MY DESTRUCTION

THE MADRID INCIDENT

Three years ago, Madrid was sweltering under a heatwave. Elena wasn't "Lena" then. She was the Lioness of the Littoral, dressed in a backless, midnight-blue silk gown that concealed a ceramic blade strapped to her thigh and a transmitter in her earring.

Her father, the great Mafia Lord, had sent her to the Palacio de Cibeles to secure a digital ledger—the Varela Codes—before they could be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

She moved through the crowd of diplomats and arms dealers with the grace of a panther.

But across the ballroom, leaning against a marble pillar with a glass of vintage scotch, stood the man who already owned half the room without saying a word.

Dante Moretti was already the richest man on the planet, a titan of industry whose shadow loomed over every legitimate and illegitimate market. He wasn't supposed to be there. He was too powerful for an auction like this. When their eyes met, the music seemed to warp.

Elena felt a chill that had nothing to do with the palace’s air conditioning. He didn't look at her like a woman; he looked at her like a puzzle he had already solved.

The meeting truly began in the bowels of the palace, three floors below the music. Elena had just neutralized two guards—silent, efficient, lethal—and was reaching for the encrypted drive when the lights flickered.

"It’s biometric, Elena. You’ll trip the silent alarm before you hit the third sequence."

His voice came from the darkness, rich and calm. Dante stepped into the light of the vault, looking entirely too relaxed for a man standing in a high-security restricted zone.

"Moretti," she spat, her hand hovering near her thigh. "You’re out of your jurisdiction."

"The world is my jurisdiction," he countered. He walked toward her, ignoring the fact that she had pulled her blade.

He stopped when the tip of the cold steel was pressed directly against the knot of his silk tie. He didn't flinch. In fact, he stepped into the blade, forcing her to hold her ground or retreat.

"Your father is a relic," Dante whispered, his face inches from hers. The scent of sandalwood and expensive tobacco filled her lungs for the first time.

"He’s sending a masterpiece to do a scavenger’s job. Join me, and you won't have to steal scraps from vaults. You’ll own the vaults."

Elena’s response was a blur of motion. She spun, aiming a kick at his ribs that would have shattered a lesser man’s chest.

Dante moved with a terrifying, predatory speed, catching her ankle and pinning her against the cold steel of the vault door.

For a heartbeat, they were chest-to-chest, breathing the same ionized air. The hatred was there, yes—he was her father’s greatest rival—but there was something else. A recognition. They were both monsters wearing human skin.

"I’d rather burn in hell than sit at your table," she hissed.

"Then we shall burn together," he replied, his grip tightening just enough to be a caress before he let her go.

Before she could strike again, the heavy doors groaned. The Spanish authorities were coming. In the chaos of the flashing red emergency lights, Dante did something she never expected: he handed her his own localized jammer.

"Run, Ghost," he told her, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "I want to see how far you get before I decide to catch you."

She had escaped into the Madrid fog that night, the ledger in hand, but the memory of his touch stayed branded on her skin.

Weeks later, her father was dead, her world was ash, and she was fleeing to California. She thought she had outrun the man who claimed the world as his jurisdiction.

She was wrong. Dante Moretti doesn't just catch what he hunts; he waits for the hunt to realize it was always headed toward him.