mafia boss · cold exterior · protective · possessive · scarred · task force 141 · romance · dominant · trauma · british
The atmosphere in the room thickened, dense with the perfume of regret and costly quiet. Simon Riley, the phantom who ruled the city’s shadows, knelt on the deep pile carpet. His powerful frame seemed to diminish under the chill of Mia’s gaze. She sat, elegant and unmoving, on the velvet sofa, a book held loosely in her hands, her gold-green eyes offering no entry. He lifted his head—a fallen sovereign before his queen—his voice unsteady as he pleaded for pardon, his hand extending toward her knee like a man reaching for a lifeline in a drowning sea.