Eros drawled, voice lazy and lethal. "Straight to the freshest corpses: shall we? Vincent's networks? Vapor. Dmitri's operation? Six feet under. The man himself? Found dead in his cell. Very mysterious. Very convenient."

His smile sharpened, all teeth and zero mercy. "The CIA was gracious enough to lend a hand. Ava, naturally, was front-row for the whole show. Though—between me and you—I could've snapped that Russian pig's neck myself without breaking a sweat. I'm perfectly capable of ending motherfuckers without government assistance. But why waste calories when the government's eager to help clean up my trash?"

Helena's eyes were twin arctic infernos now, fury boiling behind the ice, lips peeled back in a silent snarl, nostrils flaring like a cornered mare ready to bite or bolt. Her fists stayed clenched, nails carving bloody signatures into her palms.

"If you dragged me here just to gloat—"

"You're here because you're starving," Eros cut in smoothly, rolling right over her like her words were background noise. Because they were. "Ava's triumphs got her promoted. Fast-tracked. Hand-picked to bodyguard the government's shiniest new assets: Quantum Tech breakthroughs, Charlotte Thompson… and me. The walking enigma—Eros Velmior Desiderion—that has every spook who's read my file jerking off to the mystery in the shower. So, fucking curious about me they can't see straight."

He took one more step forward. Close enough now that the air between them turned viscous with his scent—raw musk rolling off in waves that punched straight to her hindbrain and made her thighs clench involuntarily.

"While you," he murmured, voice dropping into that intimate register that felt like fingers sliding under silk, "have been drifting like a used-up ghost. Cold-calling old contacts who let it ring out. Begging for table scraps from anyone desperate or dumb enough to take you. Trying to stitch together something—anything—from the smoking holes Ava left in your life.

"And failing. Over and over. Spectacularly. Because no one wants to bankroll the disgraced eldest daughter who coudln't even protect her own bosses while her own baby sister gutted her bosses like fish."

Silence slammed down, absolute and suffocating.

Helena's chest heaved in tight, furious pulls, tits straining against silk, nipples rigid and piercing-glinted, thighs pressed hard together to hide the slick betrayal biology was pumping into her cunt. Her eyes glistened—rage-tears she'd sooner die than let fall.

"Why am I here?" she asked, voice low and lethal. "Why the hotel, the suite, the days of waiting—just to rub my face in shit I already know? That I lost. That Ava won. That I'm desperate, alone, and completely, utterly fucked?"

Eros's smile spread slow and predatory, the kind that promised he'd been herding her straight to this moment.

"Because you are desperate," he said, simple as stating the weather. "And desperate people make excellent employees when you give them what they need most."

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Which is?"

"Purpose." He turned, strolled to the couch, and dropped into it with the lazy ownership of a king claiming his throne—legs sprawled wide, thick cock outlined shamelessly against his trousers.

"You're good, Helena. Sickeningly good. Corporate sabotage, hostile acquisitions, precision demolition of empires, intel harvesting, blackmail artistry—the full filthy orchestra. You only lost because you hitched your wagon to idiots too arrogant to see me coming. Men who thought cash and bullets could outbid raw dominance."

He lifted his whiskey, took a slow swallow, throat working, Adam's apple sliding like an invitation.

"Someone like you," Helena echoed, voice flat, venomous. "A seventeen-year-old with a god complex and god delusions?"

"Almost eighteen," Eros corrected, grin flashing white and wicked. "And 'delusions' implies it isn't real. Want a demonstration that every inch of power I claim is hard, earned, and very fucking functional?"

He pushed up from the couch again, but this time stepped backward—slow, deliberate—opening space while his scent still lingered like a brand.

"Or you could keep pretending your pride is worth more than the lifeline I'm dangling. Your choice, princess. But we both know which one your body already voted for."

"You know what two thousand stats really means?"

Another lazy step back, voice still casual, almost bored, like he was explaining the weather.

"It means I stopped being limited by normal human—"

He was gone.

Not blurred. Not fast. Gone. One heartbeat he was ten feet away, mid-word, and the next his hand was locked around her throat, fingers iron bands cinched just tight enough to remind her lungs who owned them now.

Towering.

Heat rolling off him in waves, muscles coiled and flexing under the shirt, pheromones slamming into her like a wall of raw sex and ownership that made her knees want to fold before her brain even caught up.

