While Dante was carving his name into the city with a bloody scalpel, Anna was descending into a different kind of madness in the penthouse.
The luxury was stifling. Every meal was a five-course masterpiece. Every garment was silk or cashmere. But she had no one to talk to. The guards were stone statues. The only "person" she interacted with was the blue light of the cameras.
She found herself talking to the air, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.
"Did you kill them all yet?" she asked the kitchen camera as she poured a glass of wine. "Are you sitting on your throne of bones, Dante? Do you feel powerful?"
She hated him. She told herself that every morning. But at night, when the city lights flickered and the wind howled against the glass, she found herself curled up on the rug in the living room, right where she knew the camera's blind spot *wasn't*.
She wanted him to see her. She wanted him to see how she was breaking.
She began to wear the clothes he sent—the dark purples, the emerald greens. She did it to spite him, to show him she didn't care about his "branding," but in truth, she did it because the fabric felt like his hands.
She was developing a fever for the man who had destroyed her life. A toxic, aching need to see the monster who had claimed her.
One night, she reached her breaking point. She walked up to the camera in the bedroom, her eyes red from crying, her silk robe hanging loosely off one shoulder.
"Come and get me," she whispered, her breath fogging the lens. "Or kill me. But stop watching me like a ghost. I can't breathe in here, Dante. I'm drowning."
She slumped to the floor, her face buried in her hands. She didn't hear the elevator hum to life. She didn't hear the biometric lock slide open with a soft *hiss*.
She only felt the sudden, overwhelming shift in the air. The scent of rain, gunpowder, and cedar.
"I told you," a husky, gravelly voice whispered from the doorway. "I don't lose things, Anna."
She looked up. Dante was standing there, his suit jacket gone, his white shirt stained with the soot and blood of a city he had just conquered. He looked terrifying. He looked exhausted.
And he looked at her with a hunger that made her pulse falter.
"The city is mine," he said, walking toward her, his heavy boots silent on the plush carpet. "The Syndicate is ash. There is no one left to stop me."
He stopped in front of her, reaching down to haul her up. His grip was rough, possessive, the strength of a man who had just dismantled an empire. He pinned her against the wall, his body a wall of heat and muscle.
"Did you miss me, little rat?" he goaded, his face dropping to hers. "Did you miss the monster?"
Anna didn't answer with words. She grabbed his collar, pulling him down, her mouth seeking his with a desperation that was part-hatred, part-addiction.
Dante let out a low, guttural growl, his hands sliding into her hair, claiming her. The King had come for his Queen, and the city below would have to wait.