“Who the F*ck Did This to You?”

The fluorescent light in the supply closet flickers. Emma Clare Winters presses a trembling hand against the tear in her champagne-colored gown. Three months of savings gone on one stupid dress. The strap dangles loose; a dark stain blooms across the silk. Her reflection in the metal cabinet looks like someone else—lip split, cheek swelling, eyes wide with humiliation.

She whispers to no one, “Just a minute. I just need a minute.”

She can’t go back to the Hawthorne gala like this. The Hawthornes don’t hire victims—they hire perfection. And Emma has fought too hard to climb from the Southie slums to this glittering estate. Four years coordinating events for Boston’s most powerful family; one promotion away from senior director; one step closer to paying her sister’s hospital bills.

She dabs at her lip with a paper towel. The blood smears crimson.

Then the door opens.

Dante Hawthorne fills the frame like a shadow made of steel and velvet. The eldest son. The whispered rumor. The reason people use words like alleged, investigation, and no comment. Six-foot-three of control dressed in a tuxedo worth more than her car.

“Mr. Hawthorne—” she starts, mortified.

“Who?” he interrupts softly.

It isn’t a question that expects a polite answer. One syllable, calm as snowfall, but something inside it makes her spine snap straight.

“It’s nothing,” she stammers. “I slipped in the parking garage. I’m fine.”

“Emma.” His voice drops an octave. The way he says her name—low, deliberate—makes her heartbeat stumble. He steps inside and closes the door with a quiet click that sounds like a verdict. “I’m going to ask once more. Who the f*ck did this to you?”

She’s never heard him curse before. Never seen his mask slip. But now his jaw tightens, and his hands curl into fists.

“I can’t,” she whispers. “Please. I need this job. My sister—”

He moves closer, slow, precise. When his fingers tilt her chin toward the light, his touch is impossibly gentle. “That bruise is a fist. The split lip—a ring. The grip marks on your arm? Someone’s hand.” His gaze travels lower, sharp as an x-ray. “And you’re breathing shallow. Cracked rib, maybe two. Don’t insult me by lying.”

Her voice breaks. “How do you—”

“I know violence when I see it.” His thumb ghosts across her jaw. “And I know when someone tries to take what isn’t theirs.”

The words unravel her. Hours of composure collapse. Tears sting, and the truth spills out. “Tyler Delano. And three of his friends. He wanted me to leave with him. I said no.”

For three heartbeats Dante is perfectly still. Then his eyes change—turn to winter. He takes out his phone.

“Marco,” he says quietly. “West-wing supply closet. Bring the first-aid kit. The good one. Now.”

He hangs up, sets the phone down like a gun. “Tyler Delano,” he repeats, as if memorizing the name for a list no one wants to be on.

“Mr. Hawthorne—he’s Marcus Delano’s nephew. They have political ties. If you—”

“It’s already a thing.” His tone is almost tender. “The moment that bastard touched you, it became my thing.”

He shrugs off his tuxedo jacket and settles it around her shoulders. The lining is still warm, smelling of cedar and expensive sin. “Sit. Let Marco check your ribs. Then I’ll take you home.”

“Dante…” she begins.

“When I’m about to commit a felony for someone, they can use my first name.”

The door opens again. Marco, silver-haired and unreadable, kneels beside her with a leather bag. “Two cracked ribs,” he says after a moment. “Bruising consistent with restraint.”

“She needs justice,” Dante says.

Emma trembles. “Please. Don’t make this worse. Tyler said if I told anyone, he’d destroy me—call me a liar, ruin my name—”

Dante crouches until they’re eye level. The Mafia heir makes himself small for her. “Emma,” he says, voice roughened with something unfamiliar. “Do you know how many events you’ve run for my family?”

“Forty-three,” she whispers.

“Forty-three. And in all that time, you’ve smiled through rudeness, humiliation, invisibility. You worked three times harder because you thought you had to earn respect.” His jaw hardens. “But do you know what I noticed most? You never looked at me with fear.”

She says softly, “You’re just… a man.”

“No,” Dante murmurs. “But you made me want to be.” He takes her hand. “Now someone tried to make you afraid. I can’t undo it, but I can make sure they never touch you—or anyone—again.”

“How?”

“Do you trust me?”

“I don’t know,” she admits.

“Probably wise,” he says. “But I’m asking anyway.”

She looks at him—the storm in his eyes, the careful control. “Yes. I trust you.”

His expression shifts. Relief, dark and dangerous. “Go home. Marco will drive. Your sister’s bills are handled.”

“What? You can’t—”

“I can. I did.” He brushes her knuckles. “When you come back to work, Tyler Delano won’t be a problem.”

She doesn’t sleep that night. At 2 a.m., the hospital calls: her sister’s entire balance—six figures—paid in full by an anonymous donor. Future treatments covered. Emma sinks onto the couch still wearing Dante’s jacket and whispers, “What did you do?”

At dawn, the news breaks.

EIGHT MEN MISSING IN OVERNIGHT SWEEP — AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING.

Tyler Delano. Three friends. Four others with them that night. Gone. Vanished between midnight and three. No leads. No ransom.

Her hands shake. She should call the police. Instead, she stares at the screen wrapped in Dante’s jacket and feels… safe.

The phone rings. Unknown number.