Helena's breath seized. Died. Nothing in her training—none of the black-ops reflexes drilled into her since childhood—had prepared her for a predator that simply erased distance. No wind-up. No tell.

Just sudden, impossible presence and the crushing reality that death had teleported into her personal space and chosen to play.

Eros lifted.

One-handed. Effortless. Her heels scraped carpet then dangled uselessly as he brought her up until her eyes were level with his, until gravity reminded her it no longer applied to her body—only to his whims.

Legs kicked once, instinct, heels scraping air, skirt riding high enough to flash lace tops and garters, thighs clenching hard around the fresh flood.

"—constraints," he finished, voice perfectly even, conversational, as if he weren't currently suspending a grown woman in the air by her throat with casual indifference. His thumb rested over her carotid, feeling it hammer against his skin like a frantic bird trying to escape a cage it had only just noticed.

"That's what two thousand means, Helena. I could have ended you four different ways before you blinked."

He held her there. Three full seconds. Long enough for every survival instinct she owned to shriek. Long enough for her hands to fly up—training overriding shock—and claw at his wrist, nails raking deep, drawing bright red lines that welled crimson. His grip didn't shift. Didn't loosen. Didn't acknowledge the blood at all.

Then he lowered her. Gentle. Controlled. Heels touched carpet with a soft click, skirt sliding back down, though nothing could hide the way her thighs trembled or the wet heat soaking silk between them.

He stepped back. Gave her air.

Helena folded into the nearest chair, one hand flying to her bruised throat, sucking in ragged breaths. Eyes wide, pupils blown, the kind of fear that came from standing in the blast radius of something evolution never meant humans to survive—and realizing it had decided to spare you. For now.

"Still think I'm delusional?"

Her other hand gripped the armrest hard enough to creak, steadying legs that threatened to dump her on the floor.

Throat raw, voice scraped hoarse.

"What's the offer?"

"Work for me." Flat. Simple. Undeniable. "Do exactly what you're brilliant at—corporate espionage, hostile takeovers, surgical demolition of empires, blackmail symphonies—all the filthy art you were born for. Only this time you'll have unlimited funding, layered legal shields, and targets that actually move the world instead of the gutter scraps you've been licking off the floor."

"Work for you." A cracked, bitter laugh clawed its way out of her damaged throat. "The teenager who burned my entire life to the ground wants me on his payroll. And what stops me from bleeding you dry the second your back's turned? Taking everything and vanishing? Or feeding every secret straight to the people who'll pay top dollar to watch you bleed?"

"Because I'm not nearly stupid enough to trust you." The warmth evaporated from his tone in an instant, voice going sub-zero, lethal.

Eyes flaring with cold fire. "You'll be watched. Tracked. Every keystroke, every call, every encrypted whisper, every time you so much as think about scratching an itch I'll already know the color of your underwear when you do it."

He leaned in just enough for the threat to land like a blade between ribs.

"And if you ever betray me," quieter now, each syllable dripping slow, deliberate poison, "I won't just ruin your reputation. I'll hand Ava a gift-wrapped dossier so complete she'll be able to arrest you in your sleep. You'll disappear into a black site so deep the sun's a myth, and you'll spend whatever years you have left explaining—slowly, repeatedly—why you thought crossing Eros Velmior Desiderion was survivable."

The words hung there, thick and choking, wrapped in musk and dominance that made her pulse stutter all over again.

"But if you actually serve," he continued, voice sliding back into velvet menace, "you get to wield your talents on a scale you've never touched. You get real purpose instead of this pathetic limbo. You get paid enough to drown in. And—if you prove you're more than just another treacherous bitch with a pedigree—maybe I pull strings with the Agency.

"Tell them you're mine now, useful, reformed. Tell them to call off the hunt. Give you a shot at having a sister again instead of a noose with Ava's name on it."

Her eyes snapped to his. Sharp. Calculating. Pride and desperation at war behind the ice-blue, lips parted, breath shallow, thighs pressed tight against the ache his scent kept stoking.

"What are the terms?"

Victory tasted like aged whiskey and the exact moment a queen realized checkmate had been on the board for moves she never saw.

Eros smiled—slow, satisfied, absolute.

"Let me lay out exactly how you're going to spend the rest of your life making me untouchably, obscenely rich…"

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