absolute shield... the armor that kept regulatory bodies and the Department of Justice from ever touching him.
Now, because of a disowned aristocrat and a forensic auditor working out of Damian Sterling’s shadow, that armor had cracked right down the middle.
"How long do we have before they arrive?" Dante asked, his tone dropping into an icy, dangerous quiet.
"The federal marshals and compliance agents are already en route to our headquarters to serve subpoenas for our offshore records," Patrick whispered, swallowing hard. "They’re going to demand an explanation for why a shell entity under your name was funneling millions to hijack a rival board."
Dante slowly set his glass down on the desk with a quiet, deliberate click.
He didn’t panic. He walked over to the desk monitor, where the high-resolution frame of Anastasia Sterling was still frozen on the screen... her hazel eyes fierce, standing beside Damian as they retook their corporate throne.
A slow, chilling smirk twisted across Dante’s scarred face, his yellowed eyes burning with raw, predatory malice.
"Let the feds bring their paper warrants," Dante murmured, his voice dropping into a sharp rasp. "Damian Sterling thinks a few regulatory agents will keep me in a corporate cage. He thinks he won."
Dante reached out, his thumb pressing against the power button, plunging the glowing screen into darkness.
"Burn every server tied to Apex Trust, liquidate the secondary accounts, and tell Vivian her time has come," Dante commanded quietly. "If Sterling wants to play in the dirt, we stop hiding behind the law entirely."
_________________________
The pale morning light filtered through the sheer curtains of the master suite, casting long, cool shadows across the bed.
Damian shifted, a sharp twinge in his recovering ribs pulling him from sleep. His obsidian eyes opened slowly, immediately scanning the empty side of the mattress before drifting toward the en-suite bathroom.
The door clicked open. Steam rolled out in a warm, fragrant cloud, and with it stepped Anastasia.
A single white plush towel was wrapped snugly around her body, tucked securely above her chest, leaving her damp collarbones, smooth shoulders, and slender legs bare.
Drops of water caught the morning light in her dark, damp hair. She was humming a quiet, absentminded tune, her face glowing with an easy, relaxed radiance that had been absent for weeks of safe houses and emergency rooms.
Damian lay motionless, propped slightly against the dark headboard. His gaze darkened, tracking every drop of moisture sliding down the curve of her throat. The curiosity in his eyes held a heavy, dangerous edge.
"You’re in a remarkably good mood this morning," Damian noted, his voice a low, gravelly morning rasp that broke the quiet of the room.
Ana paused, looking over at him. A faint smile touched her lips, completely unbothered by his intense scrutiny. "It’s a bright morning, the board is handled, and I finally get to go back to my desk today."
Damian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t move an inch, yet the air in the room grew noticeably colder.
"Back to your desk," he repeated slowly, tasting the words like poison. "Or back to the marketing floor? Back to your favorite coworker, Marcus?"
Ana let out a quiet sigh, rolling her eyes as she walked toward the vanity to grab a comb. "Damian, please. Don’t start this before eight in the morning."
"I asked a question, Anastasia."
"And it’s ridiculous," Ana said, turning around to lean against the marble counter, crossing her arms over the front of the towel.
She knew exactly the fire she was walking into. Marcus had made his interest clear months ago, hovering around her with a subtle, protective attentiveness that Damian had instantly sniffed out. But Ana had shut it down firmly; Marcus knew his place, and he kept to his boundaries.
"You are being completely, unreasonably jealous. Marcus is a colleague. I work with him, that is all."
"He looked at what’s mine," Damian murmured, the words flat and absolute. "The only boundary that boy truly understands is that if he crosses the line, I’ll have him scrubbing decks on a cargo freighter in the North Sea."
"You’re impossible," Ana muttered, but she set the comb down and walked over to the side of the bed.
She sat down gently on the edge of the mattress, leaning over him. Her small, cool fingers carefully peeled back the edge of the fresh gauze taped across his side, inspecting the neat line of dark surgical stitches. The redness was fading; the tissue was knitting together cleanly.
"Two more days," Ana murmured, smoothing the edge of the dressing back down with a gentle, lingering touch. She looked up through her lashes, a playful edge softening her expression. "Two more days and the doctor takes these out, and then you’ll be right back to your arrogant, insufferable self full-time."
Damian didn’t wait for her to pull away.
Before she could sit upright, his large hand shot out, wrapping firmly around the nape of her neck. With one deliberate, uncompromising motion, he hauled her forward, ignoring the dull ache in his ribs as he dragged her across the sheets until she was pinned against his broad chest.
The heat radiating from his bare skin was searing against the damp cotton of her towel. His other arm locked around her waist, trapping her completely in his orbit. His thumb tilted her chin upward, forcing her hazel eyes to lock directly with the storm brewing in his obsidian ones.
"You think this is arrogance, doll?" Damian rasped, his voice dropping to a dark, possessive whisper that brushed her lips. "This is ownership. Every inch of skin you dried off this morning belongs to me. Don’t test me with other men."
Ana stared into the dark depths of his eyes, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs, caught between the suffocating weight of his control and the intoxicating gravity he held over her.
"I really don’t understand you, Damian," Ana whispered softly, her breath trembling against his jaw. "You’re so confusing."
Damian didn’t offer an explanation. He didn’t utter a single word.
𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Instead, his hand in her hair tightened, pulling her down that final fraction of an inch, and he crashed his mouth against hers in a fierce, bruising claim.
The kiss was punishing and deep, leaving no room for negotiation or distance.
Damian’s hand anchored in her damp hair, angling her face precisely where he wanted it as his mouth claimed hers with a raw, relentless hunger. There was no hesitation, only the intoxicating weight of his absolute demand.
Ana let out a muffled gasp into his mouth, her hands instinctively coming up to brace against his broad, bare shoulders, feeling the rigid tension coiled in his muscles and the fierce, steady thud of his heart against her chest.
When he finally pulled back, neither of them moved.
Their foreheads rested together, the silence of the bedroom broken only by the sound of their ragged, shallow breathing.
The air between them was thick, charged with a heat that made Ana’s pulse thrum violently in her ears.
"You’re insatiable... Damian." Her lips were swollen, flushed pink from the friction of his, and her hazel eyes looked up into his with a hazy, breathless daze.
Damian stared down at her, his obsidian gaze dark, possessive, and entirely unyielding. His thumb brushed over her flushed lower lip, tracing the soft curve before pressing firmly down against her chin to hold her gaze captive.
"Don’t get any funny ideas," Damian murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rasp vibrating against her mouth, "when my eyes won’t be on you in the office."