“Emma.” His voice—steady, polite, like discussing wine orders. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Good.” A pause. “You don’t need to worry anymore. The people who hurt you won’t be a problem.”

She should ask what happened. Instead, she asks, “Did they suffer?”

Silence. Then, softly: “Would it matter if they did?”

“Yes. I want to know they were afraid.”

“They were.” His tone darkens. “They spent their last hours understanding exactly what they’d done—and why men like that don’t get to walk away.”

Heat floods her chest. Satisfaction, not horror. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he says quietly. “I didn’t do it for gratitude. I did it because the thought of you bleeding made me want to burn this city down.”

“Dante…”

“Rest. When you’re ready, come back to work.” A pause. “Are you afraid of me now?”

She remembers his hands on her face, gentle as mercy. “No.”

“You should be.” But he sounds almost pleased. “Sleep.”

---

Three days later, she returns to the Hawthorne estate. Marco meets her at the door. “Mr. Hawthorne wants to see you.”

Dante’s office smells of leather and power. He stands by the window, tailored perfection, watching the gardens where she’s arranged a hundred parties.

“Close the door.”

She obeys.

“How are your ribs?” he asks without turning.

“Healing.”

“Good.” He faces her then, eyes like silver fire. “Tyler and his friends have been declared missing. Marcus Delano is pulling every string he has. Some people,” Dante says, voice almost kind, “just disappear.”

“Where are they?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. I need to know if I should feel guilty for being glad.”

He crosses to her, close enough that her pulse stumbles. “They’re alive—barely. In places where people pay to keep others forgotten. They’ll spend every day remembering you.” He cups her jaw. “Does that make you feel guilty?”

She leans into his palm. “No. It makes me feel safe.”

Something ignites in his eyes. “Dangerous answer.”

“Why?”

“Because now I know what you taste like when you’re not afraid.” His thumb traces her healed lip. “And that’s going to be a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The kind where I can’t let you go.”

He says it simply, like stating a business fact. “The kind where I’d make men vanish without losing sleep if it means you look at me like that.”

She whispers, “How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m not a monster.” His forehead rests against hers. “Like I’m something worth trusting.”

“You are,” she breathes.

“No,” he says. “But you make me want to be.”

He warns her what he is—half the city’s underworld in tailored suits, violence behind a handshake. “I’m not a good man, Emma.”

“You were good to me.”

“Because you matter.”

“Then I can live with that.”

He closes his eyes as if the words hurt. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

“I do.”

She touches his chest, feels his heartbeat hammering. “You’re the first person who made them pay. The first who decided I was worth protecting.”

He kisses her—four years of restraint detonating into fire. She answers with everything she has left.

When they break apart, he murmurs against her lips, “Mine.”

“Yours,” she answers.

“Every dark part of me,” he promises, “is yours too.”

---

Three months later, the ring on her finger catches hospital light. An emerald haloed in diamonds—Dante’s proposal six weeks ago, fierce and unrepentant.

Her sister Sarah grins from the bed. “The doctors say full remission! Whoever paid for those treatments—an angel.”

Emma smiles. “I know him.”

“Is he a good man?”

“He’s my man. That’s enough.”

---

The wedding is small, private, breathtaking. Roses bloom along the Hawthorne garden aisle she’s decorated for others a hundred times. Now it’s hers. Dante waits at the altar, dark suit, darker eyes.

When she reaches him, he whispers, “Last chance to run.”

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” she replies. “With a killer who made me feel safe.”

He exhales, some tension easing. “Then let’s make it official.”

The ceremony is quick, the kiss long. For a moment the world narrows to the sound of applause—and then stops when Marcus Delano storms in with bodyguards.

“We need to talk,” he snarls.

“No,” Dante says. “We don’t.”

“My nephew—”

“Is gone.” Dante’s tone is pure ice. “And before you finish that threat, remember: this is my wedding. This—” he laces his fingers through Emma’s “—is my wife. You ruin this moment, and you’ll join him.”

Marcus pales. The guards shift; suddenly Marco and six men appear like ghosts, guns discreet but visible.

Marcus blusters, “You can’t—”

“I did,” Dante replies. “Leave. Before I forget civility.”

Marcus studies them—the calm bride, the lethal groom—and retreats.

Dante turns back to Emma, apologetic. “Not the wedding you imagined.”

“No.” She smiles up at him. “Better. Now everyone knows I’m yours.”

He laughs, low and dangerous. “And you’re mine.”

They dance under the setting sun. The air smells of roses and smoke.

“What are you thinking?” he murmurs against her hair.

“That I’d do it again,” she says.

“Do what?”

“Say no to Tyler Delano. Because it led me here.”

“Don’t say things like that,” he warns, smiling anyway. “It makes me want to find Marcus and finish the job.”

She laughs softly. “You’re going to be the death of me, Dante Hawthorne.”

“Probably,” he says, kissing her. “But what a way to go.”

He laughs then—really laughs—and she realizes this is what safety feels like. Not the absence of danger, but the presence of someone willing to face it for you.

Someone who’ll burn the world to keep you safe.

Someone who will look at your broken face and ask, “Who the fck did this to you?”*—and mean it.

Someone who will make eight men disappear by morning and sleep soundly beside you afterward.

And as they dance beneath the twilight sky, Emma Clare Hawthorne, once invisible, now untouchable, knows she is exactly where she belongs—

—in the arms of the monster who chose to be gentle.