The Mafia Boss Joked That His Translator Was Still a Virgin and Her Answer Wiped the Smile from His Face

The penthouse on the sixty-fifth floor of the Legacy Tower was not a home; it was a fortress suspended above the clouds. The blizzard raged against the floor-to-ceiling glass, turning the lights of Chicago into a distant, milky blur.

Adrian’s private physician, an elderly Italian named Dr. Rossi who asked no questions and signed no paperwork, had bandaged Elena’s hands, given her an antiseptic injection, and departed under Lev’s watchful escort.

Elena sat on the oversized velvet sofa in the center of the vast living room. She wore one of Adrian’s oversized cashmere sweaters—black, smelling of his cologne—and a pair of soft lounge pants his staff had produced from a guest suite. A mug of hot chamomile tea sat untouched on the marble coffee table.

Adrian stood at the wet bar, pouring two fingers of Scotch into a crystal glass. He had stripped off his blood-stained jacket and tie; the sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled to his forearms, revealing the dark ink of a serpentine tattoo that wound from his wrist up beneath his cuff—the mark of the syndicate’s founding bloodline.

“Rossi said you’ll have minor bruising on your ribs,” Adrian said, turning around with the glass in hand. “The impact from diving under the booth.”

Elena didn't look at him. She stared at the flames dancing in the modern ethanol fireplace. “You set Daniel up.”

Adrian stopped. “Excuse me?”

She finally turned her head, her eyes flashing with cold, linguistic precision. “The Petrovs didn't track me to that restaurant by accident. You leaked the reservation. You let them think I was unprotected so they would attempt the snatch.”

Adrian took a slow sip of his Scotch. He didn't blink. He didn't deny it.

“You used Daniel as bait,” she said, her voice dropping to a furious whisper. “You used *me* as bait.”

“I used an inevitable attack to my advantage,” Adrian corrected smoothly, walking toward the sofa with measured, predatory steps. “Anton Petrov has been hunting for my communication nexus for six months. He was going to hit you eventually, Elena. If not tonight at Le Bouchon, then tomorrow in the lobby of your apartment building. Or next week while you were buying groceries.”

He stopped right in front of her, looking down with an expression of ruthless pragmatism.

“By controlling the location, I controlled the outcome,” he continued. “I had Lev and Mikhail in position. I had the back kitchen secured. I eliminated six of Petrov’s best operators in under ninety seconds without a single casualty on our side.”

“Daniel could have been killed!” she shouted, standing up, the oversized sweater swallowing her frame. “He was an innocent civilian!”

“He was an idiot who thought he could possess something that belongs to me!” Adrian roared, his control finally fracturing. He slammed the crystal glass onto the marble table with enough force to shatter the base, Scotch splashing over the polished stone.

Elena took a step back, startled by the sudden eruption of his fury.

Adrian advanced, closing the distance between them until her back hit the armrest of the sofa. His chest rose and fell with ragged, violent breaths.

“He looked at you,” Adrian growled, his hands coming up to frame her face, his fingers tangling into her dark hair, holding her in place with a terrifying, desperate tenderness. “He sat across from you, touched your wrist, and thought he could take you away from this. From *me.* Do you have any idea what it took for me to let him live tonight, Elena? Do you have any idea how close I came to putting a bullet through his head just for holding your hand?”

“You are insane,” she whispered, tears of exhaustion and fury pricking her eyes. “You don't own me, Adrian.”

“Don't I?” he demanded, his thumbs wiping the moisture from beneath her lower eyelashes. “Who pulled you out of that embassy in Bogota when the cartels breached the gates four years ago? Who paid off your father’s debts so he wouldn't end up in an unmarked grave in Bucharest? Who has stood behind you every day, listening to you breathe, keeping every predator in North America from touching a hair on your head?”

Elena’s lips trembled. “That was business. I worked for you. I paid off that debt with my labor!”

“The debt was paid in the first three months!” Adrian shouted against her lips. “The rest of it was me keeping you by my side because the thought of waking up in this city without your voice in my ear makes me want to burn every bridge and building until there’s nothing left!”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Elena stared into the depths of his eyes. The ruthless crime boss, the cold calculator of lives and money, was gone. Standing before her was a man completely undone by his own obsession, bleeding emotionally from wounds he had kept hidden beneath ten-thousand-dollar suits for nearly half a decade.

“Adrian...” she breathed.

“Say you hate me,” he whispered, his forehead pressing against hers, his hands trembling slightly in her hair. “Tell me you want to go to Denver with the clerk. Tell me to let you walk out that door, and I swear to you, Elena... I swear on my mother’s soul, I will let you go. And I will never look for you again.”

Elena looked at his mouth—the cruel, beautiful mouth that had ordered executions and spoken words of terrifying salvation.

She thought of the safe, quiet life Daniel offered. The hydrangeas. The white picket fence. The suffocating, endless boredom of a world that didn't understand the darkness she had witnessed.

She didn't want safety.

She had never wanted safety.

She wanted the fire.